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Midge Ure in full flow at the stones
On a cold winter’s night in Stornoway, I waited outside the Caberfeidh Hotel, wondering what to do. I was working for the Stornoway Gazette, the ‘Only Newspaper Printed in the Outer Hebrides‘ according to its masthead, and I was the Island’s soul dedicated newspaper photographer. What’s more I was onto a scoop. I’d had a tip-off from the Manager of the hotel, that a, ‘big band from the south’ was staying with them.
Recording the Video for 'One Small Day
He’d told me the band’s name as if it really should mean something to me. Oh ‘Ultravox‘ I said knowledgeably when he called with his hot scoop, wow. I think I’d heard of them, just, but I around that time I was a little in the musical wilderness. Anyway, I went into the bar to scope the place out and got into conversation with a cool looking leather jacketed Glaswegian. A few pints later, I confided my mission to him and asked if he knew the band?
It was a freezing cold day in the Outer Hebrides
I suppose I’d been expecting someone fairly outlandish and aloof to be the leader of this big band from ‘the south’ but when my new drinking buddy told me he thought I might be looking for him, I was chuffed. This was Midge Ure. I was even even more delighted when Midge asked us on the band’s video shoot the following day.
These pictures were taken at Callanish Stones the day after my meeting with the band. I can’t remember the date exactly but it was mid winter ’84 and bitterly cold. The band recorded the video for ‘One Small Day’ which was a single released from the album ‘Lament’.
The stones are called Tursachan Chalanais in their Gaelic name and are an ancient Megalithic site built around 3000 years BC. They lie on the west coast of the island of Lewis.
Perseverance can be fatal
There’s a lot of talk about perseverance these days. How it maketh the man and what a supreme virtue it is. Like our beleaguered Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, I come from a Presbyterian background where perseverance is everything. Parents stay together and work at their misery. The phrase try, try and try again is employed when any failure may occur, no matter how ludicrous the challenge or futile the effort. Admitting defeat is anathema. The only acceptable excuse for failure is death through blind devotion and overwork.
There was a time in my life where I ticked just about all the boxes of Calvinist indoctrination (except the actual religion); a time when I came dangerously close to paying the ultimate price of blind perseverance. I knew I should have admitted defeat but years of diligent programming told me it was unthinkable, fate would decide my future.
In the end an escape committee of friends, intuition and luck came together and sprang me from the dour and endless maze of work and guilt. People who know me in the post-perseverance age still think of me as a workaholic. But I’m recovering and a million times happier to have stared Presbyterianism in its awful dead eyes and won.
Knowing when to fight and when to retire gracefully is the hardest but best lesson that life has ever taught me.
Since I’ve spent the day writing about TV shows and doing scripts for Locked Up Abroad, I thought I should update the blog on where I got to on the ‘Adventures of Mark and Olly – Living with the Mek’. This is a show I did for Discovery Channel and Travel Channel a couple of years ago. I’ve documented the journey we took to find the Mek tribe in the mountains of West Papua so far in the blog and this is the next instalment.
Day three and we’d made precious little headway in the appallingly hot, steep and sticky conditions. We were averaging about a mile a day but despite this and the fact that we were heading deeper into Mek territory, with threats of attacks from warriors and witches, we seemed to be pretty happy in this picture. The left to right is myself, the series producer; Olly Steeds the explorer; Associate Producer, Toby Paton and Olly’s fellow explorer, Mark Anstice.
First encounter with the Mek
After a hard days march we came to our first Mek village. It was called Tohamak and after the appropriate show of strength the villagers let us in.
Olly shakes hands and offers tobacco
Things seemed to be going well until the village chief asked Olly and Mark for $800 to kill a pig for a welcome feast.
Tohamak Mek Elders
We politely declined and spent an awkward night camped in the village before moving on early the following day deeper into the jungle.
The village chief
Tiree in Scourie
I struggled through an hour of exercise early this morning. I’d been feeling rough before I started but normally I’d feel better after the endorphins kicked in. Not today. By the time I came to leave the house to slither through the cold grey London slush, I was sweating and apparently a strange colour. I’ve always been completely useless at listening to my body but in this case I couldn’t ignore it. My legs buckled, head swooned and I broke into a cold sweat. I got two steps out the house and turned back. The rest of the day was then spent slipping in and out of lemsip haze to fidget on my blackberry and attempt to deal with the seemingly office unavoidable. There was so much happening at work that needed an immediate answer that it was impossible to escape it, but I was reminded of the saying my Dad often uses, ‘The graveyard is full of people who were indispensible’. Anyway the calls have stopped and the fever has broken so to celebrate I thought I’d put up two pictures of my carefree grandkids I took this summer. They have yet to feel the guilt of a day off work.
Drew in Cadiz
Beware of the phsycolists
I love to cycle. I call it urban surfing. Each day I cycle into work, which isn’t far. But I also pedal back and forward from my office in Raw Television to the edit suites at Envy. It’s about twenty minutes of hardcore urban cycling through the centre of London and it’s joyous weaving. We are making another 13 part series of ‘Banged Up Abroad’ or ‘Locked Up Abroad’ as it’s called in the US. It’s a great series to produce. My crews get to work all over the world but I get to go urban surfing each day in London. I took this picture on my phone in the Lee Valley where the London Olympics are going to be held in 2012.
Singing Wells
The Samburu people live in the northern territories of Kenya. There is very little water, and the tribespeople have suffered for many years from drought, disease and attacks from Shifta bandits. Here a Samburu warrior digs in the dried river bed for water for his goats. The Samburu sing while they dig, hence the reason this area is called the singing wells.
I took this picture three years ago when I was on a recce for a series I made for the BBC called ‘Mission Africa‘, presented by Nick Knowles and Ken Hames. We took 15 young apprentices from the UK to this luga (a dried river bed) in the Sera Wildlife Conservancy. Over six weeks, they helped build lodges for wildlife tourists, new water wells and started re-stocking the area with animals such as giraffe. We had partners such as Lewa Conservancy, Tusk Trust, Born Free, Scottish Water to name but a few. You can watch a clip on You Tube.
I like making shows where the legacy isn’t just the television programmes, but real lasting value. In this case, we set out with the aim of leaving the Samburu people a sustainable source of income. And from what I hear, that’s what has happened.
I suppose the highlight of making the series was being knocked out by a five-tonne bull elephant that had just been darted. Not many people can claim that honour.
Here is a video I took at the same time of the tribesmen digging for water.
Shiant Shepherds
Crofting is a a method of small-hold farming. Its a precarious living so its likely that a crofter will have another source of income besides what can be earned from their croft.
Sheep lie at the heart of the crofting economy. European Union Agricultural reform, food hygiene regulations and changing diet are damaging sheep farming. Consequently there is less money coming into these already fragile communities.
Marion Campbell
She then wove it into a rich tweed on a rickety wooden loom. Her cloth was so popular around the world that she could never statisfy demand.
Kishorn
Many of the oil yards in now lie empty. There is talk of new birth now, as the oil companies start to drill deeper still, exploiting the oil fields to the north and west of the Hebrides.
Although many in the islands would welcome the oil dollar again, there is a growing awareness that the energy potential in the Hebrides might not lie in its fossil fuel reserves, but in the renewable energy from wind and water.
Guga
