IT’S not every day you find the Duchess of York playing pool in a Manchester social club. Or shocked by a gun attack on one of her projects.
“Young people go out with their mobile telephones and their knives now. I’ve noticed a lot more violence, I’ve noticed bad language,” she reflects.
“Literally, you can’t get some young people to do joined up writing, let alone joined up sentences,” adds Prince Andrew’s ex-wife.
Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, made several visits to Northern Moor this year for a two-part ITV1 documentary called
The Duchess On The Estate.
In the first week she swapped her luxurious Manhattan apartment for a basic bed and breakfast on the edge of the council estate, subsequently returning several times to complete her films.
Her first tour of the area sees her meeting youths hanging around on the streets. “On a dusky night walking through the park, I think that I wouldn’t walk their way. Very intimidating.”
Walking back across the estate to the B&B at night, she adds: “It really is very sinister – because these young people are frightened themselves and they are dangerous, because they don’t know what to do. And these guys come out with their mobiles and knives as an accessory.”
The Duchess views footage of Northern Moor posted on the internet, featuring youths in a car, with one youngster holding a gun. “That chap with the gun there, it’s terrifying,” she comments. “That looks like a movie. What are they doing?
“I’m absolutely staggered by what you’ve shown me. I knew it was bad but I didn’t realise they are proud of their disgraceful behaviour.”
A previous television project – The Duchess In Hull – saw her spread her anti-obesity message to change the life of a local family.
But the Manchester mission has a far wider aim, as she discovers at first hand the problems of crime, drugs and a lack of community spirit – what the programme makers describe as “broken Britain”.
The Duchess, 49, reasons: “You can’t possibly help people if you don’t know what it’s like. You’ve got to know the area and you’ve got to feel it and you’ve got to live the life to really then want to champion it. I wouldn’t want my children to be frightened to go outside.”
Local resident Steven Fielding claims: “All these people around, they’re committing crime after crime after crime and they’re still allowed back on the streets.
“Show me one area in south Manchester with community spirit – there’s none. Even your next door neighbours, nobody talks to you anymore. Everybody’s petrified.”
Fellow resident Marlene Entwhistle adds: “We’ve had people that have been stabbed, people that have been assaulted, robbed. It’s gone on for years.”
Dawn McGeown, 42, has lived on the estate, near Wythenshawe, her entire life. Tired of what is happening there, she has signed up to help improve the local area. Dawn knows a well known person is coming to tackle the problems but doesn’t know it’s the Duchess.
Mother-of-three Dawn is pleased to see “Fergie” and shows her the estate, including closed and empty shops. “Do you know what?” ventures the new arrival, “It’s tragically sad. It’s got an air of misery.”
The first film – to be screened a week today – features the Duchess heading to The Cringlewood Social Club to find out why there’s such apathy on the estate. One in five men in the area are unemployed.
Eamonn has lived locally for 10 years and tells her: “I got laid off from work last week…something needs to be done because it’s not getting any better and government after government are just leaving it and it’s getting worse and worse – eventually we’ll end up like America, won’t we?
“There was a bloke who walked out of here apparently last Friday and got mugged by a young kid – he hit him with a baseball bat or something and tried to get his wallet off him…but that’s what’s happening, that’s what it is.”
Inspiration comes from a visit to Julie Bascombe, a Blackpool resident who turned her community around by setting up a youth centre called Dreamscheme.
Bringing together the mothers of Northern Moor, the Duchess helps transform a council owned building on Sale Road into a community centre. But not before a scare interruped work.
“A man disapproved of the centre, so he got a gun out one night and shot the windows out,” she told today’s issue of Radio Times. “We weren’t there at the time, but it only made me more determined than ever to finish it.”
The incident, which is highlighted in the second film, resulted in the police closing down the project for a week while they investigated, although no arrests were made.
Dawn says on camera: “We’ve got a crazy lunatic out there with a gun with a vendetta against the building. I’m absolutely gutted that we’ve got this far for some idiot to come along and threaten everybody. All that work.”
