Women in Focus: 50 years since Vale of Leven women brought everyday life to screen

It’s been 50 years since a pioneering cable television channel launched to broadcast community-made programmes across the Vale of Leven.

People living in the Vale were some of the first in Scotland to receive cable television, due to the region suffered from notoriously poor over-the-air television reception.

A new film has been created by volunteers at charity Clydeside Creative, which tells the story of local women who used the new medium to raise awareness of issues affecting them.

Launching in 1976, Women in Focus was an audacious series of films, some serious, others satirical.

Women shared their stories in a series of films made for Vale TV project STV News

As a young trade unionist, Vhairi McGowan was involved with Vale TV and Women In Focus, the making and distribution of six films by women, about women.

“Discussions among myself and peers at the time, when are you going to get married and have a family? Or when are you going to have a career? But you couldn’t have both, there were real stark choices for women.

“A lot of women came out of school and went into the factories but wtih the rise otf Thatcherism, all this has gone.

“This was an opportunity to make visible women’s lives at that time.”

Locals watch films at a community screening STV News

They were part of an ambitious community experiment which began in 1976.

Thousands of households in the Vale of Leven had access to cable TV. Through government funding, residents received resources and a platform, putting programming in their hands as part of an ambitious community experiment.

Of the nearly 100 programmes broadcast on Vale TV, three Women in Focus films are the only surviving tapes.

Vhairi said: “There was always a really good community spirit in the Vale. It was a politically active area for a long time. There was also so much involved – programmes about local choirs, gardening programmes, about everything.”

A short documentary about Vale TV and some of the women who pioneered community television was screened in Alexandria, attended by locals.

Filmmaker Alicia Rodgers said: “What made it unique was the fact we had cable TV long before cable TV was ever a thing.

“Women that didn’t have any experience in filming or doing anything like this had come together and made these films that were so raw and appealing and just so radical.”

While the lives of women in Scotland today are significantly improved in comparison to the 70s, Vhairi says it’s an uphill battle.

“Some things are the same, and some things have changed,” she said. “We live in different times, but there’s still a lot to do.”