Baby's ashes

Friday 11th January
Edinburgh

Debi Edward and I met up to do another chapter in the baby's ashes story. 

For many years Edinburgh's Mortonhall Crematorium had been telling parents with babies who had died that they would get no ashes when their babies were cremated.

The parents then discovered that there were ashes which were buried in very small boxes in a grass area on the grounds of the crematorium.

Dorothy Maitland was one of those parents. Twenty six years ago her daughter had died a few days after she had been born and had been cremated at Mortonhall.

At her house Debi did an interview with her. We then went to the crematorium where we did a few shots of her at the place it is thought the baby is buried.

Debi interviewing Dorothy

The light in the cold, grey January sky  was quickly starting to fade when we arrived.

It was a bit of a double edged sword scenario. The quality of the light would give the shots a little bit of atmosphere but, it would not last long. 

I had to work quickly giving an apology in advance to Dorothy because there would be no time for polite niceties.

We got the few shots done with just enough time to get some general views of the crematorium and the gates that have become even more renowned to the people of the city having appeared on the front page of the newspapers quite often over the last few months.

Dorothy was very understanding about the rushed way we had to work given the sensitive nature of the story. Thankfully we were a respectful distance away from a funeral that was in progress when we were bustling around.

On Sunday Dorothy will head down to London to appear on the Daybreak sofa to talk about what had happened and what was being done about it prior to meeting Scottish Justice Minister Kenny McKaskill.

Debi headed to Glasgow to edit a short news report and send the rest of the material to London for a short film that would be played before Dorothy's stint on the sofa.

First Designated Flag day in Belfast

Wednesday 9th January

Belfast 

This morning saw the Union Flag flying, or more accurately, hanging limy in the cold still air above the grand old building for the first time since the decision had been taken to fly it on designated days only.

Today was the Duchess of Cambridge's birthday, one of those designated days. 

Matt the satellite engineer had parked the tuck slap bang in front of the City Hall. 

Our satellite truck on the pavement outside Belfast City Hall

The Sky News edit/satellite van

At first sight that would have appeared to have been the ideal place for the shot. 

  

However, the important feature, the white flag pole that the Union Flag would be  hoisted up on had the background of the brightly lit, light stone of the building's dome tower. Hence it was pretty difficult to see, particularly on camera in a wide shot. 

So, to avoid the trees and put the white line of the pole against the black of the sky we set the camera and assorted paraphernalia on the corner of Donegall Square.

Our position on the corner of the square

Richard checking things on his iPad before broadcasting

Zoomed in on the empty flag pole against the black sky

The first little while was quite busy. We had a succession of broadcasts of varying lengths and another down the line interview with a guest, Eamonn Mallie the renowned journalist and commentator, which involved getting him rigged with Richard's microphone and talkback quite quickly because there was not much time between the end of Richard broadcasting and Eamonn doing his bit. 

When he arrived he had time to have a chat with Richard. He was very proud of his red scarf emblazoned with white silhouettes of horses. They represented the famous Lipitzana horses from the Spanish riding school in Austria. 

Eamonn chatting to Richard..

..then doing his broadcast

It was good that he was well used to doing these things because when a bus with the noisiest squeal from its engine stopped at traffic lights not far from us he did not hesitate in his flow.

The squealing noise was almost painful in our ears. It must have sounded horrendous on the telly. It did get a mention from Matt Barbet at the end of the interview.

One of the best things about this morning's rather chilly  location was that there was a cafe Nero just over the road from us. We made good use of it. 

As well as doing the live broadcasts I had to be ready to get the moment when the flag was hoisted up the pole. 

We had been give a number of times by various different people who said that they had inside knowledge of when it was going up. 

We were pretty sure it would not be when the sky was still black. My preferred time was around 8 am when the sky, if it was clear, would be a deep saturated blue. 

Eamonn, who said he had a man on the inside told us with certainty that the time would be 7:45 am.

Some had said around first light and others at sunrise. 