Officers left it up to the volunteers to decide whether they felt it was safe enough to continue, which they did. The centre has now secured funding for the next three years and is set to become a model for similar community enterprises in other areas.
Dawn was one of the key volunteers but faced a problem. Five years ago, her son said he was being bullied at his old school where she worked as a dinner lady.
The bullying went on for over a year and led to Dawn being convicted of assault on the boy’s mother.
But the Duchess thought Dawn deserved a second chance and offered her a job on her own payroll. “Like her, I’ve made mistakes. I wanted to give her another chance.
“I inspire people to get on and do things by rallying the troops. I’m an enabler. What saved people after the Blitz was a cup of tea and a biscuit. It was the community centres and village halls where you could go and talk and someone would listen to you.
“If we communicated more, there would be fewer problems. So I want to set up community centres to bridge the gap between young and old, and Northern Moor housing estate was my blueprint.”
She added: “I recruited a mums’ army to find an old building to transform into a community centre. And I found Dawn, this wonderful, strong, special woman who knew everyone, and made her my colonel-in-chief.”
Asked if she was concerned that she would be accused of being patronising, the Duchess told the magazine: “Of course. I’m accused of everything right, left and centre. Patronising would be sitting in London, telling Dawn what to do. The bottom line is that if Dawn says she needs £40,000 for the centre, I go and raise it. That’s my job.”
She added: “I prefer it when people don’t recognise me. The hoodies I spoke to thought I was a toffee-nosed git and were effing and blinding. But that’s fine. I wanted them to realise that not everybody is automatically going to think they are bad.
“I’m sometimes completely bizarre with my behaviour. Most people don’t go hoodie hunting late at night on Northern Moor.”
Last year Sarah also filmed a Tonight special for ITV1, travelling to Romania and Turkey with daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie. Together with an undercover reporting team, they exposed shocking conditions inside state run institutions for orphans and disabled children.
Asked what her daughters thought of the Manchester films, she replied: “They’re very proud of everything I do. So is Prince Andrew. I don’t do anything without the blessing of my family. My daughters are also my friends. But then, I am their mother and sometimes say, ‘Do as you are told.’”
The Duchess On The Estate begins on ITV1 at 9pm next Tuesday. (Aug 18)
Read Ian Wylie's TV Blog The Life Of Wylie
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Showing comments 1 to 15 and replies | View All
Angelene19, Manchester (11/08/2009 at 08:45)
EricH, Horwich (11/08/2009 at 09:52)
She's just a posher version of Hazel Blears.
Thomas The Tank, Rusholme (11/08/2009 at 10:07)
Mark, South Manchester (11/08/2009 at 10:16)
Isn't it time our monarchy & aristocracy fawning media (ITV & BBC etc), started questioning those at the "top" for this country's inherent social problems, instead of all always condemning/decrying & "sneering at" at the poor??
jaxx , salford (11/08/2009 at 11:07)
Im sick to death of all these "celebs" earning their crust portraying in their words the "ills and plight of the disadvantaged"....most of these programmmes imply that we, the ordinary woking class are hard up, poverty stricken, illiterates that need pulling up by our bootstraps...
I fail to understand who the target audience is when the majority of UK live in these same circumstances.
jordy, Middleton (11/08/2009 at 12:05)
Billy the Fish! (11/08/2009 at 12:19)
She has done this program to promote her own profile and make a program that’s a reality version of 'Shameless' for others entertainment! She has no intention of doing anything to sort out the problems that plague our estates or work with the local people to improve things.
