Birmingham to Belfast

The odds of this 60s television set having survived are slim. Finding it in a museum is even more remarkable.

Stop a moment with me if you will, spend time with this piece via Ulster Museum and you’ll meet a profound moment of social history. It’s a piece I return to again and again as a learning curator, unlocking in me a powerful emotional link to my own identity being based in Birmingham UK.

Our museum piece in focus is an old, damaged television set considered by some unremarkable visually. At first glance it’s possibly unexpected in a museum setting – ‘ordinariness’ challenges what we are taught by society to expect from a museum. It’s not a mighty ruler’s sword, a cracked ancient vase or lumbering set of dinosaur bones. Instead, it’s from the mid 20^th century – nostalgic and seemingly of limited financial value.

Yet it’s found a home in National Museums NI and holds a powerful place in the exhibition ‘The Troubles and Beyond’. Together with the emotive archival image of a moment in history which sits alongside, the combination holds witness to an event which changed the course of political history.

Framed by a black and white photograph, the television set seen here in focus is the actual piece being carried by the Hemsworth family during the burning of Bombay Street in 1969. This violent act credited as ‘the start of the combustible years’ (2) is considered a pivotal moment in the timeline of the Troubles. As political tension grew within Belfast in 1969, Bombay Street became a focal point which saw widespread firebombing from house to house, armed protest, armed forces presence, and for the residences - a life changing moment. Its legacy can still be seen in the erection of peace walls on the street, and its contribution to the formation of modern Northern Ireland’s political structure today.

Of 63 houses in Bombay Street, 38 had to be demolished in the aftermath, with five requiring major repair and ten needing minor repairs. (1) Fossilised in a moment of poignancy we see the television set carried through the street rubble - a fleeting intersection between the museum and visual human distress. Its survival rests in the family retaining this object in a new home, quietly eroding away and unused in a garage until its donation to the museum generations later via a member of museum staff. 

The act of donation suggests a deep-rooted need for a witness to history – understanding that the television is in synergy with the photography, that museums are places people can use to ask questions, and that museums have the power to change lives. To trust a museum with both the ownership and responsibility of sharing this story is remarkable.

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To see this piece is to be with a passive yet relatable witness to history – its ordinariness is a domestic narrative most can connect to. Where geography, identity and politics may divide us, the television set is a familiar and often intimate narrative of the home or one we carry in our pockets on a smartphone. Vast swathes of us either have a television, access to one or have encountered one publicly due to globalisation of the media. Commonality is reassuring. The television set becomes emblematic of a moment of emotion at the scene – a tool for empathy and shared connection to an event some may struggle to process or comprehend outside their lived experience.

Why save the TV set at all? What is its significance? To ask is to invest yourself emotionally.  Speculate on experiencing mounting violence within the area you live in and danger to your home - what would you save? For many in working class communities at this time, the television was both a prized object and of immense value. Rent to buy or leased televisions add to this – if you’ve not finished paying off the TV it’s not yet yours to lose. Consider a moment of panic – what would you reach for running on instinct? Perhaps the TV was the nearest thing. Go deeper to the significance of the TV – televisions in the 1960 were sometimes communal and shared, prized for up-to-date information visually that other media could not offer. Add the extra layer that in Northern Ireland, public broadcasts could include updates on the Troubles and imminent violence. Access to news was for many a necessity.

Few of us experienced the searing reality of Bombay Street in 1969, yet all of us arguably are connected to Northern Ireland via international politics. This is true of my own lived experience being from the West Midlands. The Troubles occupied a duality in my life – a real and present reality in my community growing up in the 80s and 90s, and yet largely absent in my formal education. 

To be connected to Birmingham is possibly to know of, or directly have access to, the social memory of the Birmingham pub bombings. In 1974 21 people lost their lives, and 182 people were injured in a series of bombings across the city centre. (3) Those around me who were witness to the time give vivid testimony of the event - shock, grief and how it changed the city. Its legacy continues to this day – legally in the miscarriage of justice for the ‘Birmingham Six’ convictions and poignantly, in the dwindling number of families who continue to lay flowers in the city centre for loved ones nearly 50 years later.   

It’s hard to underestimate how much the awareness of 1974 continues to live quietly in my consciousness - a piece of history I inherited in the community I grew up in. How do we unlock inherited history? In media or books? In the kindness of others who share their testimony with us? In a museum exhibition perhaps? Or in the case of our object in focus, in a small (slightly battered) television set. An object that functions beyond dates, media, and pages in history books - holding emotion.

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Before we leave this television set and each other, may I share with you a moment I witnessed of the piece being used?

A visitor with a young child around the age of 5 in the exhibition stood next to me while I was looking at the piece lost in thought. The adult described the exhibition space as ‘a story of some bad things that happened’ before finishing their time in the exhibition at the TV set. The adult asked the child “do you think this would be heavy to carry?” “Yes” replied the child decisively, considering the TV and image behind. In that moment I believe empathy connected – the child very briefly linked their self to that of the family pictured. Old television sets were indeed bulky, heavy, and uneven in weight – to empathise with this effort is to find a shared humanity across time. Would this moment have happened without the museum? Perhaps. Arguably not in this way though. For me therein lies how special this museum piece is – potentially to the child that day as they continue to learn about the Troubles, and to myself in unlocking the emotions I grew up within 200 miles away.