The Gosling Trail: a place-taster guide to the unexpected
Article on Gosling’s Travels from the TV Times 1975 - 30 minute films made with Granada, subjects covered: Goole, Bath, Liverpool lunchtime, Aldershot, Trafford Park, Caravan Park between Rhyl and Abergele, Oil rig at Nigg, Cambridge, Ebbw Vale, Cruise ship and Whittingham Mental Hospital
So I’ve been on my travels again (writes Ray Gosling, of his new series starting Monday); and if you wonder is there any logic in where I go – there isn’t. Unlike almost all other telly documentaries, I go as I please. The places are randomly chosen in this series as they were in the last.
Apart from a visit by the Queen, the only time a place gets any national mention is when something dreadful happens, like a Glasgow fire, or the Cambridge rapist. Some lock out, strike or redundancy. A dazzling phenomenon like the Liverpool Sound. An awful disaster. An Aberfan. Some doom impending like a motorway over the meadow. The peril of pesticide to Norfolk broads.
I exaggerate – but not a lot. The old adage still runs, that the only news they print is the bad news.
And most documentaries are background to the news.
This past 12 months I’ve really noticed the difference between what I’ve read in the daily Press and what I’ve seen with my own eyes as I travel.
The headlines have been of a country torn by strife. But in place after place I’ve been to, I’ve seen people working and living in the main happily and prosperously. Our day by day life continues, surprisingly, very much as it always has.
They still sing in Ebbw Vale. Each male voice choir fiercely competing: tight as a rugby scrum.
On the Liverpool Corn Exchange they still say “my word is my bond” and that’s that. Dockers in Goole fly pigeons while the ladies of Bath – I was with them on Referendum Day – all went off to vote “Yes” to the Common Market, but the garden party conversation animated about the Rector, and their lap dogs yapped. We talked of how sorry it was to behead your buttercups and daisies with a lawnmower.
There was only one ‘No’ poster I saw in the town: in the house of an expert on Druids. Preparing an anti-Metrication fair he was – and on his garden we found a tortoise behind the privet hedge.
And throughout the golden green city of the West the burning issue was what to do now the National Health Service say they’ll turn off the tap of their funds from the hot and spooky mineral water springs. How can the baths at Bath keep afloat?
Bath has not escaped the savage attacks and sacking by economic forces, bureaucracy, property developers, planners – and fashion. But life goes on.
I am amazed at how much of the traditional character of our towns we retain. And that’s what these little films are about. The small talk of the country. The detail.
I chose Liverpool because I’ve been visiting there for a decade now. For music, the docks, wit, art, football, politics and strife. The things you read in the papers all the time. I’d never bothered to have a proper look at the heart of what still is a considerable mercantile city: the central square mile - a bustling fully-fledged business quarter.
Of course, the stock exchange is not what is was. It has moved to a faceless new building, but the business is still about. And the commodity markets beneath the Liver birds are doing very nicely thank you. Insurance clerks still wear dark suits with a tie. Gentlemen play snooker in the gentlemen’s clubs. Bars have no lavatory for the ladies, and the bowler hat has not disappeared. It’s The Cavern where The Beatles began that has closed its lunchtime session: while not 100 paces away barbers are doing brisk business in dutiful short back and sides. Where the month has an ‘R’ in it, like April, there are oysters to eat in luncheon rooms where you won’t hear a Scouse accent in the place, yet they’re proud Liverpudlians.
I’m not a newshound.
I don’t swoop on a place, grab the story and get away quick. I’ve lived in whatever place we’re doing, before we shoot a foot of film.
By which time I know the place and its range of personalities better than most of the natives. It’s a difficult choice what to film.
We were in Ebbw Vale, filming, during the week of the October General Election. Doesn’t that already seem a long time ago. In the film a singing choir member hit the wrong accent and the conductor boomed ‘It’s Harold Wilson I want, not Ted Heath.’
We filmed Michael Foot – and the three other candidates who lost their deposits. But there was another Michael – a horse we filmed much more of. A beautiful horse, winner of Horse of the Year at Wembley. Owned so proudly by a miner who works down the pit on permanent nights so he can help run a sheep farm by day with his wife, on rough land they rent from the Coal Board above a pit tip.
Some time after filming, I saw on the news sociologists from the Hudson Institute report on the decline of Britain. One of these boffins stood above Ebbw Vale and looked into the camera to say: ‘When it comes to the quality of life – that unstatistical factor the British are so proud of – there can be no quality of life in Ebbw Vale.”
Well I know there are terrible problems now British Steel have shut down half their Ebbw plant, and so many men have banked their redundancy cheques. But the quality of those singing choirs, the passion for rugby, the joy little children have with pet ponies on the valley-sides – no matter what the statistics prove – I have seen another Ebbw Vale. I’m not painting it as paradise, but there’s no doubt in my mind that life can be as rich in Ebbw Vale as it can be in Bath. And if I had to choose, I think I’d go for Ebbw Vale.
