Hugo Duncan dedicates MBE honour to late mother who raised him on her own
The country music singer and BBC Radio Ulster presenter says he his proud his contribution to the entertainment industry has been recognised.
Singer and radio presenter Hugo Duncan has dedicated his New Year Honour to his late mother, who raised him as a single parent.
The popular BBC Radio Ulster star, affectionately known as “Uncle Hugo” and “the wee man from Strabane”, has been made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to entertainment and to the community in Northern Ireland.
The honour comes at the end of a year that also saw the Co Tyrone country music show host inducted into the Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) Radio Awards Hall of Fame.
Reflecting on becoming Hugo Duncan MBE, the 74-year-old spoke emotionally about how much he owes to his mother Susie, who died when he was 20, only two weeks after he married his wife, Joan.
“A one-parent family wasn’t as common as it is today, and she would have had a lot to go through in those days, and probably a lot of things said about her,” Duncan told the PA news agency.
“But she kept me, and she reared me and I’m here today and that’s one of the reasons that I want to accept this honour – it’s me saying ‘ma, we didn’t do too bad’.”
He added: “I just want to say, ‘thank you ma’.”
The presenter has been a regular fixture on Radio Ulster since 1998. He joked that after originally being offered a six-month contract, he thinks BBC bosses forgot he was still there, resulting in him remaining on air ever since.
Duncan began his long career in the entertainment industry as a singer and is still a regular performer on the island of Ireland’s country music circuit.
In 1971, his then band Hugo Duncan and the Tall Men scored a number one hit in the Irish charts with the song Dear God.
The entertainer still considers himself a “singer playing records on the radio” rather than a radio presenter.
He takes real pride that the MBE citation highlights his contribution to an industry he has always loved.
Duncan says he tries to use his daytime radio show to “give back” to the music business and help young singers who are trying to make their way.
“I can see the fight and the anguish that young people have been through trying to make it down through the years,” he said.
“Since Covid, the business hasn’t been so good, it hasn’t been the way it was years and years before that.
“So, I like to use my programme as a way of them getting heard. My programme would consist any day of 60% to 70% of local music, and by local I mean all over Ireland. Then, on a Wednesday, I give the whole day to local music and to the new Irish stuff that’s coming out too.
“I’m trying to give back any help I can to young people coming up.”
Duncan has overcome several challenges in his personal life – including a battle with alcoholism as a young man and bankruptcy years later. The daily church goer credits his strong faith for helping him through those bad times.
“There’s an old saying ‘God is good’ and it all works out in some way,” he said.
From a Catholic background, Duncan acknowledges that some people in Northern Ireland’s still divided society may take exception to him accepting the honour.
“I’m not taking this for any political reason,” he said.
“I’m taking this for the music industry and for my ma. And I know that some people will like the fact of it, and other people will not, but I’m not doing it to hurt anybody. I’m doing it for the love of music and the love of my ma, and I just want people to know that.
“And I think people that do know me, that can look outside the box and look outside the blinkers, if they do know me, they know that’s the way I am.”
He insists that the nationalist and unionist spilt that characterises many aspects of life in Northern Ireland does not exist in the local music industry, as he highlights his listeners are from “here, there and everywhere”.
“That’s the thing about entertainment,” he added.
“Some of my best friends, we weren’t brought up together, we lived in two different communities, we prayed in two different churches, but we’re joined together at the hip with music, and we’re on stage and singing together and it makes no difference, we all bleed the same blood.”
Duncan says he has no plans to step back from the stage or the radio studio, claiming his retirement will come when “they screw the lid down on my coffin”.
He added: “If I was going to put something into the coffin with me that I love it would be a microphone, because on the radio I’m on the microphone and on stage I’m on the microphone too.”
Thanking those who have supported him through his career, the singer paid tribute to his “strong minded” wife Joan and daughter Suzanne, and described his four grandchildren as the “apples of my eye”.
“Some people say I talk load a sugar every day on the radio,” he said.
“But it’s good clean sugar, and there’s no harm to anybody. I’m just a singer playing records and I love everything to do with music.”