Sunrise would not have been good for us as we would be off air. 

When the sky started to lighten and the possible time nearer, we wondered if there would be any form of gathering to witness the raising of the flag. 

The only crowd building up consisted of people like me attached to satellite trucks with cameras on tripods. 

A few folk obviously on their way to work shook their heads and expressed a sense of incredulity over how much fuss there was over this flag as they passed. 

So the general feeling of pointless madness that seems to be prevalent on the mainland over this issue was also mirrored here.

With the sky getting less dark I thought it prudent to get London to start recording my output to make sure the earth shattering event would not be missed. That was about twenty minutes to eight. 

The locals might not have turned out but, in truth some of the world's media had. 

Unsurprisingly the Irish Chanel RTE was there, I was chatting to Ian the cameraman as we waited, there were also representatives from Sweden, Germany and Canada. These were just the ones that I had spoken to and knew where they came from.

Eamonn's firm prediction, rather like the Mayan apocalypse came and went and nothing happened. 

At just before 8 am we saw the dark shape of a person against the deep blue of the sky appear on the roof.

We saw the unfurling of the Union Flag. I started filming. Richard called the office to confirm that they were recording at there end as well. 

The figure then attached the flag to the cord and with no ceremony pulled it up the pole. 

There was no breeze to take hold of it so it just hung limply in the cold still air. 

It was a supreme moment of no drama. 

The flag is up but not quite flying in the still air

There was not long between the momentous happening and Richard going back on air for his final planned broadcast. We wanted to make sure that it had been recorded and would be ready for transmission during the broadcast. 

It was not until almost the second the director said "cue" that we heard that the pictures had been turned round in time. 

There was just one more live shot for me to do at the start of Lorraine's programme and then were were done. 

City Hall looks more like a winter palace in the morning light

During breakfast we got confirmation of what we hoped for and suspected would happen. It was time to go home. 

I opted to give BA the companies cash by going via Heathrow rather than be robbed again by Flybe. The flight tickets might have been a little more expensive but, the excess baggage was less than one fifth of what the greedy airline charged. 

However, after the longer two flights to Edinburgh the laugh was on be because when I got there only one of my four bags came off the baggage belt to meet me. 

All of my kit was still somewhere in the bowels of the baggage system at Heathrow.  

Another night of rioting in East Belfast

Tuesday 8th January 2013

Belfast

Last night's riot report in full

We were back on the UTV rooftop only fours hours or so after we had finished editing and sending the report and other shot sequences back to London.

We were pleased and surprised to see that a camera and light was already set up for the live broadcasts. There had been some mixup where UTV were not sure if Richard would be arriving with a cameraman. So, Alan, their operations manager had come in early to set things up.

At this early stage of the new contract that UTV had with ITV Daybreak they did not want any avoidable hiccups. 

We did a quick swap of cameras to allow me to use mine. The light stayed up which meant I would not have to use the camera top light.

As well as the broadcasts with Richard there was a guest. Moira Hedron an Alliance party councillor on Belfast City Council. She was to be interviewed down the line by Matt Barbet and Ranvir Singh in the Daybreak studio in London.

Richard getting ready to broadcast

After the first broadcast where Richard linked into the report we had done last night working into the early hours of this morning we were almost apoplectic with rage. The one and a half minute report full of great shots of the action and passionate views of some of the people of east Belfast had been hacked down to just under a minute.

Sometimes we wondered if it was worth the lost sleep and danger involved in getting the shots only for the story to be chopped because it needed to fit a particular time frame rather than sustain the time because of the power of the images.

It is the full unedited edit that is at the top of the blog.

Moira arrived nice and early for her down the line interview. I cabled her up and although she said that she had never done one of these types of interviews before she made her points well.

Moira standing by for her first ever live down the line interview

Viewfinder view of background of the live shot looking over Belfast as the light came up

Richard and I got over our initial rage but, not before he had made our feelings felt.

