Big Fan of the People
A few months back author Irvine Welsh was asked who his heroes were. There was the usual mix of footballers, musicians and politicians. At the same time he also spoke very warmly about Jimmy McGovern. So it was great to meet up with him recently in Liverpool. McGovern is warm, gregarious and clearly loved by ‘the Scousers’ and the Liverpool Dockers, in particular.
McGovern was born in 1949; the fifth of what would be nine children of a working-class Catholic couple in a two up, two down in Liverpool. Although he was bright, he didn’t speak until he was eight or nine, except by noises, comprehensible only to his brother Joey. Nonetheless, he still managed to pass the 11-plus, and win a scholarship to a Jesuit grammar school. He describes his education as ‘truly awful’, after which he had a series of nothing jobs, before trying his hand at teaching, qualifying a couple of months after Thatcher was elected for the Tories in 1979.
Although he wrote a few plays, local critics weren’t especially impressed. “They savaged them” said McGovern wryly but when Brookside started in 1982 Phil Redmond approached him; which McGovern modestly claims was simply because he “was in the right place at the right time.” Perhaps, but after quitting teaching he went on to spend the next seven years, from 1982 to 1989, writing over 80 episodes of the popular Channel 4 soap.
“Brookside was brilliant. It taught me everything I know. I'd love someone to approach me and offer me a small fortune to devise a soap. I'd have the Grants in it every time. And I'd have a golden rule: we never see a gun. I've lived in Liverpool all my life and I've never seen anybody with a gun - apart from the police. That's what's wrong with soap. Ridiculously inflated stories. There is a lack of faith in the characters and an over-reliance on big stories.”
He quit the programme just after Hillsborough. He admits to having a big row, ‘how big?’, “believe you me it was big, but I think I’d have quit anyway.” It gave him the opportunity to write Traitors and Needle for the BBC, the latter was very well received, it won an award and McGovern “knew I had a chance of a future away from Brookie.” Nevertheless he initially found it difficult to get PRIEST made, forcing him to take a commission to write CRACKER.
The show proved a tremendous success, at one time it was being watched by thirteen and a half million viewers which he appreciates had very little to do with actual police methods. “There was hardly any procedural accuracy in Cracker. In reality, Fitz would never be allowed near a suspect.” He admits that he hadn’t wanted Robbie Coltrane to play the part: “I wanted a thin, wiry guy. But I was wrong, Robbie was brilliant” in his role as the criminal psychologist.
Although he clearly enjoyed his work on CRACKER, asked to choose his favourite piece of work he’d pick PRIEST “because, although it was ostensibly about Catholicism, it was really about humanity, broken humanity. And that’s what the crucifixion is all about.” It was controversial and it rattled the Catholic Church, McGovern seems unconcerned. Then again just two years later he was writing and producing Hillsborough. Eighty nine football fans died on that tragic day, crushed and mangled to death when they were prevented from getting on the pitch by a high metal fence at the front of the terraces, with the police refusing to open the safety gates which could have released some of the crush. Later on, the Sun newspaper attacked Liverpool fans suggesting that they had somehow contributed to their own deaths. McGovern, a football fan himself, continues to this day to “urge football fans everywhere not to buy it [The Sun]” as it is “for scum.”
Unlike the South Yorkshire Police, McGovern found that the Merseyside Police were very supportive of Hillsborough, but he is naturally more pleased that “all the families really appreciated the drama-doc.” He is convinced that other football fans owe the families of those who died a big favour because: “they have ensured that the possibility of another football disaster is very distant. If the Bradford [1985] or Ibrox [1971] families had fought as hard as the Hillsborough families, maybe Hillsborough would never have happened. “ It is interesting to note that when I asked him about his own hero’s, McGovern was unequivocal in naming Kenny Dalglish, “for the way he conducted himself after Hillsborough.”
McGovern has also courted controversy with two major docu-drama’s, DOCKERS, about the three year long struggle by Liverpool Dockers to win back their jobs after they refused to cross a picket-line, and SUNDAY, about events in Derry on January 30th 1972. In Liverpool we visited the CASA club. Situated in Hope Street, the bar staff and punters, a good few of whom were ex-Dockers including their one time leader, Jimmy Nolan, were clearly delighted to see him. Handshakes all round and a few pints. Minutes earlier in another pub he’d been approached by someone who’d recognised him and asked whether he’d read his son’s script about boxing. McGovern had agreed; I suspect he always does.
The CASA club is well worth a visit. It has a brilliant bar, cheap ale and a friendly welcoming atmosphere. There is an amazing mix of people: students, academics, old farts like Jimmy McGovern [his words, not mine] and wonderful grizzly Dockers. Great people. It is a short walk from Lime Street Station. Recommended. It was purchased by the Dockers themselves, those who starred as ‘themselves’ donating the money and McGovern giving up his proceeds from the writing and producing of it.
SUNDAY, a channel 4 film, was heavily attacked in the press and TV. During its making the set in Manchester was petrol bombed by local fascists, but this failed to prevent the British public getting their first opportunity to see a recreation of events three decades ago. McGovern was pleased to know that I had spoken to an ex-paratrooper a few weeks earlier who’d told me he thought that what appeared “was realistic” with the exception of one small item, namely: “the guns don’t ricochet that far back when you fire downwards.” Interesting and very frightening.
“The people of Derry loved it and that’s all that counts” says McGovern who is unequivocal in stating that what happened “was murder ……….blessed by our government.” 13 demonstrators died that day, one more died weeks later from his injuries.
Aware that McGovern has recently spoken at a couple of
anti-racist events in the north-east of
McGovern who cites Gary Cooper in High Noon as his own boyhood hero, and Tony Benn in more recent times, is currently working on producing a drama on Mary Queen of Scots and her son James the first. He admits that if he had the chance, or rather ‘the money’ he’d “never write film or telly again.” Instead he’d “probably write a book” and you could bet that amongst those keenest to get a copy would be Irvine Welsh.
