One of the most influential New Wave Of British Heavy Metal bands are heading out on a UK tour this March, but first, earlier this year there was the small matter of Raven being inducted into the Metal Hall of Fame alongside Twisted Sister and Foreigner vocalist and solo artist Lou Gramm.
Held at The Canyon Club in California on 26 January, this was the sixth annual gala, previous inductees include Dio, Lemmy and Judas Priest.
The award is for musicians and bands who have made an invaluable contribution to rock and metal and to keep inspiring fans throughout the world. I asked bassist and Chief Raven John Gallagher, how did it come about?
Bribery and corruption (laughs). It was nice to be recognized and was a really great event where we played a three song set – almost broke a sweat!
Did you ever think you would be in this position, a tour celebrating 40 years of an album ?
Of course not! That kind of long view, you just don’t have that when you start. It just kinda crept up on us over the years. It’s quite a milestone and we are very proud of it. That and good old Geordie stubbornness!
In the set are you playing the full track listing on All for One and have you played all the songs live before?
Yes indeed! There’s actually two songs from the album we’ve never played live before, so that’s going to be fun for sure and another two that Mikes never played.
Have you noticed any new faces at your concerts?
Oh definitely, there’s quite often three generations of fans at our shows – which is really great.
For a full list of tour dates & tickets, album releases, video, merch & more check the official website :
in conversation with ex Greedsville songwriter & guitarist Clive Jackson.
Clive is a singer/songwriter who released two solo albums, Life Off Line (2015) and Rocket Science in (2019). He is currently working on a new album for release this year.
A veteran of rock bands who were part of the Newcastle music scene in the 1990’s, he was a member of Greedsville who released an album in 1994.
Clive Jackson.
The main thing that motivated me to get a guitar and become a songwriter was when John Lennon died in 1980, they played tons of Beatles songs on T.V and Radio. I was already aware of a lot of it, but when I heard A Day in The Life on ITN news, I was hooked.
I joined various bands in the 80s, one being Twelve Angry Penguins – it was the era of daft band names! Then I was guitarist in a band called Dark Roads, and in 1991 we recorded a demo at Linx Studio with Mond Cowie (ex Angelic Upstarts) engineering. I was really pleased with my vocals, song writing and guitar work on that but unfortunately within six weeks everyone left Newcastle!
The drummer went to be a policeman in Leeds, the other guitarist went to live with his girlfriend in Wakefield and the bassist moved to Scotland to manage a hotel. In the midst of all that I got a phone call from Andy Carpenter who was bassist in Greedsville.
We sort of knew each other because we rehearsed in the same place, the 244 Rock club on Westgate Road here in Newcastle. There was a car repair shop in the back and in front was an old navy club, it was a very underground set up.
I handed Andy the Dark Roads demo and he asked me to join Greedsville as a song writer, that worked out and I became rhythm guitarist. Other bands on the scene were XLR8R, Strange Thing, 2000 and Roswell.
Greedsville promo pic.
We gigged a lot and played in Newcastle, Hull and Leeds, we went down to London Marquee seven times. I had a full-time job in the Civil Service so ended up using all my annual leave when we had to travel to gigs in London. We couldn’t knock back gigs in the capital.
Sometimes I had to arrange a half day here, and a full day there. For one London gig work wouldn’t give me a half day. I pleaded with them as we had reviewers from Kerrang and NME coming along, it was important, one gig could make all the difference.
So, I decided to get the train from Newcastle to Kings Cross, legged it to the Marquee, did the gig, ran off stage, missed the last train so jumped on the all-night bus from Victoria – still sweating and stinking with my stage clothes on. It was a long night as the bus stopped off everywhere.
Finally got home, showered, then made it to work just in time. But I was knackered, more of this wasn’t doing my health any good.
Greedsville live at London’s Marquee.
Around the early 90s we met a London guy called Sean Worrall who reviewed our demo, he ran a fanzine called The Organ and was connected to record companies. He would promote showcase gigs at the Marquee or Camden Monarch where A&R guys would turn up. Sean set up one for us.
There was Geffen records, EMI and MCA hanging at the back of the hall. It wasn’t like a gig more like a jury with them not clapping. Sadly, nothing came of it.
