by Terri Hooley
When it was safe enough to get into the building I couldn’t believe the devastation that awaited me, even the metal racks that we used to hold the records had been damaged. There was melted plastic everywhere, but amazingly you could still read some of the labels on the records. I picked one up and it was ‘I’ll Be Back’ by The Beatles. My records are like children to me and some of them were incredibly valuable – I reckon my stock alone was worth about £50,000, but I wasn’t covered by insurance. I had singles worth about £200 each and, given a few years, the collection would have been worth £150,000.
As if that weren’t bad enough, having moved all my personal possessions to the store meant that it wasn’t just records that were lost in the fire. I lost the whole history of Good Vibrations that night – all the photographs and all the paraphernalia that I had collected, like ticket stubs and magazine articles. I lost the history of my life.
I also lost items of great financial, as well as sentimental, value. I had pictures, drawings and a book autographed by renowned German artist Joseph Beuys – a former Luftwaffe pilot who local artist Gerry Gleason had nicknamed ‘Billy’, joking that with a surname like that in Belfast there was no other nickname he could have had! Those items were even more precious because he had given them to me himself. I had befriended Billy when he brought his exhibition to Dublin and Belfast and he was one of the greatest men I ever met. His drawings were to be the children’s pension fund but, thanks to the arsonists, they all went up in smoke. They must have been worth thousands.
Just as devastating was the loss of a collection of letters that I had exchanged with the legendary Bob Marley, a real hero of mine. I had had the incredible good fortune to have struck up a sort of ‘friendship by correspondence’ with Marley when I wrote to him in Kingston, Jamaica after hearing his song ‘One Cup of Coffee’, back in 1965. Nobody in Northern Ireland had ever really heard reggae music at that time, and it was only thanks to some musician friends of mine, who had left Northern Ireland, that I discovered Marley at all.
In those days most of the guest houses in London had the ‘No blacks; No dogs; No Irish’ rule, so a lot of Irish musicians lived in the same area as black musicians. A real trade of musical influences began, and a lot of my friends used to send me over the reggae records they were being introduced to, knowing I would appreciate them.
I remember playing ‘One Cup of Coffee’ one night in 1965 at our jazz club in Belfast, and it completely cleared the floor. The next time I put it on, about three people got up to dance. By the next week we had an almost full dance floor, and by that stage I was hooked. I can’t say that I alone brought reggae to Belfast, but I was there at the beginning and it was the start of a lifelong passion.
In fact, I was the first person in Ireland to put on regular reggae discos, and I did so for many a year. I remember putting one on during the 1980s in the staunchly republican area of Ardoyne in north Belfast and, before the gig, an ex-IRA prisoner insisted on taking me to his house to show me his huge collection of reggae music and Bob Marley albums. Anyway, the gig itself went very well but, towards the end of the night, one guy asked me for a UB40 song. ‘I don’t do the white man’s reggae,’ I replied. ‘You’re not from round here,’ he noted, with just a hint of a threat in his voice – I played the UB40 song!
So, anyway, Bob and I had developed this long-distance friendship without any real prospect of ever meeting, that is, until 1973, when he was touring the UK with his new album Catch A Fire and I was lucky enough to blag an invite to a party to mark his arrival in London. The party was in a flat in Balham, south London and, during the course of the evening, I finally found myself in the same room as the man himself. He came over to me and asked, since I was from Belfast, if I knew this guy Hooley who had been writing to him for years, and in my stewed state I said I’d never heard of him! I was used to smoking grass, but the spliffs I was being handed on that occasion were in a different league, and I guess they had affected me more than I thought they would. The morning afterwards I was kicking myself, I can tell you that.
Thankfully, I got a second chance to meet him because the next day I was down at Island Records with a couple of musician friends – helping myself to their free food and drink – and it turned out that Bob was in a neighbouring room arguing with Island founder Chris Blackwell. Apparently Bob was feeling homesick – the weather was getting him down and he missed his family – so he wanted to cancel a couple of dates and go home. It was then that we were introduced again. This time he said he wanted to go for a pint of Guinness so we went to a local pub. We spent the whole afternoon just talking about music, and by the end of the day I wanted to go and live in Jamaica!
After that we exchanged a few more letters but, as he became more and more famous, we gradually lost touch. He died in 1981, but I will always treasure that afternoon with the great man. Sadly, memories are all I have left, since the letters and pictures he sent me were all destroyed in the fire.
Even in the aftermath of the fire it had never occurred to me that someone could have done it deliberately, so I was gob smacked when I read in the paper that there had been six separate fires, started by blast incendiary devices – one report even suggested that the authorities knew the identity of one of the arsonists, a man they say was an expert.
I was devastated. The grief I felt soon turned to barely controlled anger, and I’m sorry to say as a pacifist, that had the person who ordered that fire been standing in front of me, I would have stabbed him in the heart. I’d happily do the jail time. Those people ruined so many lives that night. Not only had they destroyed a beautiful old building and a slice of Belfast history, but they had destroyed a community, and left a huge scar on the city and in the hearts of many good people.
