30 I


TREW’S TRAVELS


LOVE the Strand, surely the oldest monument to Ulster’s rich cinematic heritage still standing, and a mainstay of Belfast’s Cultural Tourism trail. It will soon be showing a movie of its own making, a low- budget - but highly-professional - promotional video underscoring its urgent need for refurbishment funds to help extend its existing community role as the multi- faceted Strand Arts Centre, and make it fi t for the 2020s and Beyond.


Yes, you’ve guessed it - Yours Trewly is one of the life-long Strand veterans who have accepted Belfast cinema legend Richard Gaston’s invitation to endorse their vision and recall on camera their experiences. Richard is, of course, from the family who operated the much-loved Curzon on the Ormeau Road until it closed 20 years ago and is now the Strand’s Marketing & Communications Manager. As I am at the stage before dotage - namely anecdotage - my contribution will need ruthless editing!


Tourist bus guides proudly point to the iconic Art Deco architecture of this 1937 picture-house at the heart of Strandtown, the birthplace of CS Lewis, the home of Dundela FC , the location of a half dozen good pubs and restaurants, as well as my boyhood residence at 180 Holywood Road opposite the landmark St Mark’s Church. My friend, the famous actor James Ellis, who introduced English TV audiences to the joys of the East Belfast accent in the BBC cop show, ’Z Cars’, lived fi ve minutes away and got his fi rst taste of drama via the Strand’s famous single screen. Jimmy and I were the fi rst former pupils of Strand (no relation!) Primary School, off Connsbrook Avenue, to ‘do the double’ — namely to win (a) grammar school places, him to Methodist College, me to Annadale Grammar School and subsequently (b) University Scholarships to Queen’s. He studied French but left to pursue drama; I read Law (now and again) while editing the student newspaper and working in hotels, but somehow managed to graduate LL.B (Hons). My star-struck mother, Louisa Rea Trew, fi rst took me to the pictures in what was then known as the ABC STRAND CINEMA. I saw my fi rst movie show with her some afternoon — it must have been an early house because I was wearing my hand-knitted Matinée jacket (!). I was later cinema-trained (ie, no crying, no wetting the seat) and was awarded a Wall’s Choc-Ice for good behaviour. I always slept through romcoms and what were known by disgruntled older boys as ‘Dancin’ Pictures’ (ie the Fred Astaire & Ginger Rodgers fi lms I later learned to love).


My favourite movie of all time is ‘Casablanca’, released in the UK the same month I was born in a Ballynahinch barn, because my mother had been evacuated due to the Belfast Blitz. I must have seen it very early in my picture-going career because its anti- fascist; anti-war; anti-semitic; pro-French; pro-liberty sentiments have guided my long life and also given me a lasting admiration for Humphrey Bogart. The fi rst time I ever went to a picture-house on my own was in 1948 to the ABC Minors matinées on Saturday mornings. For a few pence each, most of the Strand’s 1,170 seats were fi lled by children from all over Sydenham, Belmont, Ballyhackamore, the Arches - most of them still wearing bits and pieces of their school uniform, because casual wear had not been invented until after clothing rationing ended in 1949. ( I did not own a pair of denim jeans until I was 14 - and wore them daily on my School Trip to Paris even after the dye ran all over my bum and legs in a thunderstorm). We always watched a great-value programme - beginning with the ABC Minors’ Song led by Uncle Dave, the Strand’s genial manager; then a couple of cartoons, a weekly cliff -hanger serial, a full- length U-rated movie AND a live act or fancy-dress- competition. Uncle Dave greeted my mother like the Queen in his dress suit and dicky-bow every Monday and Thursday night. She was one of his most loyal regulars, so when he needed a reliable 11 year-old ABC


By Award Winning Travel Writer JOHN TREW


Minor to ‘volunteer’ as a Row Monitor, he asked me. I faithfully performed the onerous task of stopping fi st- fi ghting, pick-pocketing and pre-pubescent fondling, along my rows. Alas, when I took up schools rugby and became Secretary of the AGS Under-13s, I had to spend Saturday mornings on the muddy junior pitches of grammar schools from Foyle and Portora to Dalriada and Rainey, (Rainy, more like ).