Then London Records saw us play in The Broken Doll, Newcastle and paid for a 4-track demo which we recorded in Hi Level studio. They asked us to ‘grunge’ the sound up.
Then we recorded a rough demo on a four track recorder in the Greedsville rehearsal room. Sean took it to MCA and the first song on it, one I’d written, was more like what they were looking for.
But the rest of the band didn’t want to go in that direction. At the time we were being compared to REM and Roxy Music – quite a wide spectrum.
The Greedsville manager was Sue Wilkinson, who has just retired from the BBC. In the 90s she was running Generator here in the North East, she got us loads of publicity, articles and reviews in the press, plus radio and TV slots on local and national TV.
She got us on Tyne Tees, you can watch it on You Tube, Greedsville – Local ITV News, UK (Tyne Tees Television) 21st June 1993. That’s footage from a showcase gig at Newcastle’s Riverside. Ian Penman (Ravendale, music journalist) is also on who was a really nice guy and supportive of the North East music scene. Sadly, he passed away not long ago.
One time we were on the bill at Camden Monarch with Skunk Anansie. There was a chalk board outside the venue with the bands names on – they were billed as Skunk and Nancy and we were Green Sleeves!
I was staring at the board when their singer Skin, she is beautiful by the way, came up to me and asked if I was in Green Sleeves. I said ‘it’s Greedsville’ we were both laughing at the mistakes. They got a record deal. We didn’t.
Our guy in London, Sean Worrall backed off in the end because he explained to us that he’d met the record companies, they’d sent A&R men, heard the demos, he felt that he’d done all he could. It was an amicable parting, no hard feelings he’d just run out of road for us.
There was still a lot of Newcastle connections around that time, like Kev Ridley, engineer at Linx Studio. There was a band I knew called For Gods Sake with guitarist Steve Wallace, there was Steve Charley the Canadian, he was studio engineer for a while. There were connections to the Music for Nations label with Venom and Skyclad.
Then Greedsville signed to North East independent record label Bleeding Hearts run by Eric Cook and Tony Bray, Eric was manager of Venom and Tony was the drummer.
What happened was Sue Wilkinson got a call from Eric Cook asking would Greedsville be interested in a deal? ‘Great’ we all said. At the time we were recording in Trinity Heights studio run by Fred Purser (ex Penetration and Tygers of Pan Tang).
The singer Pete Turner was involved in all the conversations between Eric Cook and Sue Wilkinson, and the rest of the band, including myself, were all present at meetings when major decisions were made. The contract was for distribution in Europe and Asia, we had it checked out and it was ok. We signed on the dotted line around 1994.
We had originally planned to record an EP with four songs but with the deal happening it turned into an album. We recorded in three studios – Linx, Trinity Heights and a place in Chester le Street with Frankie Gibbon. It was all mixed and mastered at Fred’s Trinity studio.
Eventually we released The Casino Royale Collection. We made 10,000 copies and it was on sale in shops like Our Price and Virgin stores.
Greedsville album released in 1994.
We were due to play in Middlesbrough, then onto the Heineken Music Festival in Gateshead Stadium. But a few weeks before that we played in London and on the way back in the van our drummer Doug Hayes said he was leaving.
So, we quickly had to get someone else in, that was Graham Hattam. We were really up against it, but Graham learned quick in a small time frame and the Heineken gig went well. The Stranglers and Jools Holland big band were also on, it was a great time and Sue got us lots of press.
But we started to lose momentum, Britpop had taken over, the band were falling apart. In 1996 it was all over for Greedsville.
Looking back the 90s had loads of different bands playing folk, blues, metal, psychedelia, it wasn’t just one genre. That’s one of the many reasons I think the A&R thing didn’t really happen here.
In one night, they would see a band dressed like they were in a pantomime, others playing Frank Zappa, and in the next pub there would be a full on metal band playing. There just wasn’t a load of bands playing one type of music where they could watch and give a definite yes or no, or maybe sign a band to a development deal.
Back then we sold around 5-6,000 albums but never received a penny. The Greedsville album is still on sale now through outlets like Amazon. If people are getting something out of listening to the songs that’s great – but did I make a living out of the music business? Absolutely not.
