1980. I am up in the Lighting gantry, up at the top left of the Dunluce School stage, looking down on the actors as they Exeunt left and they Exeunt right. I see Bobby/Billy’s Dad as he enters the stage – but he walks through the “wall” part of the stage set. Someone in the audience shouts, Hey he can walk through walls! Bobby is in a fluster and turns around and walks through the doorway proper….. then he pauses for the stage dramatic moment, before shouting over the buzz of conversation on the stage, with his big lines,
“Mother! Mother! I think she’s dead!!”
For the earlier scenes me and Kenny Robinson have been gently sliding the stage lighting controls, pretty heavy duty mechanical sliders, to fade up or fade down the lights for the scenes through the play. But this is our big moment – that speech is the dramatic cue, and we slam all the lighting knobs on this big lighting panel down to OFF – there is a big clang!! and the whole hall is plunged into darkness. It is the interval.
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
In this blog, the fantasy world of Billy Liar is meshed with the equally bizarre and surreal life of Sheila’s upper Sixth, a year above me at Dunluce School.
Sheila Chambers/Kane takes up the story of the play:
“Billy Liar was performed in my upper 6th year in March 1980 after we persuaded Mr Logue to resurrect the tradition of the school play. Jim Drain played the hero, Karen Hamill was his mum, Bobby Hutchinson his dad, Jacqueline Tomlinson his granny. Arnold Gribben played Billy’s best mate. Billy’s three girlfriends were played by Allyson Montgomery, Patricia Bell, and me (totally cast against type as ‘the tarty one!’ 
)
And Sheila also describes life in Sixth Form:
“Brian Connelly had a wee blue Mini and passed his test before any of the rest of us, and I remember he would let me drive it occasionally (I did have my provisional licence) on runs round the coast road during free periods … can you imagine sixth formers getting away with that nowadays?? 
If we had crashed or caused injury to someone else … doesn’t bear thinking about!
“Thing is – we didn’t sneak out … being very proper and sensible, Head girl, I was assigned to request permission from the vp, Mr McKee, to nip out (I don’t think I could possibly have told him we were going in a car!!) and for some reason he let us!!
Karen Hamill/Maguire:
“Yeah the bit about Bobby that you mentioned , I was on set with him when he did that – hilarious!
“I remember worrying about one of my lines having a ‘bloody’ in it 
. I remember working for ages to get the accent right. Then I couldn’t stop doing it .
“I remember Mr Logue believing in us and sharing home made bread with seeds in made by his partner at our late night rehearsals. And I remember some of my lines to this day.”
“David Knox, a farmer’s son, also had a wee car – a mini clubman van, and I remember a crowd of us getting permission to go out, and about 6 of us piled in the back and went to Portrush to see Karen Hamill’s brother’s wedding at Portrush Presbyterian. We watched the wedding party go in (Karen in a splendid bridesmaid’s outfit), then sat unobtrusively at the back of the church for the ceremony, and then had chips from Rudi’s and headed back to school!
Even as I’m typing this I’m thinking, did that really happen??
“Oh hold that! It wasn’t Karen’s brother’s wedding … it was Barbara Jeffers’ sister’s wedding!! Barbara was the bridesmaid we went to see! Wedding should have been in Ballywillan Presbyterian but they were having major renovations so Portrush was used instead. I do, however remember the date …. 10th September of 1979 
Karen: ‘A told ‘im- straigh! A said , that’s not the way we do things in this ‘ouse!! A said , if you want to go on ‘oliday, you can come t’Morcombe with us, an’ if you don’t, you can stop ‘at ‘ome!!
Sheila: Also …. how can 1981 now be 40 years ago?? I was shocked to hear someone say this on TV the other day!! How can I possibly be 60 in 10 months time?? I’m only 27 in my head!