Judging by the level of destruction caused, it was clear that there was only one intention – total devastation. Those people knew what they were doing, the building was to be left in such a state that there could be no going back for us tenants. The arcade could have been something special – people really cared about the place – but now it was gone. Very few of the key holders, including myself, even had insurance, and so we lost everything.
I descended into the worst depression imaginable. I veered between contemplating suicide and, for the first time in my life, resolving to leave Belfast and all its problems to start a new life in America. I was just so furious that those fuckers could get away with it and there was nothing I could do.
It was then, when I had sunk to my lowest point, that things began to turn around. I was DJ’ing in The Parlour, a local Belfast pub, when I met a journalist from the Guardian called Sarah. I was talking to her about the fire and told her that I had really thought about just ending it all. But Sarah and I had a long chat about the whole thing and, somehow, she made me realise that I still had some fight left in me, and that I needed to do something, or go crazy. So a short time later I organised a ‘Solidarity With The People Who Were Burnt Out’ night for key holders in an effort to boost morale.
We had held a ‘Burnt Out But Still Smoking’ night just after the fire as a way for us all to raise a glass to the old place. It was a sixties and seventies music night and we sent out hundreds of invitations, all of which said ‘No arsonists or property developers allowed in.’ But on the night of the ‘Solidarity’ event, I took a spray can of paint and wrote ‘Thank You Sarah’ on the shutters of the arcade, just to let her know what she had done for me.
The other traders and I decided that we would keep the fire in the forefront of the public’s mind – we would not let anyone forget. I was nominated as spokesman and I made regular appearances on the BBC and in the local press. I lost count of the amount of people I gave my phone number to. I was determined not to be silenced.
But things turned really ugly after one appearance on BBC Radio Ulster’s current affairs programme Talkback. When I answered a call on my mobile I was told, ‘Don’t ever go on Talkback again. Don’t mention the arcade.’ Then they hung u
p. But that was only the start. I started to receive similar phone calls on a regular basis, but I never told anyone about it. This went on for almost a year until it all came to a head the Christmas after the fire. I was walking across Writers’ Square, which is just up the street from the arcade, when I got another call, ‘Terri, you’ve got a son, and you wouldn’t like anything to happen to him.’ That was when I snapped. ‘Hold on a moment,’ I said, ‘while this has been fun, taking your phone calls up to now, you tell me where and when, face to face, and I will have three hundred people there with me. Tell me to my face to keep quiet about the arcade, ’cos I won’t.’
I told them that if they knew anything about me then they would know that I had friends from both sides of the community. ‘I’m standing in Writers’ Square now,’ I said, trying to keep the anger from my voice, ‘and if you ever phone me again I’ll get The Undertones, Snow Patrol and everybody else I know to play here. We’ll stage the biggest open-air concert Belfast has ever seen. Go and tell your masters that.’
I hung up the phone, walked into The John Hewitt and spoke to bar manager Pedro Donald about the calls. He was the first person I had told, and it was a relief to finally get it out, but thankfully my defiant words seemed to have done the trick and I never received any more calls like that.
To this day, the bastards responsible have not been caught and it makes me so angry to think that they may have gotten away with it. I try to ensure that people don’t forget what happened though – I regularly post comments on Facebook about it, and if any graffiti is covered up I make a point of putting it back! The burned-out shell of the arcade is still there, a blot on the city, and I walk past it nearly every day as I go to The John Hewitt for a pint. It has become a symbol of everything that is bad about Belfast – the institutionalised vandalism and the wanton destruction of our heritage and history.
‘Terri Hooley: A Memory’ – Chris Moore
Terri Hooley was propped up against the counter in The Crown Bar in Belfast. It was a football day, a Sunday I think.
I don’t know why he was there, it certainly wasn’t for the football. Must have been for the drink. It was the summer of 1996 and I’d been watching some Euro ’96 game transmitted live on television.
Whatever, the important thing is that Terri Hooley was propping up the bar so I moved over to speak to him. We’d known each other for many years – way back to the seventies when I worked in the News Letter.
Back then I had a weekly column aimed at young people called, ‘Young Moore’s Almanac’. I reviewed records and movies, wrote about teenage trends, and managed to upset Van Morrison and his family with remarks about his failure to play Belfast, even though he had returned to Ireland to play Dublin. He wasn’t happy. Nor was his ‘Aunt’ Violet! She wrote to me and we met in Belfast city centre one day during her lunch break. She was a lovely woman and it wasn’t until years later, during a Morrison show at Killinchy Castle, that I discovered ‘Aunt’ Violet was actually his mum! But she said my column and criticism made her glum.
And now, twenty years on, and I was facing someone else in a glum mood. Terri said there’d been a fire and he’d lost a lot of his record stock. What really upset him though was the loss of his copy of the first single The Undertones produced on his own label – Good Vibrations. I was shocked and obviously feeling a bit sorry for him. But not sorry enough at that stage to own up to having a copy at home.
By 1978 ‘Young Moore’s Almanac’ had long gone but I still had an interest in music, and consequently I attended some kind of news conference that Terri had organised to promote The Undertones. Can’t remember the date of that either. Drink no doubt to blame.