In the digital age copyright goes out the window. I do get royalty cheques now and then from my latest solo albums, the last was from Spotify for around $400.
There’s lots more to add to the Clive Jackson story, and that will be added to the blog later, but for more information check the official website:
Held on Saturday November 26th by North East playwright & theatre producer Ed Waugh (Dirty Dusting, Hadaway Harry, Sunday for Sammy), the event in Bewick Hall will be a celebration of fantastic stories about working class heroes from Tyneside.
“I’m really excited about this. It’ll rock. There’ll be Geordie songs, stories, and a video link – it’ll be great crack” said Ed
The Harry Clasper, David & Glenn McCrory and The Great Joe Wilson stories were successful stage plays in their own right, now the scripts have been compiled together and released into one book – Geordie Plays.
Harry Clasper’s story follows his journey from working class pitman in Jarrow to rowing Champion of the World.
North East singer and song writer Joe Wilson chronicled working class life in song including the Geordie classic Keep Yor Feet Still Geordie Hinny.
“North East actor Jamie Brown who starred in both plays Hadaway Harry and the Great Joe Wilson will be singing some Geordie songs at the event”.
“We have the top journalist and sportswriter John Gibson coming along, he will regale us with stories about Glenn McCrory’s rise to boxing world champion stardom and the inspiration he got from his severely disabled brother David”.
“We’ll also have a video link to the three plays’ director Russell Floyd” explained Ed.
Some may know of Russell from his time acting in UK theatres and TV shows including Eastenders and The Bill.
“There’s also a special 5-minute video by Canadian, Kas Wilson, talking about what it means to be Joe Wilson’s great-grand-daughter”.
“I would like to give my thanks for continued support to all audiences, supporters, organisers – everyone involved in making this happen”.
The launch is on Saturday, November 26th 6pm, Bewick Hall, Newcastle City Library.
I’ve always loved singing, acting, performing – just something I’ve always done. I’ve been doing this since I was 4.
Nobody in my family sings or entertains, so you know bit of a freak really, the family think I’m a total exhibitionist – I just liked showing off (laughs).
GYPSY SPIRIT
If I go further back my ancestry is German and Romany and in our family my Great Grandfather was the last of the travelling gypsies, he settled into a house and family when he met my Great Grandmother.
A family name was the German, Fischer, they weren’t popular due to the war so the name spelling was changed by dropping the ‘c’. Maybe there was a German Gypsy treading the boards (laughs).
The whole process of theatre making for me is exciting, I don’t want to lie, it is challenging at times and some days I think is this the day I’m gonna throw the towel in. I’ve definitely got a bit of a strong spirit in me to keep going because hearing the word ‘no’ is not what I want to hear. If there is an obstacle in the way I’ll find a way round it.
NEVER LOST FOR WORDS
When an idea comes it niggles in the back of my head, then I sleep on it, it works its way to the front of my brain so in the morning it reveals itself and I think about how to develop the idea.
Some writers say it’s a lonely time but when I’m writing I’m with all of the characters, I’ve worked out who they are and then they talk to me. Fictional characters just exist in my head where they are acting out their daily lives.
The whole rehearsal period can be frustrating but it’s good to hear your words brought to life. In rehearsals it’s mainly all there on script but sometimes I come in with a killer line. I add in a line if I’ve heard someone say it during the day or how some words sound – I’ll remember that and use it.
On the first night in front of an audience it’s good feeling to see the initial idea from conception being brought to fruition.
BACK ON BOARD
I’m really keen on theatre being accessible to everybody so we can put a show on anywhere. Northern Stage have been supportive of my writing so I’ve had nights there, the Phoenix, The Arc in Stockton, Queens Hall in Hexham, I like mainstream theatres but I also like to take it to intimate audiences.
I’ve had three of my plays in Edinburgh, but beforehand I like to try them out to smaller audiences before they are unleashed on the scathing critics of Edinburgh Fringe. Getting any support is good because its hard getting your shows in any theatre because of the Covid backlog, so The Newcastle Cluny are preparing to show Sex is Hard Work from 28th June.
SEX IS HARD WORK
The show is based on a prostitute from South Shields who started work on the sex phone lines then ended up as an escort. When I first started rehearsing and writing the play I though I was a woman of the world, now I know I’m next to Mother Theresa (laughs).
