New film tells important story of Skye Bridge anti-toll protests

28 Dec 2012 

The successful campaign against tolls on the Skye Bridge is the subject of a BBC Alba film to be broadcast on New Year’s Day.

The media co-op film ‘An Drochaid/The Bridge Rising’ highlights once again the extortionate rip-off of the Private Finance Initiative – the Skye Bridge being the first UK PFI project.

Former Dingwall Procurator Fiscal David Hingston, who prosecuted the protesters who refused to pay tolls, is interviewed, saying: “PFI, in my personal opinion, is a fraud upon the public. It’s an abuse of government. The bridge should have been paid for out of public funds.”

Media co-op describes the documentary as an “epic, feel-good story of a modern rebellion” that is also a “bittersweet tale of passion, ego, and financial skulduggery.” They cite figures showing the total £25m of private investment cost taxpayers and road-users more than £74m.

It features almost all the key players including Skye and Kyle Against Tolls (SKAT) protesters, politicians, the bridge engineer, police and PF. However, Bank of America, the bridge owners before the 2004 buy-out by the then Scottish Executive, declined to take part. 

Producer Louise Scott said the film tells of “a successful uprising of a community against a bank, a rebellion against the idea of making private profit from public works.” A cinema length version is to follow.

Mischief making, the fun of days in court (“like going to the Shinty Cup final”) and a march across the bridge with beer barrels of ‘Extortion Ale’, are interspersed with recollections from some of the well known SKAT characters, including Robbie the Pict and former NUPE (UNISON’s predecessor union) official Andy Anderson, along with politicians such as former Scottish Office minister Lord James Douglas Hamilton, former Labour minister Brian Wilson and the former Liberal Democrat MSP John Farquhar Munro.

And it reveals that former Skye police sergeant Dennis Hyndman - who arrested his neighbours when they refused to pay the toll - was a secret supporter of the anti-toll campaign. “If I hadn't been a police officer I would have been down there protesting along with the rest of them."

The film will be shown on BBC Alba at 8.05pm on Tuesday 1 January 2013, repeated on Sunday 6 January at 8.30pm. Short trailer here Read more in reports in The Herald and Third Force News.

UNISON Scotland reports on PFI and PPP projects, including the Skye Bridge, are here.

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Films of the UCS Work-in Mitchell Theatre, Glasgow 21-23 March 2012

Films of the UCS Work-in
Mitchell Theatre, Glasgow 21-23 March 2012Tickets from www.glasgowconcerthalls.com
See flyer here: http://www.unison-scotland.org.uk/ucs/UCSfilmflyerMarch2012.pdf




Wednesday 21 March, 1.00pm
Films: UCS 1 and UCS: 40th Anniversary
Panel: Ann Guedes, Susan Morrison, Dr Chik Collins. Tickets £5
http://www.glasgowconcerthalls.com/whatson/event/119346-UCS-Screenings-UCS1-and-UCS-40th-Anniversary

Thursday 22 March 7.30pm
Films: UCS 1 and UCS: 40th Anniversary
Panel: Ann Guedes, Mike Kirby (STUC President), Pat Rafferty (UNITE). Tickets £6
http://www.glasgowconcerthalls.com/whatson/event/119347-UCS-Screenings-UCS1-and-UCS-40th-Anniversary

Friday 23 March 7.30pm
Film: Class Struggle: Film from the Clyde
Panel: Ann Guedes, David Hayman. Tickets £7.50
http://www.glasgowconcerthalls.com/whatson/event/119348-UCS-Screenings-Class-Struggle:-Film-from-the-Clyde

After each showing the films will be followed by a Q&A with special guest, film-maker, Ann
Guedes, plus an invited panel.

Ann GuedesIndependent cinema in Britain is unthinkable without the achievements of the innovative film collective
Cinema Action, which was set up in the late 1960s and crystallised around a core of three cultural dynamos: Ann Guedes, Gustav Lamche and Eduardo Guedes.

Ann has made 15 documentary films, many with International Film Festival Awards, Berlin, London, Madrid, Portugal, Leipzig and the jury prize at Moscow Film Festival. Her 90-minute feature documentary So That You Can Live was selected for the opening day of Channel 4.

Ann’s feature films include:
Rocinante (1986), starring John Hurt and Ian Dury, which won 6 international
film awards;
Bearskin (1989), starring Tom Waits and Ian Dury; and
Talk of Angels (1998).


The films
UCS 1In 1971 Cinema Action was the only film crew given permission by the Joint Shop Stewards Committee to film the early part of the Work-in. UCS1 contains interviews with UCS workers explaining the rationale behind the Work-in and the strategy deployed by the shop stewards to secure the future of the yards. The film is a unique depiction of how the workers gained support from the wider community and took their fight, quite literally, to the doorstep of the Heath government.
Running time 23mins.

UCS 40th AnniversaryA short film produced for the 40th anniversary celebrations by the STUC’s Kevin Buchanan. First shown at the UCS Gala concert on 1 October 2011, the film charts the story of the Work-in using archive footage and images. With a script by John Foster and voice over by David Hayman.
Running time 12mins.

Class Struggle: Film from the ClydeHalfway through this documentary study of the work-in at Upper Clyde Shipbuilders in 1971, one of the workers says, ‘This is a group of workers who are not going to grovel, tugging their forelocks, to the labour exchange’. Such clarity of expression and considered determination to participate in the political process powerfully highlights the fight of workers ‘to keep what is in the long term keepable’. The uniqueness of Class Struggle is about more than Cinema Action being the only group allowed to film inside the yards. The mainstream media news crews seem interested in the yards only as backdrops for interviewing ‘key players’. Cinema Action emphasised the action of workers and shop stewards who found running the yards, in one’s opinion, “easier than working the double bottom of a ship”.
Running time 83mins.



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