Tae Sail On Them Is No Their Fate

Pat Adams, Eamon Boyle, Lisa Garnham, Betty MacLean, Alex Scullion, Ann Vance

Scotland, 2010, 17 minutes 12 seconds

This film is the result of a series of workshops with a group of individuals from Clydebank Independent Resource Centre. Drawing on the innate creative talents of the group in the fields of poetry and song, we used dialogue and memory to explore themes surrounding poverty. Employment, or rather the lack of it, became a key focus for the group and a catalyst to explore our own experiences and beliefs on a personal and political level.

Originally a town born out of industry, Clydebank’s population expanded as a result of the development of shipbuilding as well as being home to Singers Sewing Machine factory, the largest in Europe. The town provided employment for many thousands of people. Whilst deploring the erosion of these industries, we question the legacy of their eventual destruction and the harsh realities that exist as a result. What persists in the collective psyche is marked by sadness, regret, pride and anger but also resilience, inspired by experience and an understanding that the struggle for self-determination or “a decent living” for the working classes is ongoing. We hope this film endures as a document, a small remnant of this struggle.

Tae Sail On Them Is No Their Fate is a quotation from the song The Broo Queue by Leo Coyle.

Lynne Flaherty, Jean Gray and Mark McKenzie made contributions to this film.

“liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it.”

—Paulo Freire

participants:

Made by:

• Pat Adams
• Eamon Boyle
• Lisa Garnham
• Betty MacLean 
• Alex Scullion
• Ann Vance

with contributions from

• Lynne Flaherty
• Mark McKenzie
• Jean Gray

Thanks to:

• Clydebank Independent Resource Centre
• Mary Collins
• Janice Dickson
• Julia Doulati
• Catherine Gray

• Scottish Screen Archive
• Annie Docherty & Ann Wade

• Stephen Bogod
• Clydebank Library & Museum
• Curtis & Frida
• Leanne & Eddie Coyle
• Paula Larkin
• Danny McCafferty
• Jane McInally
• Margaret & Frank Vance

• West Dunbartonshire Council
• Ken Graham & Joe Traynor

Production images

Click to enlarge

Filmmaker: Ann Vance

Ann Vance is an artist / filmmaker based in Glasgow. She graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1987 and continued with post-graduate studies at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam. She has been involved in organising various artist-initiative projects and exhibitions over the past 20 years and has exhibited in Scotland and internationally. In 2005 she was a recipient of The Artists Award for Film and Video from The Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen. Born and raised in Clydebank by a factory-working mother and a shipwright father, she has embraced the feminist philosophy "the personal is political" and applies this to her practice which is driven and informed by a working-class, political consciousness.