Another Story - How Not to Offend a Tullyally Farmer

A brutal reality check for Anne this week, as her new radio boss gently explains that she's got the perfect voice for newsprint... 

Anita started, continued and ended her broadcasting career in a totally professional and competent way.  It was a joy to listen to her mellifluous delivery, command of language and distinctive, amusing take on life.  I, on the other hand, crashed disastrously onto the airwaves and Foyle’s listeners must have heaved a collective sigh of relief when Libby came back to assume proper control of her programme.  Those two weeks of holiday cover were the longest of my life.

Poor Maureen Gallagher was tasked with keeping me in line.  My stint on the afternoon magazine slot was my first as a presenter and Maureen’s first as a producer of other than her own material.  However bad I was, everything would have been a lot worse if it hadn’t been for Maureen and her expertise.  Most of the programme was live and, in the midst of chaos, we did have some laughs.  Like the time we covered an agricultural show and a goat attempted to eat my clipboard. Or the interview I managed to do with a sex-change model (man to woman) without once mentioning ‘penis’ or ‘vagina’.  For some reason I reckoned those words would give the vapours to Brandywell housewives and find disfavour with Tullyally farmers.

Some items were pre-recorded and I clearly remember one morning  interviewing a jeweller from Hatton Garden.  We were going to insert the clip in the afternoon by the way the phone-call was live.  I kept making mistakes and referring to morning.  About the third time I did this, I got so frustrated at myself I blurted out, ‘Oh shit!’  Maureen calmly came in with, ‘Cut out the crap, Anne.’  How apt.

The one thing Maureen couldn’t control was my lazy, drawly speech.  In what amounted to a debrief  after Libby’s triumphal return, Ian Kennedy said, ‘Anne, you’re great on the radio -  if it weren’t for your voice.’  Woe was me.  I went from Foyle straight to Anita’s where I exhausted her supply of tissues and wine.  And sympathy no doubt.

So, the end of my broadcasting career?  Not at all.  Ian seemed to like my ideas and interviewing style, so I moved to producing recorded pieces where I could largely edit out my own voice or keep trying out the links until I got a bit of life and speed into them.  God bless Mr. Kennedy.

Some months into contributing to Foyle, Anita and I walked into reception to a wondrous sight.  We’d been allocated our very own pigeon holes!  Proof positive that we had our feet under the table.  Those of you who have only met Anita fleetingly will find it hard to imagine this largely composed and unflappable public figure jumping up and down like a two year old and shrieking with delight.  I, of course, took it all in my stride. ☺☺

There was only one problem.  Most days we’d see everyone else’s pigeon holes bulging with interesting-looking communications, whereas ours only tended to house the lonely – but welcome – payslips or periodic memos.  Enter John Friel, the perfect gentleman who was about to present his new classical music programme, in between headmastering a local school.  John must have heard me bemoaning my lack of mail because a couple of days later I was ecstatic to see a respectable duo of proper letters in my box.  A wee white envelope and a long white one, both posted, one typed, one hand-written.  And both from John.   What a darlin’ man.

Anita never threw anything out.  Her capacious roof-space absorbed clothes, shoes, books, teaching notes, debating speeches, article drafts, theatre programmes – you name it, it went skywards.  She was even capable of getting sentimental over used biros.  I used to rib her mercilessly .  Then I unearthed my huge store of Derry memorabilia.  Pot, kettle…..she’d have the last laugh now.  I’ve even found newspaper clippings about a series I don’t recall doing.  But that’s another story……………………..

Mind Your Aitches

This week Anne reflects on adapting to teaching life at Faughan Valley High School in the early 1980s 

I finally talked my principal down from ‘Equus’ for the school play, even though there could have been a ready supply of horses from many farming parents.  Russell McKay believed in stretching his pupils – and staff – but even elastic has a snapping point.  After many tussles, we compromised by putting on ‘She Stoops to Conquer’.  It soon became clear that even this was proving to be a bit of a challenge, so I ended up rewriting and shortening swathes of it to make it manageable.  Probably offended against every copyright law in existence, but there you have it.  Incarcerate me now.  The important thing was that the pupils involved loved strutting their stuff and Russell was pleased with the school’s first ever production.  And I had no problem rolling back and forth across the road to rehearsals.

If I’d depended on walking to and from work to put much of a dent in my 10,000 steps a day, I’d have been on a hiding to nothing.  Faughan Valley Secondary was a minute away from home as the crow flies, a wee bit more if you had no super powers.  There was only one downside to living so near.  I was scared that, if I had call to bring a troublemaker to heel, I might be in line for the odd stone through the window.  Maybe worse if it were known that I kicked with the wrong foot.  Anne Gray was a pretty neutral name, so that gave nothing away.  Still, I soon learned to add the extra bit onto the Our Father and say aitch instead of haitch, the litmus test for determining footery I think.