And alcohol was about to impinge again. I bought Terri a drink. Then more drink. And more. His mood remained decidedly despondent. The more drink that went down, the guiltier I began to feel that I had the one thing this man craved. At home it was carefully hidden away among the few remaining vinyl singles I had.
Even as we stood there I could visualise the record at home. It came wrapped in a large sheet of plain white paper that was folded over into a sleeve for the single. It was an EP actually – that’s ‘extended play’ for those unfamiliar with the language of the sixties generation – the True Confessions EP. I could also see the notes I had scribbled all over the sleeve – names of the individuals in The Undertones; name and details of Good Vibrations; and, of course, quotes from Terri.
Now, back in The Crown Bar, Terri and I discussed the joys of ‘Teenage Kicks’. He recalled the difficulty he had in getting the band signed up to labels in England. That is until a certain John Peel took an instant liking to ‘Teenage Kicks’. So much so that he played it over and over again. He was so impressed with the EP that he even paid for the band to record a session in a Belfast studio and played it on his show. To him ‘Teenage Kicks’ was the perfect pop track.
Soon there was a demand for the single across the water and soon The Undertones would be international stars. Terri was delighted of course.
But now he was standing in front of me getting pissed, (with me matching him drink for drink), and a little piece of his life had been taken from him.
The pressure mounted inside me. Should I? Should I? It might be worth a small fortune in years to come, but this was, after all, the man who had helped make The Undertones.
In the end my conscience was totally eroded – not by any issue of morality or decency, but by the intake of alcohol. I owned up. I told him I had what he wanted. Suddenly his eyes lit up (well eye actually!) and he bought a round. He promised me a copy of a CD which featured The Undertones singing ‘Teenage Kicks’. It was a compilation of Good Vibrations’ greatest punk band hits.
A few days later, we met and exchanged our packages. He got the original vinyl of The Undertones. I got the Greatest Hits from Terri’s record label. We went our separate ways, though I was certain I could hear him sniggering uncontrollably as we moved away.
But it was meant to be, of that I was in no doubt. Burglars had come into my home a few weeks before my encounter with Terri and removed every CD I owned except for one – some ghastly African-American female singer!
They didn’t touch the vinyl thankfully; so all my 45s were still in one piece and exactly where I left them. So I am glad Terri got the original Good Vibrations recording of The Undertones. That way I know it went to a good home for sure – unlike my CDs!
A Brush With Fate
Things were very difficult for me after the fire – I was homeless, penniless and for one of the very few times in my life, I felt beaten. Eithne was wonderful though, and she offered to let me stay in her house for as long as I needed – she knew that I was no longer in a position to move out fully. We may have been over as a couple, but we had managed to maintain a great friendship and we thought that, above all, it would be good for Michael to have me around. Now all I needed was a job.
Thankfully a friend of mine, Lawrence John – a well-known DJ whose claim to fame was that he was captured by aliens! – had just opened a vinyl shop in Smithfield Market, close to Belfast city centre, and he asked me to step in and run it for him a few days a week. He already owned a record shop in High Street, but he wanted a presence in Smithfield, which was once a thriving commercial area of the city, packed with every kind of shop imaginable. It has suffered with the advent of shopping centres, and has become a bit of a forgotten area but there are still lots of great shops and wonderful characters there, and it still attracts plenty of visitors.
The idea was that I would have one half of the shop to sell my second-hand vinyl – after the fire, friends had given me records out of their own collections to start building up my stock again – but, after a few months, Lawrence changed his mind about the store and stopped paying the rent. I had to find somewhere else to set up shop, and quickly, or I was back out on the street.
Once again, my friends came to the rescue. William Maxwell, a dear friend who has always been a big fan of Good Vibrations, got in
touch with The Undertones, Ruefrex and a few other bands and suggested that they put on a fundraising gig for me. They were all more than willing, and the gig was held on 30 September 2005 at the Empire bar. It was a fantastic night and it meant the world to me to know that all these people were there, supporting me. I had been ready to get out of Belfast, but that night I knew I couldn’t go. I realised that I couldn’t turn my back on the place and that, more than anything, I wanted to open another store.
We identified premises in Haymarket Arcade, a small area just off Royal Avenue in the centre of Belfast, and Phoenix Records was born. Sadly, the arcade itself was dead – hardly anyone even knew it was there. The entrance was hidden between other stores, and we got next to no passing trade – it was a disaster. I took a little comfort in knowing that at least I had a record shop, but when the landlords said that there was no way we could have the Thursday Club, I knew it was on borrowed time!
I had been sub-letting and did not have the keys to the outside shutters, so I asked Raymond Giffen – whom I had known for years and whose father Patrick owned the Pancake House in the arcade – for my own set. He refused almost immediately, telling me that he knew I would be having the Thursday Club or some other wild parties. I guess he knew me too well!
In the three years we were there the shop never made a penny. It was then that I knew the vinyl record business was finished. I struggled on, thinking things might get better, but they never really did and Phoenix Records became the worst shop of them all.
Thankfully, things in my personal life had been going much better. I have always been fortunate enough to meet the right person at the right time and fate intervened for me once more when, just before the summer of 2006, my current partner, Claire Archibald, came into my life.