Try doing some real voluntary work Fergie, try working with kids who have issues, victims of crime, the homeless, the elderly or the infirm. Oh no, there’s no TV mileage in that is there?
keyjockey, Manchester (11/08/2009 at 13:19)
CommonSense, Manchester (11/08/2009 at 13:41)
Brock, Hulme (11/08/2009 at 13:47)
kimjessnella, northern moor (12/08/2009 at 10:39)
Scott Smith (13/08/2009 at 13:49)
In a way, the comments made by Sarah Ferguson have made me afraid, afraid that Manchester will once again be labelled as a greasy den of thieves and yobs. There is no doubt that there is crime in Northern Moor but you show me a community in England or indeed the world that doesn’t have its share. I think it’s starting to become part of the North’s subconscious, for so long we have been bombarded with how grim it is up here, I actually think some people are beginning to internalising it. We are all too willing to believe the worse about our communities without any tangible evidence, another through back to the North’s social inferiority complex. Now first off I don’t believe this is anything to do with Sarah Ferguson, I believe she honestly, if naively believes that Northern Moor is a crime riddled area, after all how would she know any better? This is the work of some boffins at ITV, probably the same type of boffins that thought it would be a good idea for that hip young swinger, David Camoron (sorry I meant Cameron...nah I didn’t) visit Wythenshawe. Unlike David Cameron, Fergie seems to genuinely help rather than trying score rather cheap and unconvincing cool points with the public. This however adds to the creditability of the opinions brought forth in the documentary, with Fergie there opinion becomes fact in many people’s eyes.
Originally, my family is from Miles Platting, we lived on the long since demolished Colony estate. As a young child, I have seen firsthand the horrific face of urban crime. Watched as my mother and father would have to pick make sure the street outside our house was needle free and safe for us to play. I lived in Northern Moor for seventeen years, Northern Moor is a friendly estate and anyone who has visited the area would know this (well anyone who wasn’t shepherded around by an entourage of bodyguards that is). Don’t be a simple minded Chicken Littles and believe everything the magic telly box tells you! Remember the prime directive of any programme is to reel in viewers and produce revenue, not to help communities or even to portray reality.
Darren Guy (14/08/2009 at 16:14)
I am furious with the program makers , media and advertising surrounding this project.
If someone wants to raise funds for projects that enhance the community then great, but to raise the profile via blackening the name of an entire estate is outrageous.
Northern Moor is by far one fo the best parts of wythenshaw, it has leafy streets, a mixture of council & private homes, a good range of shops and utilities, yes it has a rough part but is very small compared to the overall estate. the majority of residents are hard working, law abiding citizens.
As for hoodies, dont all teenagers now get labelled as hoodies, does it mean they are all bad, this is not broken britain this is a reality tv version of broken britain trying hard to focus on the worst they could find in what is widely known as one of the better areas of wythenshaw.
As for boarded up shops and properties, they must have looked hard to find a boarded up property as waiting lists for northern moor are extensive. arent britains high streets full of boarded retaillers, large names that have gone out of business, some of these little shop units are used as storage for neighbouring stores (programme makers check your facts)
The local housing trust have nearly completed a vast program under the decent homes initiative whereby they have fitted double glazing, kitchens and bathrooms to nearly all council properties in Northern Moor.
Yes it has its percentage of scallys with dogs and teenagers who hang around aimlessley but isnt that more about todays society......I would say 80% of Northern Moor residents and property owners along with business owners will be outraged by these claims.
Mykiel, Madison Connecticut CT 06443 USA (19/08/2009 at 17:44)
This programme was nothing more than a Publicity Stunt for the benefit of the TV producers and Fergie and as other people have opinioned, the tv producers want exploit "Shameless", maybe it is a ploy to get people to watch the programme, as advertising revenues and viewers are getting scarce, as they do not want to watch so called Unreality programmes.
I would love to produce a Real Truthful programme showing the real Wythenshawe and the people who live in it's surrounding areas. I live and work in the area and the people portrayed are just a minority and you get them in all the areas of any large city. Go and see around Victoria area in London, round the corner from Buckingham Palace and se what goes on there. Why doe'nt Fergie go and see and comment about the area some of her family lives in.!!
Sarah Weber (24/08/2009 at 01:12)
to get figures up. This is the stuff which scares my old grandad who lives in didsbury
and makes him restless when i come for a visit and want to go out in the evening.
By the way i was on a festival in uhhh dangerous Moss side and there were only nice people having fun and enjoying themselves exept the group of youngsters next to me who werent able to watch as the police decided to chase after them. (They where just standing watching and showing off a little like they always do not disturbing anyone actually but there always a target no matter what)