Talkback at 40: From the Troubles to peace to aliens and Donald Trump

It's 8 September 1986 - MP John Taylor is calling for unionists to return to Westminster after a boycott over the Anglo-Irish Agreement; an English evangelist is lashing out at "spineless Protestant leaders"; and former Ministry of Defence official Clive Ponting is talking about his book on leaking secret papers.

Welcome to the very first episode of BBC Radio Ulster's Talkback, the station's longest-running phone-in programme, which is celebrating its 40th birthday.

For four decades, the programme has been chronicling the latest in Northern Ireland and beyond, via conversation, panel discussion and calls from the public.

Now, as it prepares to blow out 40 candles, we take a look back at how the programme has changed from 1986 to today.

The history of Talkback is, in a way, a history of Northern Ireland's journey through the peace process.

From the programme's debut in 1986, all the major moments of the 12 years up to the Good Friday Agreement – and, of course, after it – were chronicled on the programme, with all the major figures present and correct.

Rev Ian Paisley's career took him from opposing the Good Friday Agreement to sitting as First Minister side-by-side with Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness – but that journey seemed very unlikely when he engaged in a full-blown row with then Talkback presenter Barry Cowan in 1986.

During the interview, Paisley accused Cowan and Talkback of being "grossly dishonest" after being asked a question about a news topic he hadn't been invited on to talk about.

Cowan told his guest that he was "absolutely wrong" to accuse him of "some conspiracy", describing it a "calumny".

Paisley complained: "You needn't start to shout and raise your voice for you'll get nowhere."

He then walked out of the studio.

• LISTEN: 'Dishonesty' and a 'calumny' - Rev Ian Paisley walks out of the Talkback studio after argument with Barry Cowan

In 1993, then SDLP leader John Hume spoke to Talkback about his controversial decision to start political talks with Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams.

Hume, who later won a Nobel peace prize, told the programme he wanted "to do everything in my power to bring that violence and killing to an end".

Of course, the programme was not just for politicians - the daughter of one of the Disappeared said it gave them "a voice".

Jean McConville was abducted and killed by the IRA in 1972.

Her body was found in 2003 but in December 1994 her daughter, Helen McKendry, gave her first interview about her family's ordeal.

She gave powerful testimony to what happened to her mother and her family who were left to pick up the pieces.

"A few weeks after that happened a fella brought back my mother's purse and her three rings.

"When he was asked were she was, he said he knew nothing about it, he was only told to bring the purse and the rings to the house. I sort of knew then that she wasn't coming back."

Later when Dunseith died, Helen paid tribute to him.

"David came to my home. He was the first person who listened to me speak and helped me when I needed it."

Aside from political leaders from across the island of Ireland and beyond, Talkback has had some big names call into the studio down through the years.

• LISTEN: Sinead O'Connor on Talkback in 1999 on her decision to become a priest

Irish singer and activist Sinéad O'Connor, discussing her decision to become a priest, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace prize laureate who helped end apartheid in South Africa, are some of those to spend time on Talkback's airwaves.

But perhaps the most famous of all the programme's interviewee luminaries came in the 1980s when a pre-presidential Donald Trump called in from his Trump Tower headquarters in New York.

• LISTEN: 'Everybody needs luck' - pre-presidential Donald Trump speaks to BBC Talkback in the 1980s

His advice on amassing vast wealth was imagination, stick-to-itiveness and drive.

But "everybody needs luck", he added.

"Without luck forget it. I don't care how good you are," he told Barry Cowan.

Talkback hasn't always been about the most serious topics of the day, especially when it comes to its panel discussions and callers.

There was the woman who phoned in to say she had pulled four of her own teeth after having a few lagers because she couldn't get an NHS dentist and the little boy who accused former president Bill Clinton of an alien cover up.

There have been only four permanent Talkback hosts across the programme's 40 years, starting with Barry Cowan, who was known for his "huge knowledge" of local politics and for his "penetrating intellect" and quick wit.

The mic then passed to David Dunseith. He presented the programme for 20 years and was known for conducting interviews "in a searching and robust manner, always with courtesy and good humour".

Wendy Austin then took the reins in 2009, and is often held up as the journalist who broke the glass ceiling for female broadcasters in Northern Ireland.

In November 2014, she passed the microphone on to the programme's current presenter, William Crawley.

We'll give him the final word on how he sees Talkback's shifting course over the past 40 years, and into the future.

In its earliest days, there was a sense that Talkback could be a kind of "people's parliament", and that framing mattered.

It spoke to something about democratic voice, about everyone getting a form of access to public life that had felt closed off to many.

That spirit hasn't disappeared, but the programme has had to change shape around it, because the world around it has changed.

Audio itself has been transformed by the atmosphere and technology of podcasting. It's more informal, sometimes even a little less polished than the broadcasting of the past; and I think Talkback has learned from that shift too.

There used to be much more focus on callers than there is now. That's changed, because I think a lot of listeners want to hear informed voices having a proper, structured conversation rather than a scattering of quick opinions down the phone line.

Some people still love the breakthrough caller, the one who rings in out of nowhere and shakes the whole thing up, and we want that too. But we've recalibrated: fewer callers, with more considered panels, and it seems to work.

What hasn't changed, through all of that, is the underlying mission. Talkback is a place where people feel free to talk. We need different voices and different perspectives, because without them there isn't really a conversation at all.

Our ambition may sound a bit lofty or overblown, but we want to help our audience make sense of their world in the middle of their day.

We want to do that without being too heavy or too didactic about it; but we certainly want to be a place where real encounters happen between people who see things differently.

That feels more necessary now than it ever has, because we're living through one of the most confusing chapters in human history, and in our own shared story here in Northern Ireland too.

A programme built around honest conversation has never had a more important job to do.

You can watch a special episode of Talkback on the BBC News NI website on Tuesday from 12:00 BST.