When a collapsing scrum broke my ankle during a ferocious Medallion Shield game for Under-15s, I had to give up playing rugby. Forever. Too old for the Minors, I went to the Strand on Friday nights with girls and boys I knew from the local church youth club. My fi rst real ‘date’ was an innocent evening in the back stalls of the Strand with Irene Fraser, watching the pretty- boy heart-throb Tab Hunter singing ‘Young Love’ the most embarrassing-song ever. Many years after I had moved away, I saw Irene and her husband in the row in front of me and my wife Karen. We exchanged phone- numbers. Happy memories…


Benvenuto to a good Italian restaurant


WE ADORE ITALIAN food, so we were delighted to discover that the newest addition to the list of Belfast’s Mediterranean restaurants is ‘multo buona’! In fact, a restaurant name like Multo Buona (“very good”) would be an improvement on the awkward name they have chosen, RISTORANTE GUSTO E which translates as “ Restaurant Taste is…” . Another niggle is that it is right in the middle of LANYON PLACE, near the Waterfront Hall. Unfortunately, Translink decided last year to rename good old Belfast Central Station Lanyon Place Station— even though it is located across the road at East Bridge Street! Surely, our rail services are in enough trouble without causing unnecessary confusion across the whole network! Anyway, some bewildered Enterprise passenger who mistakenly gets out of his taxi at Lanyon Place in a vain mission to locate Belfast’s main station, will fi nd real espresso — instead of rail express (!) there. Yes, Gusto E’s friendly staff from southern Italy are happy just to serve up a coff ee instead of a full meal as well as what they claim is the city’s best Pizza crafted by specialist chef Carlo from Napoli, where pizza was invented. Karen and I had just been to the brilliant selection of


local Fish Stalls at the ever-improving St GEORGE’S FRIDAY MARKET across the road, so we were in seafood mode when we arrived at Gusto E for early lunch. We chose Spaghetti con Vongole (clams) which was on the A La Carte Menu at £11.50. The Lunch Menu was better value, perhaps,and the constant trickle of men and women in business attire who nearly fi lled this large room seemed to prefer it. Most appeared to be regulars (the place has been open for months). Some, presumably Laganside lawyers, celebrated TGI Friday with a glass or two of Italian wine imported by by the Italian owners. The wine list has a vintage Barolo (a favourite of mine in my long-gone drinking days) at over £50 a bottle, so I am pleased to have avoided it since it used to be £10 from under the counter in CIRO’S near Shaftesbury Square. (What ever happened to Ciro and his family? I was made a godfather to his son at a Cathedral christening in the 1970s.) At Ciro’s I got used to being off ered cockles harvested from a Co Down beach when we ordered vongole in his chaotic, characterful, trattoria. At Gusto E we were served with home-made spaghetti heaped with clams in a light sauce appetisingly served on smooth white shells with distinctive black markings. Ahhh, the authentic fresh ‘gusto’ of the Mediterranean?


LEFT: FLORAL FRY-UP: Here’s


Yours Trewly with my exhibit ‘FlowerBed & Breakfast’ as portrayed by professional


photographer JOE FOX at the ForM Sculpture Exhibition which ran through- out June at Bangor Castle. Walled Garden. I am holding the truly WEE Ulster Fry which inspired my idea to create a giant version to honour the town’s B&B tourist sector


Well, I took a clam-shell home, and compared it with photos of worldwide clams on Google Images. It looked very like the black-tipped Asian clams which are exported frozen worldwide from Vietnam. So who cares, apart from seafood nerds like me? They were delicious —as was the Aff ogato (espresso with vanilla ice cream) to fi nish. We will be back!


Aim for Banbridge to brighten a dull day!


HERE’S the sure way to fi nd somewhere to add colour and contentment when the sun does not shine. F E McWILLIAM GALLERY and Studio is just off the main Belfast-Newry Road near Banbridge and deserves to be much better known because it not only has outstanding, world-class art exhibitions - including an ever-changing Sculpture Garden - but houses QUAILS, one of the fi nest places I know for lunch and teatime fare.


It’s a tourism fl agship of Armagh/Banbridge/


Craigavon Council, housing the local TIC with a vast array of literature covering neighbouring attractions and beyond. Opened in September 2008, the Gallery celebrates the work of the sculptor, FE.(Ted) McWilliam, who was born in Banbridge on 1909, exactly 110 years ago. A great friend of the great Henry Moore, McWilliam made his name in London and established a global reputation there; however, his works include the series Women of Belfast, regarded by many (including me) as as the most powerful artistic response to The Troubles . His bequest buildings are on the slip road to the recently-renamed BOULEVARD Outlet Shopping village so it’s pretty easy to fi nd, although I know art-lovers who buy last season’s lime- green knickers from the M&S Outlet store there, but do not know that the McWilliam Gallery is right beside them!