But then maybe the Hudson Institute men don’t ride horse. Nor did I until I met the other Michael.
Another thing: I don’t think facts always tell the truth. And I’m not a promotion man for God, Queen and the Ruling Class in Britain Beautiful – but we do search for the good in a place. And try to film what people naturally do. Try to avoid dwelling on obvious eccentrics, though that’s difficult. We are such an individual fruit and nutcase lot. I’m not hawking any pet philosophy or seeking hidden meanings. The films are simply place-tasters.
I don’t know what you’re going to make of Goole. People live nearby refer to it as Sleepy Hollow, because nothing ever happens in Goole. That’s why I went. It’s one of the most forgotten places of England. Britain’s most inland port, 50 miles from the sea. Just as Bath doesn’t make enough of its spa water, Goole doesn’t make enough of its dirty canal water. Still it is the 11th port of the land. Behind the parish church, you can see hanging from the jib of a crane, Britain’s balance of payments. Steel: in and out. Russian timber imported. We got turfed-off a Russian boat, camera and all – nicely, but firmly. And Goole exports: coals for every purpose.
The great local row was in the pigeon club. Should the birds be flown, next season, from north to south? Opinion divided. I like Goole, I do hope I’ve done it justice.
There was a nice man we wanted to film there; Albert Gunn, dental mechanic, pigeon racer and performer in the amateur Kiss Me Kate at the Grammar School – but Albert was ill, so we couldn’t.
That’s the problem I find filming as against writing. With pictures we have to prove it. Our folks have got to perform in front of the camera.
When I came to take my winter cruise it was me who was took badly – ill – with bronchitis. I’d picked it up in Wales going back to tell the Cwm Rugby Club that we’d had to cut them from the final version of the film. It’s a sad decision when you’ve got too much, too good, and it has to be got into half an hour.
The cruise was to be my treat: after a month in a mental hospital. The chance of a lifetime and it turned into a nightmare on the Mediterranean Sea. I was so ill and I couldn’t hide it.
And there was so much fun to be had on the boat. It was fun all the time. Such good value for money we wondered how they could do it so cheaply. And I did see romantic places – Pompeii, Dubrovnik and Corfu in February were as hot as Bath in June.
The mental hospital at Whittingham. That was something else. It’ll go out last, a day later, on the Tuesday, at a later time and it’s a bit longer. The idea was simple enough. To visit an asylum. These things are there, but always we see them as problems – the patients. They’re human beings too. They can’t be agitated or depressed all the time can they?
I do hope you enjoy the series as much as I enjoyed making it. I made a lot of friends travelling.
That’s the difference between plays and documentaries. In our little films we have real people.
And everywhere I went, most people were happy to have us film. Just a few were not. See if you can guess when you see the films.
So I’ve been on my travels again (writes Ray Gosling, of his new series starting Monday); and if you wonder is there any logic in where I go – there isn’t. Unlike almost all other telly documentaries, I go as I please. The places are randomly chosen in this series as they were in the last.
Apart from a visit by the Queen, the only time a place gets any national mention is when something dreadful happens, like a Glasgow fire, or the Cambridge rapist. Some lock out, strike or redundancy. A dazzling phenomenon like the Liverpool Sound. An awful disaster. An Aberfan. Some doom impending like a motorway over the meadow. The peril of pesticide to Norfolk broads.
I exaggerate – but not a lot. The old adage still runs, that the only news they print is the bad news.
And most documentaries are background to the news.
This past 12 months I’ve really noticed the difference between what I’ve read in the daily Press and what I’ve seen with my own eyes as I travel.
The headlines have been of a country torn by strife. But in place after place I’ve been to, I’ve seen people working and living in the main happily and prosperously. Our day by day life continues, surprisingly, very much as it always has.
They still sing in Ebbw Vale. Each male voice choir fiercely competing: tight as a rugby scrum.
On the Liverpool Corn Exchange they still say “my word is my bond” and that’s that. Dockers in Goole fly pigeons while the ladies of Bath – I was with them on Referendum Day – all went off to vote “Yes” to the Common Market, but the garden party conversation animated about the Rector, and their lap dogs yapped. We talked of how sorry it was to behead your buttercups and daisies with a lawnmower.
There was only one ‘No’ poster I saw in the town: in the house of an expert on Druids. Preparing an anti-Metrication fair he was – and on his garden we found a tortoise behind the privet hedge.
And throughout the golden green city of the West the burning issue was what to do now the National Health Service say they’ll turn off the tap of their funds from the hot and spooky mineral water springs. How can the baths at Bath keep afloat?
Bath has not escaped the savage attacks and sacking by economic forces, bureaucracy, property developers, planners – and fashion. But life goes on.
I am amazed at how much of the traditional character of our towns we retain. And that’s what these little films are about. The small talk of the country. The detail.
I chose Liverpool because I’ve been visiting there for a decade now. For music, the docks, wit, art, football, politics and strife. The things you read in the papers all the time. I’d never bothered to have a proper look at the heart of what still is a considerable mercantile city: the central square mile - a bustling fully-fledged business quarter.