The play isn’t just titillation or a biography of her life it’s mainstream entertainment. I’ve took the character and added more depth. There is the part of life as a sex worker paired with being a carer for her father who’s had a stroke.
You know a lot of women are in the sex industry because of varying circumstances like debt, drugs and being coerced into it, or like the woman I spoke to just not fancying a 9 to 5 job and wanting to make lots of money. It may not be everybody’s career choice – but that’s hers.
I like to challenge the audiences pre-conceived notions about a subject, and after the play they have taken a battering.
Sex is Hard Work plays six nights in The Cluny, Newcastle with the last night being a Thank You to NHS with some of their staff coming. We’ll see how the show is received then hopefully next year tour it and take it to Edinburgh Fringe.
‘Sex is Hard Work’ plays six nights from 28 June 2021. Advance tickets £10. Doors open 6pm.
‘Research has found that women make up a very small percentage of artists, songwriters and producers. I want to address this imbalance.
This project is designed to support more women into the music industry by providing them with the opportunity to develop music production skills’
saidLisa Murphy, Studio Manager for Blast Recording Studios and Production Room in Newcastle.
A six month project for aspiring female music producers to further their career in the music industry is starting in November.
The application closing date for this exciting new opportunity in Newcastle is Sunday 25th October, so get in touch now.
Lisa added ‘Working as a female music producer in professional recording studios in the North East, I want to share my skills, experience and contacts to open the door to more women working as music producers.
The course will include working on projects in professional recording studios, masterclasses from professional music producers and individual time in the studio to complete your projects’.
What do you hope the course will achieve ?
‘The aim is to enable four emerging female music producers to develop skills, knowledge and contacts in order to further their career.
This will be achieved through weekly sessions with myself and other relevant guest speakers, hands on learning in a studio environment, and individual time for each participant in the studio on a weekly basis for them to practice their skills and produce work for their portfolio.
Also built into this programme will be a number of projects developed by myself to give the participants access to other studios, recording session musicians and selected bands in a larger setting with different equipment’.
What is the aim of the project ?
‘The overall aim is to enable the participants to gain their first important steps into a career in music production, an industry that is heavily influenced by a producer’s portfolio of prior work and contacts.
The use of teachers and music producers such as myself and other selected professionals – local songwriters, sound engineers and musicians – female, whenever possible, will support this aim, demonstrating that there is a place for women in the music industry – specifically in technical roles in which they are currently under-represented’.
Check the website for full details and how to apply:
On Tyneside during the ‘70s and ‘80s rock music was heard from Sunderland to South Shields, bounced over the river Tyne to Whitley Bay and Wallsend – the vibrations were felt in Newcastle. A North East New Wave of British Heavy Metal was coming in.
Riding the wave were Fist, Hellanbach, Mythra, Tygers of Pan Tang and Venom pushing metal to its limits and discovering a new energy. Another of those bands was Raven.
Now based Stateside, but originally formed in Newcastle in 1974, early gigs saw the trio cutting their teeth on North East live circuit of working mens clubs.
Headline gigs at Newcastle Mayfair and Dingwalls gained the band a solid live reputation. The gates were opened, and the band went onto UK support slots with Iron Maiden, Ozzy and Whitesnake.
By the early ‘80s two albums ‘Rock Until You Drop’ and ‘Wiped Out’ were recorded in Wallsend’s Impulse Studio on the Tyneside label, Neat Records. Then a call came in from America.
Raven were at the forefront of speed metal spawning the big four beasts from the United States – Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax and dragging Metallica out on their first, and scorching, tour across the USA.
We know where they ended up. These were life changing moments. Raven knew their future was Stateside and subsequently signed to Megaforce and then major label, Atlantic.
Fast forward 40 plus years and the band are still hitting it hard with new single ‘Metal City’ from their forthcoming album. The music video was filmed on Tyneside capturing iconic structures like the Angel of the North, Tyne Bridge and even St James’ Park home of Newcastle United.
I asked bassist and vocalist John Gallagher did filming stir up any memories when you were at the locations ?
