What we saw at the seaside…
A walk along Ballyholme Bay in Bangor with marine life campaigner Aileen McClenaghan…talking treasure, litter picking and how she believes even doing little things can help our big seas.
The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever. The sea, the great unifier, is man’s only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat.
Jacques Yves Cousteau
If you are of a certain generation, you may remember Cousteau’s magical television documentaries from a time when colour television was beginning. For the first time, world-wide audiences - whether they lived close to shores or a thousand miles away - could see the beauty of under the sea. But Cousteau was also one of the first to warn about the consequences of pollution.
Now our understanding is better, but all is not lost. While governments and international bodies move to take care of the big stuff, many individuals are looking out for the little things.
Aileen McClenaghan is one of them. Her Instagram page full of little horror stories and hope as she documents what she finds on walks along our sea shores, so of course, I had to join her on a sunny, breezy early August morning.
From left: Aileen with a full bag of rubbish collected from Ballymacormick Point in 15 minutes; lifting a dead herring gull on our walk - Aileen has credentials to allow her to do this; a real jellyfish (top beside the rock) and a plastic bag - similar, but one’s deadly ….. and some “treasure” including vulcanised rubber bottle stoppers, Smartie lids from different decades and the weird little “frozen Charlotte” bath toy.
If you want to know more, or perhaps invite Aileen to talk to your school class or group, contact her via her Instagram account @whattheseasaw or by email whattheseasaw@hotmail.com
Music by audionautix.com
Nailing it!
Peter Vannucci (left) and Alan Dempster - stalwarts of the Bangor soccer scene.
Part One of our “Game of Two Halves”
It’s late summer now and the football season has begun again - from the Premier League to the many amateur soccer associations.
To mark it I spoke to two super-fans of the game in Bangor. Peter Vannucci was one of the original players with Bangor Swifts and for many years, their chronicler. Alan Dempster joined his team, Bryansburn Rangers, as a teenager when the club was well-established and played a record number of times for their teams before becoming Club Chair.
Both clubs celebrated their 50th anniversaries in the last four years so I joined them for a chat about football past…and present.
This is the first part of our conversation…and remember, “no-one is bigger than the club!”
Part Two following shortly!
Music: Building Inspiration by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Bend it …like Bangor footballers…..
Next up on Little Bangor Stories – the history of amateur soccer in Bangor. In this little teaser my two pundits Peter Vannucci and Alan Dempster give a fascinating insight into just how intrepid and adaptable Bangor Swifts and Bryansburn Rangers were in their early days. To begin, Peter recalls where the Swifts had their team base right at the beginning….
Connor Park at Stricklands Glen - once a football pitch where school teams and amateur soccer players tussled!
Next up on Little Bangor Stories – the history of amateur soccer in Bangor. In this little teaser my two pundits Peter Vannucci and Alan Dempster give a fascinating insight into just how intrepid and adaptable Bangor Swifts and Bryansburn Rangers were in their early days. To begin, Peter recalls where the Swifts had their team base right at the beginning….
Music: Building Inspiration by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
110%
The second part of our chat with Alan Dempster from Bryansburn Rangers and Peter Vannucci of Bangor Swifts and Bangor FC about the history of amateur football in Bangor over the last 50 years. Memorable moments and a peek at the future!
“I learned all about life with a ball at my feet…” Ronaldinho
Second half!
The final part of my conversation with two well-known names on the Bangor football scene - Peter Vannucci and Alan Dempster.
They recall a few of their memorable moments from the early days of Bangor Swifts and Bryansburn Rangers - including “international” fixtures in Dublin - and we couldn’t help but look to the future too.
From left: The commemorative booklets from Bryansburn Rangers and Bangor Swifts; how the Abbey Street pitch looks now - it was used by teams in the 1970s and Alan Dempster with his daughter Amber who is one of Bangor FC Ladies’ star scorers.
Music: Building Inspiration by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Has anyone seen Herbie?
At Little Bangor Stories at Aspects Festival, a visitor had a memory of the time Herbie visited Bangor - do you remember?
Herbie - the star of the Disney films in the late 1960s/early 1970s - not in Bangor! Picture courtesy of Pixabay.
What a fabulous night we had at the Aspects Festival in Bangor in September!
As part of #LateNightBangor we were given the wonderful Studio 1a - which belongs to Bangor Drama Club - for the evening and the creative folk from Northern Ireland Screen’s Digital Film Archive produced an engaging and fascinating sequence of clips of Bangor from the last 60 years or so.
A number of people volunteered to talk to me and I’ll have a full compilation of their wee tiny stories very soon, but one visitor told an incredible story - so incredible that he admitted afterwards that although it IS etched in his memory, he sometimes doubts if it ever happened.
This so resonates with me, possibly some of you too…that recollection from the past that seems so fantastical, so unusual, so amazing or scary that you wonder if it WAS you.
But I would love it if you were there too and could confirm it for me and John….the day Herbie came to Bangor!
A Night of Remembering….
Little Bangor Stories was featured in Aspects 2025 with a wonderful event which included film clips from NI Screen’s Digital Film Archive. We were there to record some memories too and here they are. Enjoy the tales of Pickie Pool, Herbie and possibly the oldest graffiti in Bangor!
Thank you!
To the dozens of people who called into Bangor Drama Club’s cute Studio 1a on Bangor’s Hamilton Road on a beautiful late September night to hear excerpts from my podcast paired with wonderful archive clips from Northern Ireland Screen’s Digital Film Archive!
It’s fair to say that the Pickie Pool footage prompted the most memories, but there were others too.
Being out and about with the famous Annie Roycroft - editor for years of the “Co. Down Spectator”, what it was like to grow up working in a Ballyhome shop, the spectacle of Herbie hanging off the Bank of Ireland building in Main Street….and the amazing story of what is probably Bangor’s oldest graffiti.
From left: Carole Murray and Brandy beside her dad’s graffiti “D.M. 1942” on lower Tennyson Avenue off Princetown Road; Herbie the Disney film star car and the audience at the event.
And…an insight into recording and how you must never take things for granted!