Writer Ewen returns to ‘The Toon’ in a USBF film on BBC Two NI
Date Posted: May 13, 2022
Home is everything to writer Ewen Glass – he’s from Ballymoney and is Ulster-Scots born and bred. How can he preserve his language and Ulster-Scots cultural identity when he’s living in England? And how can he ensure his son, Nathaniel, grows up respecting, appreciating and understanding this heritage? In a new Ulster-Scots Broadcast Fund film, The Toon – Back To Ballymoney, Ewen, now based in Lincoln, returns ‘hame’. Produced by Triplevision, the film airs on Sunday 22nd May at 10.30pm on BBC Two Northern Ireland.
Hame isn’t a nostalgic tug at the heartstrings, it’s something richer and deeper and always there – a sense of belonging. This film is a contemporary look at the Ulster-Scots language and its application to Ewen’s life as a writer and as a father of a young son, Nathaniel.
Though his son was born in England and has spent the first three years of his life there, Ewen wants to help him make his own connection to hame, and to the sense of identity that matters so much to his father. Ewen believes that this culture and language is a gift, one that he needs to pass on to the next generation. He looks forward to a time – hopefully in the not-too-distant future – when Nathaniel may also come to recognise and appreciate his own connection to ‘the Toon’.
To help him work out ways to make the Ulster-Scots language accessible for Nathaniel, Ewen meets a number of people and picks up some tips about how he might play a part in future-proofing the language through the things that endure and that he can actually influence – literature and his own writing.
The Toon – Back To Ballymoney airs on Sunday 22nd May at 10.30pm on BBC Two Northern Ireland.