It definitely stirred up some memories especially with one part of the shoot. We were driving to one of the locations when I mentioned “I grew up down that street there” and our video guy Paul said “Then let’s check it out!”
So, the footage with me playing the bass is in the backlane in Benwell where we played football as kids.
After ‘Top of the Mountain’ this is the second track released and both are very strong opening singles, I asked John are the band putting down a marker for what the listeners can expect from the rest of the album ?
Very much so. Top was the perfect choice as the first song as it sounds like one of our early songs dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century!! And Metal City is not only the title track but it’s a real anthem type song.
Yep, added to trademark Gallagher scream, check out the geet big chorus!
The rest of the album runs the gamut from crazy fast songs like The Power, and a tribute to Lemmy in Motorheadin’. Added to super aggressive tracks like Human Race and Break plus a bit of an epic in When Worlds Collide.
So, there’s variety, and all heavy with ‘all killer, no filler’.
How do you look at this album compared to previous releases ?
This one is a belta! We actually think this album is the best thing we’ve ever done, for a band that’s been around the block as long as we have that’s really a case of laying down the gauntlet to many of the other bands of our era who are putting out ‘ok’ albums.
The band have just released new European tour dates, when was your last gig pre – covid ?
Our last shows were on the Monsters of Rock cruise which departs from Florida. We did the pre-party show in Miami and a show on the cruise.
Always great fun, and we actually did Chainsaw for the first time in about 30 years. We can’t wait to test drive these new songs on stage!
A booking list and diary from gigs at Newcastle Dingwalls in 1983 turned up on line. Entries included:
26.3.83 – Big Country Fee: £240 – 282 @ £1.50. Excellent band and performance. Perfect timing with release of single. Excellent debut in the North-East.
3.3.83 – Raven & Hellanbach Fee: Raven £300 – Hellanbach £60 – 269 @ £1.50 Terrific stage show. Very good heavy rock band with good repertoire. Good following.
Raven bassist John Gallagher told me about the night…‘I just remember the place being chilly…at least until we got started! There was a decent turnout, and we were promoting the ‘All for One’ album. I don’t remember much more to be honest !’…well it was nearly 40 years ago.
To find out more I contacted the manager at the time and owner of the book, Chris Murtagh….
I don’t have the diary now as I’ve sold it but have a digital copy of the acts who appeared. Like the other Bierkellers around the UK the entertainment promoter Harvey Goldsmith bought all the venues for £1 and re-christened them Dingwalls.
Yes, only a £1 but Harvey had to service their debts and running costs. They were in the basement of office blocks, mine was in Waterloo Street, Newcastle. It had a capacity of 1200.
I was manager of the venue during 1983, it was Dingwalls from January to June when it went into liquidation and reverted to Vaux Breweries, the biggest creditor.
Then from June to December Vaux changed the name to the Bear Pit but I was retained as manager.
How did you get the managers job ?
I’d done several promotions there and had threatened to sue Goldsmith for breach of a contract for cancelling one of them. Turned out his General Manager offered me the job instead. I was the only manager who was also a promoter.
All the other Bierkeller managers at Sheffield, Hull, Liverpool, Bristol and London were ex-Mecca managers and older than me. They got two for the price of one in me being manager/promoter and Chris Donald from very early Viz comics did all my publicity.
What was the Newcastle venue like?
It was like being buried in a hole in the ground for months without seeing daylight. When we closed and tidied-up well after midnight, we’d go and chill out at Rockshots upstairs till about 3am. Then back at work about 4pm the same day.
My bar manager once dragged me to the city baths for a massage which connected me back to my body that I’d totally lost track of.
Martha Reeves was booked for May ’83 and your diary entry reads….
Martha chatted me up in the office. Didn’t know where to put myself. She could have eaten me for breakfast. Motown comes to Dingwalls. Brilliant professional show.
What can you remember from that day ?
Martha Reeves terrified me as I must have been the youngest manager she’d come across and she was a very experienced older woman.
In the diary for June, Murtagh booked female group Girlschool with support from North East heavy metal band Satan. His notes of the gig included…
Girlschool arrived for their first headline tour after supporting Motorhead. They didn’t have any money and asked if I could help them out which I did. Nice girls who put on a good show but treated rubbish by their record company.
