red mum

This was taken in the front seat of a Belfast black hack, a black taxi that runs a particular route like buses and you share it with other people. You can see them driving up and down the road with prams hanging out the back of the boot, in fact thats something that visitors to the city always find mad, but its completely common place and actually makes sense as mammies don’t have to lift out children, bags and pack up a pram before jumping in. I’ll have to get a shot of that sometime, I actually don’t think I have one.

I can barely post here without laughing. I was sent one of those Facebook funwall videos by Manuel from Well Done Fillet and it is a classic. You have a free-style disco dancing competition from 1981, you have Sheeba, you have Margot (who was appearing in the Abercorn – LOL), some bloke looking very out of place from Trust House Forte as well as an Ulster Disco Dnacing champ. What more ingredients for You Tube magic do you need?

As I watched I laughed more and more at the antics and shape-throwing until contestant number eight came on, 20-year-old Ronan ‘Crazy Legs’ Lawlor, representing the Greenan Lodge Hotel, then I snorted. That is where we cut our own dancing feet as teenagers in the 1980s, thankfully those few years made all the difference. No offence Ronan. I don’t know whether to admire his crazy leg moves or what… I decided on what.

It is bad to admit I was disappointed not to see who got through in the end, it must have been a hard decision for the judging panel.

By the way the name of the post is a little in-joke for anyone who grew up in Belfast and probably more west Belfast in the 1980s; this is especially for you, enjoy and cringe.

I CAN’T believe it has been ten years since the Good Friday Agreement. It took so long so to get that stage let alone how far things have come along since. I would have never imagined that I would Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness sitting side by side sharing a joke. None of this was ever going to be easily-got or quickly attained, but does that matter as long as things are moving forward.

Like many others I grew up in Belfast having known nothing else, the things that we lived through were normal everyday life. I remember an incident in school where a bomb went off in town and our teacher made us say a prayer in case of casualties before bursting into tears about how sad it was for us being born in 1970 and not knowing what it was like to live in Belfast without all this going on. At the time we were embarrassed for her and joked about it later but if I am honest her words have stuck with me to this day.

I should at some stage write down all the things I remember, a pal and I would always say that we would have loved to have kept succinct diaries of those times. Judging by the diaries I remember keeping it would have read like a normal teens and probably wouldn’t really provide a true snapshot with entries such as ‘I really fancy (insert as appropriate) we met walking home from school after the buses were off because of a riot’. Still and all I suppose it still paints a picture.

I do have some pics I took in the run up to the Good Friday Agreement which I should dig out at some stage and put up. One other thing I should point you to is the UTV programme The Troubles I’ve Seen, it is finished now (but some clips are available at the previous link) and was fascinating for me to see places I know from being a child, streets that while still there look different now. It is also interesting to see how reporters like Trevor McDonald and Kate Adie remember covering northern Ireland.

I forgot that Sir Trevor covered the North and it must have been mad for him to see people’s reactions to a black reporter, like the rest of the country there were very few black people living in Belfast. He told a funny story in one of the shows where he recalls talking to a man on the Shankill saying he was in a mixed marriage and the man replied ‘you married a Catholic’ to Trevor’s amusement. “No I married a white woman.” Priceless.

Kate Adie also told a story where during one riot she was lying facedown on the ground as things went off all around her. She ended up falling over a hedge and was lying in a garden with her legs in the air looking up at the sky when a window above her opened. A wee woman stuck her head out the window, looked at her, before asking her did she want a cup of tea.

Anyway regardless of people’s perceptions or misconceptions, I love Belfast and I love the people and I wouldn’t have wanted to grow up anywhere else. Sure hasn’t it shaped who I am. I am thrilled that we are where we are now. So here’s looking forward to what the next 10 years has to bring.

THE house move has uncovered lots of pics from years ago that I forgot I had even taken so expect more older non-digital photography over the next while. The amount of negatives I have isn’t funny and at some stage I will need to get into a darkroom to document them properly. Course I was bold the first time around and didn’t do contact sheets all the time and I regret that now. But sure. Some day they will all be sorted and filed away appropriately.

Now on to the pics. The first two were taken in Belfast (at the same time as this pic) 10 years ago. I love the stance of the guy with the hurly and guy lying on the wall behind him. The last one is Martin Stephenson whom I have loved since I was a teenager and I was fortunate enough to meet him and share a couple of pints and he is as lovely as his music is great. it was taken during one of his gigs in Whelans about 11 years ago, Jaysus where does the time fly to?.

WELL that was a great weekend. Mymsie, a pal on Flickr who is based in LA, was in Ireland and we had arranged a Flickr meet up in Belfast on Saturday.

Having headed up on the train on Friday evening, dog and all, we went in on Saturday afternoon and met with the others at Custom House Square. When we arrived Anna was there with StepBar with Nicky and over time we were joined by Alan in Belfast, digitalEnvironmentalist, Dogtired and Jett.

Just some of the participants, sorry that my camera isn’t wide enough to capture the full row of people

With no real plan in place other than walking about to find interesting things we set off and wandered around all the little back streets until we came to St Anne’s Cathedral to inspect the new spike they have installed instead of a spire.

St Anne’s is a beautiful building with lots to photograph so off we ambled around until we all were drawn to the sectioned off part (eh the altar) underneath the spike/spire. Alan thought the first person who went shimmied under the guard rail was due a prize before promptly slipping under and pointing his camera up at the roof.

I’d say I was about the fifth person to do it and at that stage was feeling very brave and not at all worried about someone coming and shouting at me to get the hellskates out of there.

After the Cathedral we moved across the road where a gang of lads were freerunning, you know where they run around and throw themselves at walls, jumping, somersaulting and generally flinging themselves around the place.

Well they were excellent models and great fun, they ran at the wall when we asked them to. They posed and made for an interesting shoot and judging by the pics the others came up with, we all enjoyed ourselves.

From there we walked up towards the Crumlin Road where we stumbled upon the orange shoe…

As we walked on we could hear the beat from a marching band so the next stop was the Shankill.

At this stage coffee was definitely in order, although in poor Anna’s case, eh not in order and she wasn’t amused particularly seeing as how the rest of us were all served long before her. That aside the break allowed us a chance to chat more and check out some of the pics we had taken so far as well as some silly snapping.

From there we headed back slowly to Custom House Square where the day was wound up with a much-earned pint and more shots (from the chair) of kids playing about in the fountain.

The next day, Sunday, Mymsie and I headed off to shoot the Falls (he) just so she would have a more balanced view of it all and finished up with a pint in Kelly’s Cellars, the oldest bar in Belfast, before heading for the train back to Dublin.

You can see more of mine here and everyone’s pics at this link. Thanks to everyone for making it a great and productive day. Now I can’t wait till the next one.