Bernard Hill, Yosser Hughes and how the 1980s haunt me even now

Bernard Hill’s classic performance of Yosser Hughes in the classic Boys from the Blackstuff was a little bit before my time in 1981 (I was 9 I seem to recall) – I remember my father banning us from watching us even after some of the other children in School watched it with their parents and went on about the morning after.

“No, you are not watching it, it is too adult for you” I remember him saying to me clearly and promptly packing me and my sister off to bed despite both of us protesting why couldn't we see it (everybody else was watching it). 

It was about ten years later, that we found the reason why he was uncomfortable about us watching it was simply he thought the themes in it were too adult and gritty for us so I ended up watching it a good few years later at university and of course it had dated… the programme was close to twenty years for god’s sake, but the acting and the script were top notch of course in particular from Bernard Hill of course in Yosser’s story.

Although I’ve seen Bernard Hill in so much other great stuff, he was even great in Titanic (the James Cameron film which is one of my least favourite films of all time), it is always Yosser Hughes that always sticks in my head upon hearing about his death, reading the script first of all at University before watching it on Video at University and the script hasn’t dated at all, in fact, you could argue in a country that has arguably sunk back to its worst levels of living (cost of living crisis) since the 1980s, the classic line of ‘gizza a job’ is funny, tragically funny but carries a punch over forty years later.

Alan Bleasdale who wrote Boys from the Black Stuff I've seen quoted before as saying Hill as Yosser Hughes was “everything you could wish for”.

Watching it back now, I can see the sadness on the character’s face throughout the full series which looking back now was too close to the truth I suspect for my own Dad who was working at GEC in the middle of his battle to avoid unemployment (which he failed at much to his best attempts to avoid) and probably wanted us not to see for the simple fact it was likely just too close to the truth.

I’m going to watch it again in tribute to Bernard Hill and will see my own weakness in struggling to hold onto work in simply a horrible time like Hill and haunt me for days but make me realise how much heart was in this character.

Something I think we could all learn from even today with everything that is going wrong around us in this country. 

In memory – Bernard Hill 17 December 1944 – 5 May 2024.