“When we were in 6th form there were two rooms within the library that we could use as “study” rooms, apart from the designated 6th form room further up the cul de sac of a corridor, behind the state of the art Language Lab. One of these library rooms was supposedly used to enhance our A level English studies, and every so often I was assigned by “the lads” in the class to go to Mr Binnie and request the loan of a record player and a couple of Shakespeare LPs … The Tempest and one of the Richard’s .. the 3rd or 4th ?? … to listen to real actors reading the lines from the plays we were studying.
“Of course, when I got back, it was Led Zeppelin, Def Leppard and Horselips that were played on the turntable, not Shakespeare! … and not my type of easy listening at all!”
David: up the lighting, Kenny Robinson had good electrics knowledge. Cables went to the gantry of lights – pretty high currents, pretty high power. He was concerned about the reel of cable and how each turn of the wire interacts with the next one when tightly wound together – inductance. So he arranged the coil to be wound loosely along the length of the wooden rail of the gantry.
And that was my first exposure to inductance – which is actually what I am working on in Germany now. Like, how your smartphone gets charged when you put it on a wireless charger in Starbucks – how the magnetic fields interact with each other, based on magnetism and magnetic fields.
But here’s poor me, now working in Germany, with my great northern Irish voice…. Last year there was a ‘Girl’s Day,’ an initiative to interest school girls interested in science-y / tech-y things, come for a tour. So there is me, explaining about magnetism. And thing about magnetism, it involves iron – can you imagine how difficult that is for me to say?? Like, “iron” is pronounced the same as “Ireland” – me trying to pronounce this clearly and explain this to teenage german school girls. It was sooooooo difficult.
“The other room was used by the French and German A -Level pupils as a quiet study area for those elite who were in Mr McEwen’s class. Bobby Hutchinson was a talented linguist and very much a model pupil admired by said Mr McEwen … until …. One day Bobby and a few others were carrying on, and every so often the closed door of this study room would open and a jumper, tie, belt, shoe would come flying our making us believe that Bobby was the object of desire in this room. Suddenly Mr McEwen glided silently into the library in his gown, wanting to know what all the commotion was about … He knocked on the door and Bobby’s voice yelled out, “Go away! It’s not your turn yet!” “This is Mr McEwen, Bobby,” was the reply and a shame-faced, disheveled, half-clad, but still decent, Bobby emerged muttering apologies and was distraught that his mentor had caught him taking part in such boorish behaviour.”
And thanks to all the other teachers too: Mrs Adjey, PE teacher, helped with costumes; Mr Tony Browne, teacher for a short time in Art dept, did makeup; Denis McNeill was press secretary; Mr Hobson drove minibus that took us to and from evening rehearsals/shows …. most of the staff helped behind the scenes in some way!
I remember that the play was scheduled to be performed on a Thursday afternoon, aimed mostly for the pupils, and then Friday evening performance for the town and grown-up audience. But the evening performance clashed with another event in Bushmills and spare tickets were released for the pupils to fill the hall. Me mum and dad came to the evening performance, expecting a ‘theatre’ audience, to have the experience of kids in the crowd throwing rubbers around – slightly school dining hall-ish, slightly noisy and a bit chaotic!
Allyson Hutton: I remember I had to smoke in a scene and I was terrified what my Dad would say… his comment was that you enjoyed the cig too much young lady. LOL…. hard to believe its 40 years… it cant be… LOL
Our friend Arnold was one of the key roles in the Billy Liar play, and Allyson describes him as such a true gentle man. Alan McLaughlin remembers that he loved collecting postage stamps and coins, but that when he called him a coin collector he would be corrected with a serious tone, “I’m not a coin collector, I’m a Numismatist.”
After Bushmills Arnold went on to study Law at uni in Dundee. Actually I was visiting my girlfriend’s family there and I tell her about Arnold studying at the uni there. I see a tall blond slim guy walking along. Oh Lesley stop the car that’s Arnold! It wasn’t, and we drove on. The next tall blond person I see, I say to Lesley Oh stop stop its him! I do that a few times more – I am messing about a bit now – I know you are shocked that I might do that, so out of character – I guess it was a moment of weakness.