Not that this subterfuge would have pleased Russell, a committed educator and a liberal to boot.  He practiced positive discrimination before it became fashionable and was determined to get more Taigs into the staffroom.  In my day and in my sometimes imperfect memory, he only managed three of us – Anne McAuley, Geraldine Garvin and myself.  All women, all in our thirties and none of us would have scared you if you’d bumped into us on a dark night.  Coincidental I’m sure.

My head of department was Stella, a fearsome, super-organised English woman.  She was the only one who had her own seat in the staffroom – an armchair to the left of the wall-mounted electric heater.  God help any new teacher who dared to sit there.  Stella ran a strict ship.  Her classes were always beautifully behaved and their exercise books were a joy to behold.  My room was next door to hers, so I was always on my mettle.  Stella was married to a big shot in Dupont, or so she would have had us believe.  The most interesting thing about her was that she had a brother who was a falconer.

Stella and her husband, Richard, invited Bryan and I to dinner one night and, although everything about the meal was exquisite, my main memory of the evening is of Richard showing us Stella’s household folder.  It was hard not to match his enthusiasm for the laminated sheets detailing kitchen cupboard contents, bed linens for respective rooms, grocery shopping checklists etc., but we managed it. When we had them to our house – much to Bryan’s dismay - I ran myself ragged trying to impress.  I gave them a choice of starter, main course and dessert.  They were perfectly nice, maybe just a wee tad supercilious.  Bryan had only one culinary duty – to provide coffee at the end of the meal.  By that stage, he was so bored and far past himself, he plonked ignorant big mugs, the sugar bag and the milk bottle on the table and left us to it.  It took me years to forgive him.  Now I salute his nerve.

And then there were my debating teams and meeting Anita Robinson.  But that’s another story…

Step We Gaily?

New columnist MAIREAD MORRISON says the current feis-fixing scandal is making a reel of hardworking Derry feis mothers.

It might have all  started with Riverdance.  Once folk realised that you could make a living from the jigs and the reels things got serious.  Politics and lobbyists came into the picture.  Prices of solo costumes, curly - wurly wigs  and leg tan escalated…training camps were set up for Serious Contenders…fellas paid more attention to their step-dancing ways.  

It hadn’t always been this way.  Many years ago Anita Robinson wrote about Feis Mammies (see article below) – that formidable breed of Mothers  who made damned sure their offspring would look better,  kick higher, rock faster, stand straighter and treble louder than any other candidate in any given  competition.  ’Tis a pity the Feis Mammies aren’t in total charge these days as the world of Irish Dancing is reeling (sorry) with reports of corruption in the judging and teaching of this once trouble-free and wholesome sphere.

Rules have evolved about make-up, curliness of hair or wig (females only, why?) about the suitability of costume/kilt/ tights/underwear/height of sock and other arcana known only to insiders.  Irish Dancing is now Big Business.  It hasn’t exactly issued its own cryptocurrency but perhaps this is only a matter of time…Alas, all is not well in the great world of the Scotland Open or the Western Canada Oireachtas.  There is talk of insider-trading, favours being done, threats being issued, competition fixing (God forbid).  We hear of sexual favours being offered to judges – who, (allegedly) are being treated like some kind of deity…there is a cute-hoor attitude at large (allegedly)…some teachers are  (allegedly) too friendly with judges, some parents are (allegedly) too friendly with teachers.  The Irish Dancing world is far from gruntled.  

What is being done?  Nobody will come right out and speak truth to power.  CLRG is aware of the situation and doing its best and trying to deal with what is, in simple terms, cheating on a national scale.  Cheating.   There is fear, righteous anger and frustration.  Arbitration would appear to be necessary but the world of Irish Dancing doesn’t have  a Teamsters Union and anyway, local committees are fraught with personal concerns.  Speak out   and you’ll never eat lunch in this rehearsal hall again, nor will your children or your grandchildren. 

 Who are the losers in all of this carry-on? The once wholesome and hair-spray-fraught world of Irish Dancing, that’s who…and, most importantly , the dancers themselves.  These youngsters work their hard shoes down to the fibreglass and get up at Christ o’clock of a morning to make it to competitions in the other side of the country.  They are too young (and well-trained) to strike, throw a wobbly or refuse to go on stage.  It’s a shame to see adults acting the maggot, fixing competitions, cheating – to call it what it is – and the  real stars, the dancers, are the  victims. 