Satan a good local heavy metal band with a good following. I’d previously promoted them, famously at the St James & St Basil’s Church in Fenham where the posters read ‘Appearing live on stage, Satan.’ That pulled in a good congregation.
Also, that month Dr Feelgood came to Newcastle with support from North East band R & B Spitfires….
Full on red-hot rock band with commitment and attitude. Real pros – no messing about with sound checks – Brilliant. Wilko went to college up here so he had his own following. Local band Spitfires acquitted themselves well in such company.
More entries to the diary with some excellent comments about the bands and gigs….22.4.83 – Gun Club + Sisters of Mercy.
Fee: £511.25 – 548 @ £1.50. Sisters, good appreciative following, hypnotic beat with drum machine, bass and guitar. Led by Joey Ramone lookalike. Effective visual presence.
Gun Club, should have been called ‘Gin Club’, Jim Morrison just before he died. Good presence, good songs, terrible sound.
6.5.83 – Miami Steve. Brilliant American band. Shame about Steve and the material. Bruce Springsteen can keep him. Stayed in the tour bus only coming in to play the gig. Oh and don’t touch his bandana. Precious bastard, up his own arse.
10.5.83 – Bad Brains. Turned up 6 hours late so most of the audience left. Refused to pay them which set-up a stand-off between the band and my security. Lots of martial arts posturing until it finally dawned on them they would get severely plastered if they stayed. Bad brains indeed.
16.5.83 – The Vibrators + Red Alert. Not overly impressed by the reformed Vibrators. Canny lads though. Their guitars were nicked before they went on, then retrieved by Red Alert, who were themselves a very impressive act.
After you left whathappened with the venue ?
Harvey Goldsmith owned Dingwalls but his CEO was Peter Gross, an accountant, who’d run a chain of restaurants called The Great American Disaster in London.
At each of the venues he’d bring a brewery in as sponsor. In Newcastle’s case it was Vaux Brewery who gave him three quarters of a million pounds.
When the receivers Ernst Whinney were brought in because Harvey was going into liquidation for about the seventh time, I talked to him on the phone. ‘You’ll be alright my boy’, were the last words he spoke to me.
Dingwalls Last Programme.
Dingwalls Last Programme.
The Journal report on Dingwalls closing in 1983.
The venue reverted to Vaux Breweries with them being the biggest creditor. When Paul Nicholson CEO of Vaux arrived, he asked what Harvey had done with all the money. I said he’d stuck a black plastic crow on the wall and extended the stage.
You’ll notice every poster advertising a Goldsmith promotion has a little fat man in the corner. That’s Harvey. He also used a black crow as the logo for Dingwalls. ‘I hope that bloody crow lays goldeneggs’ was Paul’s reply.
Basically, Harvey used all the money for running costs. If he’d taken the time to run the venues himself it might have worked, but he was too busy touring the Stones, Dylan, Bowie etc and left the running to Peter Gross, who was clueless about the music industry.
Vaux wanted to appoint their own manager of what they now branded ‘The Bear Pit’. My staff refused to work for them, so I was retained as manager.
Murtagh came across North East manager and promoter Geoff Docherty…
My first encounter with Geoff Docherty was when he was looking after Preacher, a band led by Tony Ions. I needed a rehearsal place for my new band Fan Heater and Tony who I’d played with in Slaughter House, suggested I approach Geoff to see if I could share their rehearsal rooms in the derelict Hydraulic Crane pub on Scotswood Road, Newcastle.
Not only did Geoff give us the pub but he said he’d get us a gig at the Marquee Club and Rock Garden in London supporting The Showbiz Kids who he also managed. ‘Oh yes, of course you will’ I thought being very sceptical.
I couldn’t believe it when he was as good as his word. Total respect.
What did you do after Dingwalls ?
After leaving there I continued promoting in Newcastle, Leeds and tours around the UK, including with my own band.
1994 I became a director of the pan-European touring organisation the Newcastle Free Festival Inaugurating Cities of Culture, including being the first festival to perform under the Berlin Wall when it came down in 1989.
That same year, as part of the festival, I brought over the Peruvian band APU. 30 years later I’m still their manager. This also drew me into World Music which I’ve promoted ever since.