And then, it really was Arnold walking along!!! I say, Stop oh stop stop it really is him oh stop stop! Let me out of the car !!! Talk about the boy who cried wolf in sheep’s clothing! But we met with Arnold and had coffee at his student room. But I do remember it as not being a happy time – rather as awkward, unhappy, unsettled.
It is sad to report the too-early passing of Arnold, not many years later. And Mr Peter Logue is remembered as a visionary, a really great teacher and inspiration at Dunluce. Sheila remembers in the mid 90s being with a group of NI teachers invited to Cultra to the premiere of a new cultural heritage series for Primary Schools – written, directed and produced by Peter Logue, in his life after Dunluce, and of meeting him briefly there. But Mr Blair (oh I get the shakes at the thought of calling him Kenny, I just can’t) tells me that Mr Logue passed away last year, towards the end of 2020.
“Library days also reminds me of a time when there was a spate of chairs with broken legs appearing, you know, the luxury library chairs with the orange padded seat bit? Well, one of the folks took it upon himself to snoop and see who was breaking these chairs, but that was a bit of a sneak, not a popular way to behave, aligning oneself with the authorities. He was duped into sitting on one of these broken seats, where the leg was propped into place, just at the point where Mr Someone-or-other entered (Mr McEwen?) and caught the sneak seemingly breaking a chair! I think that put an end to the sneak’s detective work – well for a while anyway …. I think he did end up in the real life police.”
So, remembering the Billy Liar production – fantasy, hilarious moments, still roaring with laughter at Sheila’s stories of the her Upper Sixth, and fond memories of old friends and great teachers who inspired us.
Karen: “Well done David and Sheila, that’s a finely caught blast from the past . I really enjoyed being in the play and the camaraderie, humour and sadness of that time still feel real. Must say I’m gutted to hear this recent news that the visionary Mr Logue has passed away!! Am very shocked and sorry to hear that indeed …”
Mr Kenny Blair: “Hi David, really enjoyable piece. I’m amazed at how little we as teachers knew about the goings on outside the classroom.
. ..and you can practice calling me Kenny! I regard it as a compliment that my former pupils use Kenny – I must have done something right when they still speak to me.
Look forward to reading future memories, Kenny.”
“Sheila says, “Mr Blair – you were an amazing teacher! It was you who inspired me to go into teaching … you also had the respect of your pupils and I always thought how wonderful it was that you were able to walk in at the start of a lesson and just teach – not a note in sight! – all those equations and formulae stored in your head and spilled out onto the blackboard when required.
“You, Mr Binnie and Mr Wishart were the basis on which I chose my A Level subjects, as all three of you were superb teachers with an interest in us as individuals and a way of invoking passion in us for Maths, English, Geography.”
“Another time we all piled into Knoxy’s van and had a fun two-periods-worth of chilling in sunny fields somewhere in the middle of nowhere near Ballybogy!! I didn’t want to put this on your posts just in case there might be someone who would find a legal reason to prosecute us or the school as maybe there’s no statute of limitations on such daring stuff!!”
If you’ve enjoyed this, then it has all been worthwhile!
….and you will enjoy,
On the bus to Dunluce School, 1970s – my write up of the school
Her Majesty the Queen – Silver Jubilee visit, 1977 – lots of Dunluce people in this write-up of her visit
The Girona: Robert Stenuit in “The Dive”, 1968 – Sheila features in this one too!
1600s – a Century of Trouble – based on Dunluce castle, its the history of Ireland as we know it
“You must see the Giant’s Causeway” – the giant’s causeway – the keystone of NI tourism
‘Portrush Tales’ by David Martin – Index of topics – there’s about 90 topics – music scene, schools, the giant’s causeway, history…… , to find any of interest
Portrush Tales 