 It might be possible to set up a counter-revolution but the great god Apathy rules here, and who would take it upon themselves to go agin the world of sock-glue and corruption that exists at the moment.  Does nobody care about these young people – genuine champion dancers – left weeping and heart-broken in the wings because some judge was (allegedly)  small-minded and crooked enough to either take a bribe or a trip to someone’s hotel room and afterwards award the prize to a lesser dancing mortal. 

It’s a pity Don Corleone, or Marlon Brando didn’t have a god-daughter in the Irish Dancing World.  I’m not saying a horse’s head in the judges’ beds would be the way to go, but it might be a start. 

FLASHBACK 

Anita Robinson’s great friend ANNE CLARKE has recovered the Irish News writer’s controversial ‘Feis column’ from April 2012...

There's only one word to describe them - grotesque. With their ungainly flat-footed walk, pumpkin-sized heads and lurid plumage, they're a strange sight, settling like a flock of flightless birds at the Waterfront Hall last week and migrating to Derry's Millennium Forum this. It's Easter week, peak performance season for the native Irish dancer. A curious mutation has overtaken the breed in the past 20 years. Once simply clad in modest knee-length garb devoid of ornament, they're now the Big Fat Gypsy Weddings of dance. Any pretence to Celtic design is long since abandoned in favour of riotous embroidery, appliqué, frogging and lace in shades of eye-watering fluorescence, with skirts so abbreviated the adjudicators' view of competitors must be mostly of big pants. One can appreciate the kaleidoscopic impact of colourful costuming in team dresses but most would justify a caution from the Taste Police.

Ditto, one might stomach the brash vulgarity of the dresses, were it not for the travesty of the wigs. Pretty girls with nice hair are compelled to conceal it under enormous confections of synthetic curls, giving the unfortunate impression they're supporting a gabled roof constructed entirely of cigarette butts, which bob distractingly with every step. Almost as weighty are their false lashes and triple layers of foundation. Mere toddlers are transformed into immature prom queens, coated in fake tan and bedizened with make-up, peering through a mass of false hair so top heavy it's a miracle they don't keel over. Their dwarf 'Liz-Taylor-as-Cleopatra' image is somewhat marred by the melodeon folds of their thick white ankle-socks. Season by season, the fiendish feis frock designers stealthily introduce a ghastly new fashion element and the feis mammies another accessory for their already overladen daughter, till there are some who resemble the gaudily-apparelled religious statues carried round continental streets at carnival time.

The phenomenon of Riverdance fairly shook the Irish dance establishment to its foundations. For a start, it threw out the buckram-stiffened costumes in favour of understated practice clothes, (but still too short); freed up the joints and, oh sacrilege, permitted the use of arms. From a sterile set of geometric moves, Irish team dance exploded into life. There was suddenly something powerfully visceral and celebratory about the concreted beat of steel-shod feet advancing like a tidal wave and audiences responded with an urgent primal enthusiasm. Naturally, traditionalists lament and purists deplore how Riverdance and all its athletic and aerobatic spin-offs corrupted the integrity of Irish terpsichory but at least the dancers performed with some show of emotion on their faces. Did you ever notice that most feis competitors dance wearing an expression of grim determination? And, if nothing else, Riverdance achieved the impossible in making the male Irish dancer macho and saved the nation from the sight of any more milk-white male knees peeking coyly out under mustard kilts.

Traditional versus modernist factions within the dancing fraternity might be better employed focusing their energies upon curbing the sartorial excesses of its practitioners before we become an international laughing-stock. Recent television footage portrayed our premier dancers as a row of garish prizes on a fairground stall, kewpie dolls, arms bonded to their sides, pogo-ing up and down like Masai warriors, their Medusa heads turning viewers to stone.

A propos of nothing, Joe Mahon, presenter of Lesser Spotted Ulster, once tongue-in-cheek suggested the theory that Irish dancing originated in famine times, when starving supplicants competed for food-aid before charity boards by rattling their bones. It certainly explains the rigid upper-body stance and the spasmodic high kick.

All forms of art, including dance, evolve and alter, interpreted anew by succeeding generations. Each era develops its own choreography. Attempting to put strictures on art forms is both useless and counter-productive. Human nature will always subvert them. Ninety years ago the first president of the Irish Free State posited a lyrical vision of "strong youths and comely maidens dancing at the crossroads".

DeValera, thou shouldst be living at this hour. 

(Courtesy Anita Robinson Archive/Irish News)