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About our collaboration with the Dundalk Simon Community.
In August 2007, residents at the Dundalk Simon Community wrote and recorded two 10 minute radio dramas about a family being ripped apart by unemployment, trouble in school, unpaid bills and the anxiety brought on by chronic levels of stress.
The dramas told the story of unemployment, a son's behavioural problems at school, another son in jail, a bank manager ringing about an unpaid mortgage and a husband who was hiding the fact that he had
lost his job two months previously.
Two of the actors/writers/people whom Simon were helping died since then. At the time, one lady, Sarah Buchan wrote a moving poem suggesting she knew she hadn't long to live.
In 2013, we go back to the Simon Community to write and record two ten minute dramas. This time the programme is based on a family allotment and the theme is how small breaks can make the difference
between despair and hope.
Background
In July and August 2007, a two-part radio drama 'One Letter to Many' was written and recorded by
Dundalk Simon Community and Dundalk FM.
This happened over six Wednesday nights with ever-changing scripts, new ideas going off in tangents
before returning to the original idea, rehearsals and mugs of tea and coffee in the work shed. A group
of seven to eight met each week to tease out stories, often with autobiographical elements.
The story line involved a father who had not told his wife that he had been laid off from the local tyre
factory and went out every morning with his lunch to go to 'work'. One of their teenage sons was
continually getting into trouble at school, while an older son wrote letters every week from prison.
Their daughter is trying to keep the family from falling apart.
On the morning in question, the wife is called to the school by the headmaster to find out about her
son's misbehaviour, she reads a letter from her second son who is in prison and receives a letter from
the bank manager to say that their loan is two months overdue. The pressure is too much for her and
she loses her temper and is arrested for causing a disturbance and transferred to hospital.
The listener hears the story of how too much pressure inflicts a tragedy on regular people. However,at
the end the husband receives good news about his job and his wife is coming home from hospital...
Two of the characters died since this was made in 2007. Peter Sherlock, the husband and Sarah Buchan, who played the part of the mother. Peter left behind a stock of photographs taken in and around the centre of Dundalk – of places that he spent his days – looking out on life from his perspective. These photographs were exhibited as part of the Combat Poverty project at the time. Sarah was inspired to write this rap which was put to hip hop music at the time.
The Golden Gates
Homeless people down on their luck
Walking the streets when times gets tough
No money, no clothes, no food to eat
Worn out shoes and two sore feet
I know cos I've been down
Until my luck was turned around
With help from the Simon I'm now okay
They gave counselling, they gave me a room
And now I eat with the Golden Spoon
I'm so happy, I'm so gay
Money in my pocket, hip hip hooray
A job, a house, I had it all
Then came disaster
Made me fall
I had to find myself a way to keep
Next I knew I was on the street
Strip me down to the bone
No one else's fault but my own
Sometimes I laugh, sometimes I cry
Truly convinced part of me had died
I have to go
My lady awaits
To bring me through the Golden Gates
I have to go
My lady awaits
To bring me through the Golden Gates
I have to go
My lady awaits
To bring me through the Golden Gates [fades]
Radio Drama Workshop
On Monday 28th January at 2pm, we will run a radio drama workshop in the Community Garden of the Simon Community with local playwright, Pat McKenna. This will be open to community group members of Dundalk FM and staff and residents of the Dundalk Simon Community. This is intended to kick-start a six week creative period of writing two ten minute radio plays.
The group will take inspiration from a radio drama and rap song written in 2007 by Simon Community
residents, two of whom have passed away.
We are co-ordinating the programme with the Dundalk Simon CEO Niall Mulligan. Christy Flemming an adult literacy teacher helped to write the first radio drama in 2007 and is coming back to assist with the this play.
The programme will be produced by Dundalk FM's Edel McMullan and Padraig Quigley during January and February and broadcast in March 2013 and is made with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.
Contact:
Alan Byrne
Dundalk FM
alanbyrne@dundalkfm.com |