Of course, the stock exchange is not what is was. It has moved to a faceless new building, but the business is still about. And the commodity markets beneath the Liver birds are doing very nicely thank you. Insurance clerks still wear dark suits with a tie. Gentlemen play snooker in the gentlemen’s clubs. Bars have no lavatory for the ladies, and the bowler hat has not disappeared. It’s The Cavern where The Beatles began that has closed its lunchtime session: while not 100 paces away barbers are doing brisk business in dutiful short back and sides. Where the month has an ‘R’ in it, like April, there are oysters to eat in luncheon rooms where you won’t hear a Scouse accent in the place, yet they’re proud Liverpudlians.
I’m not a newshound.
I don’t swoop on a place, grab the story and get away quick. I’ve lived in whatever place we’re doing, before we shoot a foot of film.
By which time I know the place and its range of personalities better than most of the natives. It’s a difficult choice what to film.
We were in Ebbw Vale, filming, during the week of the October General Election. Doesn’t that already seem a long time ago. In the film a singing choir member hit the wrong accent and the conductor boomed ‘It’s Harold Wilson I want, not Ted Heath.’
We filmed Michael Foot – and the three other candidates who lost their deposits. But there was another Michael – a horse we filmed much more of. A beautiful horse, winner of Horse of the Year at Wembley. Owned so proudly by a miner who works down the pit on permanent nights so he can help run a sheep farm by day with his wife, on rough land they rent from the Coal Board above a pit tip.
Some time after filming, I saw on the news sociologists from the Hudson Institute report on the decline of Britain. One of these boffins stood above Ebbw Vale and looked into the camera to say: ‘When it comes to the quality of life – that unstatistical factor the British are so proud of – there can be no quality of life in Ebbw Vale.”
Well I know there are terrible problems now British Steel have shut down half their Ebbw plant, and so many men have banked their redundancy cheques. But the quality of those singing choirs, the passion for rugby, the joy little children have with pet ponies on the valley-sides – no matter what the statistics prove – I have seen another Ebbw Vale. I’m not painting it as paradise, but there’s no doubt in my mind that life can be as rich in Ebbw Vale as it can be in Bath. And if I had to choose, I think I’d go for Ebbw Vale.
But then maybe the Hudson Institute men don’t ride horse. Nor did I until I met the other Michael.
Another thing: I don’t think facts always tell the truth. And I’m not a promotion man for God, Queen and the Ruling Class in Britain Beautiful – but we do search for the good in a place. And try to film what people naturally do. Try to avoid dwelling on obvious eccentrics, though that’s difficult. We are such an individual fruit and nutcase lot. I’m not hawking any pet philosophy or seeking hidden meanings. The films are simply place-tasters.
I don’t know what you’re going to make of Goole. People live nearby refer to it as Sleepy Hollow, because nothing ever happens in Goole. That’s why I went. It’s one of the most forgotten places of England. Britain’s most inland port, 50 miles from the sea. Just as Bath doesn’t make enough of its spa water, Goole doesn’t make enough of its dirty canal water. Still it is the 11th port of the land. Behind the parish church, you can see hanging from the jib of a crane, Britain’s balance of payments. Steel: in and out. Russian timber imported. We got turfed-off a Russian boat, camera and all – nicely, but firmly. And Goole exports: coals for every purpose.
The great local row was in the pigeon club. Should the birds be flown, next season, from north to south? Opinion divided. I like Goole, I do hope I’ve done it justice.
There was a nice man we wanted to film there; Albert Gunn, dental mechanic, pigeon racer and performer in the amateur Kiss Me Kate at the Grammar School – but Albert was ill, so we couldn’t.
That’s the problem I find filming as against writing. With pictures we have to prove it. Our folks have got to perform in front of the camera.
When I came to take my winter cruise it was me who was took badly – ill – with bronchitis. I’d picked it up in Wales going back to tell the Cwm Rugby Club that we’d had to cut them from the final version of the film. It’s a sad decision when you’ve got too much, too good, and it has to be got into half an hour.
The cruise was to be my treat: after a month in a mental hospital. The chance of a lifetime and it turned into a nightmare on the Mediterranean Sea. I was so ill and I couldn’t hide it.
And there was so much fun to be had on the boat. It was fun all the time. Such good value for money we wondered how they could do it so cheaply. And I did see romantic places – Pompeii, Dubrovnik and Corfu in February were as hot as Bath in June.
The mental hospital at Whittingham. That was something else. It’ll go out last, a day later, on the Tuesday, at a later time and it’s a bit longer. The idea was simple enough. To visit an asylum. These things are there, but always we see them as problems – the patients. They’re human beings too. They can’t be agitated or depressed all the time can they?
I do hope you enjoy the series as much as I enjoyed making it. I made a lot of friends travelling.
That’s the difference between plays and documentaries. In our little films we have real people.
And everywhere I went, most people were happy to have us film. Just a few were not. See if you can guess when you see the films.