For some reason “Word Press” wont let me comment on Sammy’s post on the BBC. My intention here is to contextualise his post.

 On Friday in the attic, I found an old photograph of myself and my father. I was possibly two years old. I think I got a blue tricycle for my second birthday (May 1954) and  I abandoned it and ran away when the Orange band and parade came into the street (presumably 12th July 1954). The Worshipful Master of a Sandy Row lodge lived in our street and apparently calling to pick up the Worshipful Master is an Orange tradition.

Of course for years afterwards, the abandoning of my tricycle to the massed ranks of the Orange Order caused much amusement in our family for years. To be honest I never really liked the Orange Order. I am not big on bands and parades and balloons and clowns and all that stuff. Even in the benign late 1950s and early 1960s, I did not rush out to see a band…..or follow them as other children did. I should point out that our street was a “mixed” street in West Belfast.

The thing I remember most about BBC coverage in the 1960s was the fact that there was something….anything …..on TV at all. In those days there were “programmes for schools”, “Watch with Mother” at 2pm and possibly some horse racing……but regular TV did not actually start until 4.45pm. So just being able to see ANYTHING on TV at all was remarkable….more so that there was an element of locality and familiarity to it all.

Yet the Twelfth was always something alien. Often we spent three weeks in Dungannon and/or Coalisland in County Tyrone. I can still remember the sheer boredom …..eeriness even of one particular Twelfth. My Auntie May was a spinster lady who never owned a TV set and………just that walk with my mother and sister to Dungannon Square…..my mother surely knew that every shop was closed.

Of course in the 1970s, the Twelfth took on a sinister dimension…..not just because the Troubles had broken out. I was now an adult and could “appreciate” the Twelfth. Ironically it was Mary McAleese just a year or so older than me who really “nailed” the attitude. Interviewed shortly before she became President, she spoke of her (and siblings) surprise and shock that her parents generation was so compliant about the Twelfth.

Of course one of the semi-myths about the Twelfth is that Catholics loved it as much as Protestants. At best that is a half-truth. To support that argument, I should say that my mother living in a predominantly unionist part of County Armagh would often say that she used to enjoy the day out. But I think that too many Orange apologists think that the …..acceptance….of Mary McAleeses parents and my parents………was actual support. Mary McAleese and I lived in places where we could keep our heads up eleven months of the year. Being …….as we saw it…..lowering our heads for a month was a bitter pill.

Of course, the old maxim of keeping your head as low as a Catholic in Carrickfergus…..or Larne or Bangor…..or Newtownards…..or Lisburn……or Holywood………produces an attitude where you have to keep your head down twelve months of a year. Theres no point in living in Rome and fighting the Pope…..and no point living in any of those places (and more) and not wanting to believe that the Twelfth is a day for “us all”.

Of course the BBC has always shown the Twelfth. “Colonel” Jimmy Hughes did the outside broadcast. To be honest I always enjoyed the “live” pictures of the Brethren returning from the Field. Some had clearly taken too much alcohol and watching them sway left and right was certainly more interesting. But I wonder if it was as much to do with social attitudes than ……..mere politics.

The men (it was surely always MEN) inside the BBC were as often as not Orangemen and “secret shakers” in the Press Lodge in Arthur Square. As Sammy McNally points out…rules on impartiality and indeed news values should have led the BBC to pull the plug on the Twelfth. But I would make a comparison with the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race…….a regular with the BBC since…….well………TV started. In terms of sporting values there seems little reason to give over an entire Saturday afternoon to broadcast the Boat Race…..but it has only recently been attacked as elitist…….but surely that reflects the Oxford and Cambridge men and women inside Television Centre in London. Until recently the BBC also showed the Varsity Rugby match (now migrated to Sky).

BBC Norn Iron is actually trapped. It HAS to show the Twelfth. Getting a nasty letter from Nelson McCausland is a bit annoying. Parity of Esteem……Orange Culture……all that stuff…….and it is a bit of a dilemna when Orange Culture has a far too prominent nasty side.

Nobody could possibly object to Rev Brian Kennaway marching past your door. He is the acceptable face of Orangeism. But there is a lot of nasty folks in the Orange Order and with respect I keep my distance from them. All I ask is that they keep their distance from me….and we will all get along just fine.

Of course having marched with the Orangemen…..and hardly been neutral towards them….the BBC actually needs the cover that the Twelfth is a great day which belongs to us all. Therefore it must constantly support the “good” side of the Orange Order against the “bad” side of the Orange Order. The Orange Order is divided between people who are simply “pro-Protestant” and those who are “anti-Catholic”. The BBC has therefore…..to justify its coverage…..emphasise the “pro-Protestant” element and play down the “anti-Catholic” element.

The BBC failed the test at Drumcree. Reporting the stand-offs while showing parades as if they were benign was impossible to defend. Hard News and Soft News. And perhaps the Ormeau Park Demonstration (2000) when Belfasts Orange lodges marched to Ormeau Park to support their Ballynafeigh brethren (prevented legally) from passing thru  lower Ormeau Road……should have been the point where the BBC pulled the plug.

The BBC are now in an annual position of hoping that “lets get alongerism” will prevail. It is hoping that the “nicer” elements in the Orange Order will win the civil war with the “nasty” element. Of course 2012 is different from 1962 when all was well in the unionist/Orange heaven …….but not THAT different. Back then the BBC churned out the accepted narrative about Norn Iron…….everything was just great and anybody who said otherwise was a dangerous subversive. Now there is a new narrative………everything in Norn Iron is just great…..look at the MTV Awards, the Titanic Centre, the Open Golf at Portrush and er the Orange Order walking on the Twelfth. In “letsgetalongerist” mythology (and the Beeb is fully signed up), the Twelfth is a day for us all. And those people who dont much care for it……..well whats eating them exactly?

Its simple enough. The Orange Order HAS to change if it is to survive. It would mightily faciliate the “letsgetalongerists” in Ormeau Avenue and the broader “letsgetalongerist” overclass. But it is hardly a priority for nationalists that the Orange Order should survive. Why make it easy for those who want to save it?