On most occasions when we send in edited reports and they are re-edited, unless the whole sence of the story is lost we just have to accept that this is the nature of the job. However, when the story has required something extra to get, especially if the something extra is risking injury it does get us rather angry.

This anger is usually, like this morning's, fairly intense but short lived because having reports edited is all part of what happens in a news environment and has to be accepted as part of one of the stresses of the job.

After the morning on the roof Richard and I caught up on a little missed sleep before heading out to get some extra equipment for the potential night of fun and frolics in East Belfast. 

Our safety adviser suggested that we get slightly better head protection than the little bump caps we had with us. 

It was advice offered with a wealth of experience and a nod to what had happened last night.

A couple of my media colleagues had sustained injuries, albeit fairly minor. 

One of these happened right next to me although I was unaware of it at the time being busy concentrating on the action in black and white behind the perceived safety of a viewfinder. 

A bit of rubble launched at the police line by one of the masked yobs had bounced off the road and hit the cameraman next to me quite hard on the knee. 

He limped on for the rest of the nights entertainment but, ended up having to take a trip to the A&E department to get checked out.

The good news was that there was no major damage. A bit of rest should sort it out. 

The other injury was similar minus the need to head to hospital. 

There was a hope that my nice stealth black helmet and knee pads would not even come out of the packaging because we were hearing that things were looking quite quiet. 

We checked out a couple of what are called "white line" protests. These are little pop up protests where a group of a few to a few dozen will stand and block a road for an hour or so.

They are largely peaceful and short lived although there is always the possibility for them to escalate given the right conditions. 

The ones we toured were doing their job of being disruptive but were calm and controlled.

Keeping our ears open for news from all our sources we sat down for a spot of diner. 

We were almost finished when the news of things bubbling up back on the Newtownards Road where we had been last night. 

The new gear was going to get an outing after all. 

Tonight's performance was a lot more subdued and short lived than last night's. 

There were of course a few fireworks, petrol and paint bombs along with bricks and stones of all sizes thrown. 

It was my turn to take a very minor hit from a half brick that was deflected by the side of a Land Rover on to my thigh.

Another large bit of rubble hit the road just in front of me bouncing harmlessly past my left shin.

The main excitement and possibility  of injury was when, in a team effort the boys hurled salvos of golf balls.

They pinged of the Land Rovers, the road, lampposts and walls zipping around us with a potential for pain. 

It was actually quite surprising that no one was hit given the density and speed of the balls. 

A voice from somewhere around us did raise a collective giggle. 

In the midst of this volley of balls came a loud shout, "is Rory Mcilroy over there?!"

That was the finale of the night's show. 

Not long after that things eased off and the guys started filtering away having had their recreation for the evening. 

We also wandered away to find out what Daybreak in London wanted and do a little bit of editing. 

In the hotel we watched News at Ten. I was pleased to see that one of my shots from last night, which had illicited great excitement from the folk at UTV when they saw it in our report in the morning was still making the ITV flagship national news programme at night.

After a few phone calls and discussions the plan for tomorrow had been formulated and the night's material was safely in London. 

It was going to be another short shift of sleep before going live using a satellite truck which had come up from the Republic of Ireland to do our broadcasts from outside the City Hall. 

Belfast Riots

Monday 7th January

Belfast 

I arrived at a rainy  Belfast's George Best airport late yesterday evening.  

Airport in the rain

It was just after lunchtime Sunday when the relaxing weekend came to and early end. 

There had been more violent protests on Saturday night over the Union Flag not being flown over Belfast City Hall every day. Loads of things had been thrown, policemen had been injured and lots of arrests made, one for a guy carrying a gun. 

When I found out which airline I was flying over with I prepared my company credit card for the huge hit I was sure that it would take. 

The check-in and ticket desk at Flybe did not disappoint.

I was slammed with a crazy excess baggage bill  for the two extra bags that I was taking on the 40 minute flight. 

Sometimes spending company cash is quite fun but, when it is just a flagrant fleecing it is beyond humorous. 

