For anyone visiting
Auld Reekie, our capital city, the park-and-ride is a boon. No more
fighting the traffic and being either fined or fleeced for parking.
50p and a ten minute train journey and you are into the litter strewn
centre of the Athens of the North.
How many shoppers,
culture seekers or sports fans have climbed the steps from the car
park to Newcraighall station to take the wee shuttle train without noticing the memorial to Bill
Douglas, film maker, director writer and actor?
 |
| At the top of the station steps |
Born in Newcraighall
in 1934, Douglas grew up in a world of poverty, emotional
deprivation and physical abuse. His escape was the cinema.
National Service gave him a way out and he found friendship and the
encouragement to make a career out of acting and writing and then
film making.
His famous trilogy -
My Childhood, My Ain Folk, and My Way Home – is autobiographical
and constitutes one of the finest bodies of work made by any film
maker anywhere.
Made in the 1970's,
with a tiny budget, shot in black and white, and using local people
and a few professional actors, he captured the bleak physical and
emotional landscapes of the post war mining village and harshness of
his childhood. A world dominated by authority and fear, a world
where people struggled to express their feelings where violence and indifference were commonplace yet containing
images of tenderness.
Douglas coaxed
performances from the ordinary people of Newcraighall and, in
particular, from Stephen Archibald and his chum, Hughie Restorick, as
Jamie and his half-brother Tommy.
The boys had been truanting from
school when they approached Douglas asking “Can I have a fag,
Mister?”. Douglas laughed and, recognising their innate ability, cast them immediately.
Stephen Archibald
went on to play the Jamie/ Bill Douglas character in all three films
to critical acclaim and became a firm friend to the director.
Sadly, he didn't
achieve the escape his mentor had managed. There was no National
Service to take him away from his background and he died, aged forty,
from the effects of drug abuse and neglect.
He was captured on
film expressing his thoughts on how a different generation had been
lost to drugs rather than deprivation.
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| The miners cottages now prettified and neat |
Newcraighall is
being developed, new build everywhere.
The railway, a recurring
image in the trilogy, still runs past, separating the world of the
mining village from the splendour of Newhailes House. The line is
electrified now. No more coal and smoke and grime. No more mines.
No more miners.
 |
| Newcraighall today |
There are still glimpses of the harsh landscapes of
Bill Douglas' childhood but thankfully few. We have come a long way
You don't have to park and ride to experience Bill Douglas genius. His films are available on DVD and if you do, you'll never climb those steps to Newcraighall station quite so indifferently again.
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