Anyway, as I have regularly done in this July/August Edition of NI Travel News, I thoroughly recommend the summer blockbuster exhibition in the main show- space of the FE McWilliam Gallery. Last year it was my close friend Neil Shawcross whose retrospective of paintings and ceramics packed them in all summer. This year it is the turn of the SCOTTISH COLOURISTS to bring colour and joyfulness to the (hopefully only occasional) dark days, until the end of September. The four so-called Colourists - SJ Peploe, JD Fergusson, FCB Cadell and Leslie Hunter - have emerged from retaliative obscurity in the past 20 or 30 years because of the vitality and vivacity of their styles, mostly infl uenced by French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters. This packed exhibition of key works from the FLEMING COLLECTION has been assembled by the Scots banking dynasty which owns the fi nest examples of Scottish art outside national institutions.


Nearly everybody I know who sees their bold landscapes and still-life pictures falls in love with the Colourists at fi rst-sight. I was invited to join an outing to the Gallery with the WEDNESDAY CLUB from Belfast, one of the only groups I know who would welcome me as a member; most of them displayed great pleasure with the show and listened attentively to every word of our expert tour-guide Lauren - even after a highly satisfying lunch in Quails.


My Wee Ulster Fry - and Fake Fly


REGULAR READERS of Trew’s Travels have been asking about my endeavours as a passionate ceramicist which I may have mentioned once or twice since Christmas (Editor: fi ve times, in fact, John) . That’s why I am trewly proud to report on the successful outcome of the many hours I have spent ‘knocking my pan in’ to create FLOWERBED & BREAKFAST — my homage to our unsung B&B Tourism Sector which


MINOR MIRACLE: the ABC Minors


badge was seen on Saturdays when matinées attracted 1,200 kids to the Strand


has gifted THE WEE ULSTER FRY to the World of Cuisine.


The giant frying pan, which was fabricated to my design by Metal Imagineers of Portglenone, arrived just in time for me to glue together the trial fry-up contents I photographed on my studio fl oor for last issue. I created three fl oral motifs to justify the ‘FlowerBed & Breakfast’ theme. Most people see them better from a distance. The fi nished version of the wee fry, comprising a four-foot high pan packed with more than 60 ceramic fried eggs, bacon, sausages, potato bread, soda farls, tomatoes, mushrooms plus black and white pudding slices, was chosen as one of the 42 artworks for display at the outdoor FORM SCULPTURE EXHIBITION in the magnifi cent setting of Bangor Castle Walled Garden. Running for the whole month of June, this year’s showcase of Irish sculptures and installations, from mermaids and seaweed to bronze ships and mythic animals, was widely regarded as the best-ever in its eight-year history. Sorry - you’ve just missed it… Thankfully, aff able Arts Offi cer of Ards & North Down Borough Council, Patricia Hamilton, appropriately located my food-related sculpture (No.33) directly within sight and sound of the Garden’s popular outdoor café. Site-specifi c, as we say in arty-farty circles! This meant that while I sipped an Americano during my half-dozen private visits, I could eavesdrop on the comments of visitors perusing the Council’s stylish Guide-Maps and Catalogues distributed free from weather-proof dispensers at both entrances. What a revelation! I was amazed and delighted at the number of children drawn to a pan full of fossilised eggs and bacon arguing about whether or not the contents were real - especially the tomatoes. I spent ages ensuring the insides of sliced cherry tomatoes were perfect, so I was chuff ed. (My biggest creative challenges were getting the texture of fried soda farls right; mixing many diff erent glazes to replicate the colouration of potato bread triangles; ensuring sausages looked authentically burnt; baked beans were sloppy and unappetising, so were abandoned. None of these appear among the artistic obstacles faced by my fellow-sculptors, Michelangelo, Anthony Gormley or even Bob Sloan). Anyway, it was equally challenging to face an eight- year-old art critic who had spotted the bumble bee I found dead on the studio fl oor. I had stuck it to a rasher with the inscription: WEE ULSTER FLY, just for the sake of the wordplay. I had overheard her in friendly dispute with her grandmother, so I went over and introduced myself as the artist. Gran explained: “She does not like the bumble bee being described as a FLY”. I looked straight in the eye of the wee girl (she was the same height as me) and I pompously declared: “Creative people like painters and sculptors can do things diff erently because they have what we call Artistic Licence”


“Well,” she asserted loudly, “You should have your Artistic Licence taken away for telling LIES!” I was so shaken I ran home to make a more truthful Wee Ulster Fly, from quick-dry clay, with two fried-egg- shape wings on a sausage body. And that’s what I used to replace the fi bbing bumble bee on my sculpture for the rest of June…


July/August 2019 Travel News Dotage to anecdotage at the Strand


LEFT: STRAND ARTS CENTRE is


the beating heart of East Belfast’s cine- matic and cultural scene, but after 80 years it needs re- furbishment. I know the feeling


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