Richard also had a little flight trouble. In his case though, it was simply a bit of a delay. 

There had been a bit of bother during the night between police and protesters in east Belfast.

Our colleagues from UTV were out covering the events. If things had really kicked off again we would have been dragged out of our beds that we were not really going to be in for very long anyway. 

Thankfully we got almost a full five or so hours under the duvets.

I met Richard in reception in the wet early hours for the very short trip to UTV. 

I set up on the roof for our live broadcasts in the Daybreak news bulletins. 

The UTV staff were just getting used to coping with the very early mornings doing the local Daybreak bulletins after a long break. For quite a few years other companies had been doing them, the most recent one loosing the contract to UTV at the end of last year.  

Richard prepares his script amongst the racks of electronics

The UTV gallery preparing for the Daybreak bulletins..

..from the small green screen news studio..

..what the newsreader sees

On the dark, wet but, thankfully not windy roof we did our broadcasts whilst just below us the small UTV team of four did their bulletins. 

Rainy rooftop camera position

When we finished we went into the city centre to have a bit of a reconnoitre of the area around the City Hall where the planned protest would take place.  

Belfast City Hall bereft of Union Flag

We checked out possible vantage points and escape routes if it, as predicted, turned nasty.

Then it was time for breakfast. 

We had a bit of down time before the night's work. 

There was a protest planned at the City Hall because this would be the first full council meeting since the decision had been taken to only fly the Union Flag on certain days and not  every day.

It was pretty much assured given what has gone before in the previous few days that there would a bit of trouble. So, with this in mind it was with an extra pair of eyes to watch our back and lots of local knowledge that three of us went down to see what would happen.

As we arrived at the City Hall a very small group had gathered sporting Union flag in some fashion, as umbrellas, wrapped round them or just waving them.

It all appeared rather sad until we looked down the road to our right. In the distance large Union flags were being waved by a much bigger group marching up towards us. As they approached the sound of the loyalist songs they were singing got louder.

The protest in front of City Hall

The majority were relatively young men faces swathed in scarves with hoods up. There was also a fair cross section of members of the community.

They made a very vocal protest, getting to the point of giving the gates of the City Hall a good rattling. They marched around the perimeter of being shadowed by a large contingent of police who were inside.

When they got to a solid line of white police Land Rovers barring their way to the back of the building they were once more vocal in expressing their feelings.

One of lines of Land Rovers outside the City Hall

The water cannon would see action later

Filming the police getting geared up to go

The crowd at the police line outside City Hall

Along with the BBC, Sky News, ITN and UTV I filmed the action and Richard did a couple of interviews with the few people willing to be seen on camera.

There were of course the usual accusations that we did not relate the truth or the whole story.

The group of around four to five hundred then split up into two smaller groups and started to filter away.

We got in the car and headed for Short Strand where one of these groups would be passing by a Republican area on their way home.

We were hopeful that things might not be too bad. Soon, though, the sirens and blue lights from a stream of the PSNI's white Land Rovers quashed those thoughts.

When we arrived at the Short Strand area after having to take a circuitous route to get there it was clear that there was going to be a bit of bother.

In our separate little groups of three or four we TV crews, now joined by CH4 and the stills photographers slowly followed behind the line of Land Rovers and a water cannon truck as they tried to get the protesters past the nationalist section and into their own area.

Burning barricades 

We filmed through the gaps between the vehicles as the crowd threw bits of rubble, bottles and petrol bombs at the police. We heard and I recorded the crack of baton rounds being fired at the crowd.

Richard did a piece to camera that coincided with the heaviest salvo of petrol bombs, one landing on the front of a Land Rover.

Flaming debris litters the road

All the time we were getting deeper and deeper into loyalist territory with as many people behind us as in front. There was a little moment of concern when we were sandwiched with the police between two large groups. 

As things started to dissipate there were a few arrests some of which I got on camera and then a bit of a discussion between some of the local community leaders and the police.

Things were calmer, we headed back down the road to the car. As we passed little groups they shouted at us, sometimes not very pleasantly.

