“Working on the site from morning ’till night
That’s livin’ alright
That’s livin’ alright.”
Auf Wiedersehen theme tune.
Introduction
Cast your minds back to 1983. It was a year when unemployment stood at three million and political apathy was at an all-time high. The working class raged against the Thatcher government, whose policies ignored the many and favoured the few. Creating a political wilderness where hopes and dreams were destroyed, and the dole queue became a stark reality. When you remember these times, you can hear the memorable phrase from the 1982 BBC drama Boys from the Black Stuff, uttered by Yosser Hughes: “Gis a job”. A phrase that rang cold with utter desperation and a sense of abandonment.
Yet old of this black fog came a drama that gave the viewer hope and plenty of laughs. Auf Wiedersehen Pet is an ITV series that centred around a group of building site workers who took the plunge and upped sticks and went to Germany to make a few quid on a building site in Düsseldorf. Who can forget the antics of Oz, Dennis, Bomber, Wayne, Neville, Barry and Moxey, accompanied by the title theme tune, That’s Livin’ Alright, sung by Joe Fagin? This was a Geordie-driven group of men who loved to graft, get their hands dirty and put the world to rights over a few beers in their Nissan hut bar. Sleeping on rickety beds with walls adorned with pictures of topless models, this wasn’t the life for the faint-hearted. You were given a crash course in the Geordie language and shown when someone offended you, they often or not would get a headbutt or punch from Oz and come out worse for wear.
A Touch of the North
“You know why I left this country in the first place, don’t you, eh? I’ll tell you. In a word, Margaret bloody Thatcher, that’s why. Because I’d had it, I was up to there with what she’d created. Bloody wasteland. Desolate. Nae joy, nae hope, nae nowt. When kids get to 21 and have never done a day’s work in their life, honest men have to go out thieving to feed their families. Young bairns can buy heroin in the bike sheds at school. Oh, dear. But I thought, “Nah, nah, nah. It’s got to be getting better. It cannae be as bad as what it was, can it?” I was willing to give you lot the benefit of the doubt on this one, you know. But no, no, no. What happens? What happens is I’ve been back on my native soil for fourteen minutes, and I’m subjected to this act of fascist intimidation! Cos that’s what it is, you know! That’s what it is, and I’ll be writing to my MP about this!”.
Brilliantly devised by Franc Roddam and written mainly by the Porridge writers Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement, they both had trouble selling it to the television executive. Those in the ivory tower questioned the absence of any women in the scripts. To which they replied that there were plenty of German strippers. Still dubious, the executives gave the show the green light, and it first aired in November 1983. Viewers instantly warmed to this endearing love between friends who would go to hell and back for each other. They bickered but never fell out for long, and Barry’s wisdom would always pull them out of difficulty. A bunch of mainly northerners who always saw the funny side of life despite all the bluff and bravado. Despite having a skinful the night before, they were always ready for another day of toil on the building site.
Quickly becoming a hit, the programme attracted viewing figures of 14 million and was ahead of its time. Nicknamed “the lump” because they didn’t pay any tax, it was estimated that there were 30,000 such workers in Germany at the time. Choosing an uncertain path in life, these construction workers left their wives, girlfriends and burns at home, creating a massive hit of homesickness. The male population was almost wiped out in many North England areas. They refused to accept the concept of signing on and went instead to work with many nationalities. Greeks and Turks, to name but a few. It was like a war movie where everyone had a plan to escape but remained due to the paper-wage packet at the end of the week. As a ten-year-old at the time, this was my guilty pleasure viewing. As punchy as Spitting Image, crude, manly and poignant, as well as being extremely funny.
Many feared the series wouldn’t return after the sad death of Caroline Hutchinson, who played Dennis’s wife Vera, and Gary Holton, who played Wayne. Even the cast members were resigned to thinking it wouldn’t happen. Gary died in his sleep after choking in 1985, and Caroline after developing meningitis during treatment for cancer in 1988. Both adopted family members whose passing caused a veil of grief to fall on the cast. Despite all odds, they ploughed on, and the second series was shown in 1986, filmed in the UK and Spain.
This show propelled all those involved to more incredible things: Jimmy Nail, Kevin Whately and Tim Healy. Although slightly dated now, I still enjoy watching the repeats on ITV4. So good was this show that the gang came back to our screens, firstly in 2002 for a six-part series in Lake Powell, Arizona and then another six-parter in Cuba in 2004. They finished with a two-parter in Chiang Mai and Bangkok in 2004. Sadly, Pat Roach couldn’t appear as Bomber as he had cancer. It is an iconic show that sums up the spirit of the North and Newcastle. Forty years old but still going strong with a show with some of the original cast members at Newcastle City Hall in May 2024.