There is always one bit of humour though, when at the end of a particularly sustained tirade by one guy he ended it by saying, "could I borrow your helmet?"

Back at the hotel we had dome food whilst the material was ingested into our macs and then retired upstairs to edit in Richard's room.

Richard edited the main report and I cut the short pieces that would be used for teases, title sequences and over the news reader's voice.

I also got some of the photographs that Richard had taken. I'd been a bit busy to get my stills camera out.

Editing late into the night

We had it all cut and sent to London by 1:30 am. Time for about three hours sleep before going live from the UTV roof again in the morning.

Training Scheme Scam

Friday 4th January

Aberdeen

The interview shot

No stress today, well for me anyway, just a lot of sitting behind the wheel of the car driving and then doing some simple shots and recording an interview.

Denise our interviewee was the one feeling the stress of having a TV crew, consisting of me and Natalie, the producer who had flown up from London, in her house.

She had been the victim of a bit of a money making scam by a training company. She and her sixteen year old son had been duped into a credit agreement with a company that provided vocational training.

As well as fleecing the pair she found out that any of the qualifications that the company gave out were worth less than the paper they were printed on.

Denise gave me the kind of welcome that is always appreciated after a longish drive, "what would you like to drink" and "have a biscuit".

She said that she was feeling very nervous and underlined it by uttering "my god" when I brought the camera, tripod and lights into the small lounge.

I drank my coffee as I set up the lights and camera, my every action accompanied by a more quietly exclaimed "oh my god".

She might have been a bit uptight but it certainly did not come across in her very articulate and sound bite filled interview.

Before we finished up, the taxi that Natalie had booked to take her to the airport turned up with a particularly grumpy driver none too happy about having to wait. Welcome to Scotland!

Natalie interviewing Denise

The Black Dog Strangler is captured

Thursday 3rd January

Newcastle

Outside the St Nicholas hospital in Gosforth I met Gregg Easteal. 

I quickly set up the camera by the hospital sign and after a couple of takes we had a minute long report on tape about how "The Black Dog Strangler", Phillip Westwater had escaped and then shortly afterwards had been captured. 

Where we did the piece to camera. Not the most exciting shot

Gregg dashed off to Tyne Tees Television in Gateshead to get the tape fed to Daybreak in time for Daybreak's first bulletin at 6 am.

I put the kit back in the car and joined him for a cup of coffee at a nearby McDonalds after the material was safely in London.

We stayed on standby incase the story changed during the programme time and we had to do an update.

Nothing did change so we headed for our homes, Gregg a little way south and me a bigger way north.

The Black Dog Strangler escapes

Wednesday 2nd January

On the road

My long break over the festive period was over.

Time to catch up on various administrative things that needed to by tied up to end last year. 

I had spent a fair part of the day bashing away at the computer with no sign of any stories to cover. 

The evening banter over a curry with friends was halted abruptly by a call from the Carol on the Newsdesk. 

The "Black Dog Strangler" had escaped from a psychiatric secure unit in a hospital in Newcastle.  

He was called "The Black Dog" strangler when whilst serving time in another secure unit in Liverpool for attacking someone with a knife, he strangled another inmate because he thought he was a black dog. 

I would need to head to Newcastle to do live broadcasts, probably from the hospital. 

The only slight problem was that ITN's Daybreak satellite truck was already assigned to a flooding story on the east coast near Bridlington. So, another truck would need to be found. 

I was put on standby until a truck was confirmed. No point in setting off if no there was no truck to do the live broadcasts. 

Getting close to 10 pm all the places that could provide satellite trucks had been contacted and replied. 

None were available. No live broadcasts. 

I started to think about bed when I got another call from Sam on the overnight team to say that a recorded piece to camera was needed that could be sent back from Tyne Tees in time for Daybreak's first news bulletin at six o'clock.

So, I set off down the A1 getting to my hotel in Gateshead a while after midnight with the prospect of four hours in bed.