As part of being a promoter, I worked as an A Level sponsor for the Home Office for over 25 years issuing visas for non-EEC artists to tour the UK. I still enjoy playing all over the world and organise festivals and events internationally.
In the North East of England, the Lawe Top is an area that runs parallel to the River Tyne and looks out to South Shields harbour and North Sea. It was once an island, and in some ways it still is.
Some residents I interviewed in summer 2011 were proud to talk about the Lawe being ‘a little village up on the hill’ away from the town of South Shields.
The documentary included narration by local historian and former museum worker Angus McDonald with music by North East musician Martin Francis Trollope.
This a short extract from some of the interview’s…
Janis Blower: It still has to a certain extent the same old identity that it had with the river and the sea, although the pilots have moved away from the area. It’s like a little village with its own unique identity.
Dave Slater: It’s an area which I’ve always liked and a lot of people living in Shields have this affinity with it. They think it’s like a special place. And the houses are nice they have their little quirks.
On Fort Street and the corner of Roman Road is Crawfords Newsagents….
Bob Crawford: (owner) I’ve been here 28 years it’s always been a newsagent’s, on the deed’s it say’s from 1920. Enjoy living on the Lawe Top. Made a lot of friends. Lot of nice people live on the Lawe Top. Hopefully be here a bit longer.
Jane Price: I’ve been working here about 10 years now and its quite handy cos I live on the street. Literally fall out the door into work. And it’s lovely living up here it’s like a village separate from Shields. Like a really close community. I also work in the pub at the end of the street. The Look Out pub. It’s really nice I enjoy it, my kid’s had a good upbringing here.
Living on The Lawe people are known as Skuetenders. But what is a Skuetender ?
Janis Blower: Well there is various theories to what a Skuetender is. One of them is that if you look down on the area from above the Lawe is in the shape of a skate. But probably the most reliable one is that this is the end of the river where the original fishing hut’s where, the fishing Shiels from which South Shields took its name. And it’s where they would salt the fish, and skuet is an old word for ‘to salt’. So if you were born at this end of the river, you were a Skuetender or it’s become Skitender over the years.
Ethne Brown: Well I’ve always lived on the Lawe Top, I was born on the Lawe Top in Trajan Avenue so I’m a Skitender born and bred.
Mel Douglas: Skitender is someone who has lived in this locality within a certain distance of the river. Yes I’ve always been one of them but not as much as Duncan Stephenson as he’s a proper Skitender.
Duncan Stephenson: A Skitender ? You’ve got to have a ring around your bottom end where you sat on a bucket when you were a kid. That’s where a proper Skitender came from, if ya’ haven’t got a ring round yer bottom end yer not a Lawe Topper.
Janis Blower: Well I was born and brought up in Woodlands Terrace so as a child you would just have to walk down Woodlands Terrace and you were straight on to the hilltop. If the weather was good, you literally spent all yer time out on the hilltop or down onto the beach. What our mothers didn’t see what we got up to was a good thing.
Mel Douglas: When I was young I lived in George Scott Street. That was my impressionable time, but we eventually moved up to this house (Lawe Road) which I’ve enjoyed. On the hilltop area when I was a boy there was the gun encampments and Trinity Towers – a sort of radar station which was all fenced off.
Janis Blower: Trinity Towers was a magical place to play because it was so much like a castle or a fort. It had been originally built in the 1830’s by Trinity House, as a pilot look out. It stayed that until the early part of last century when the new pilot house was built at the top end of the park. By the time we were playing in it, it was the radar station for the college. You couldn’t actually get in it but it had bushes around it and little nooks and crannies.
Mel Douglas: The encampment where the gun’s where for example a lot of people aren’t sure where they were. But looking out of my window if you catch the time of year when spring is starting to come through, realising that the guns and the fence had some sort of foundations, well there wasn’t much soil on top of that and the rest of the area in deep soil. So when the grass started to grow it would grow quickly where there was plenty of soil. But where the foundations of the encampment was, there was no soil to speak about.
Janis Blower: By the time I was a child playing on the hilltop the actual gun’s themselves had gone but you could still see where the gun emplacements had been the big round pits had been there. They had been fenced off originally but I’m sure that I can remember sitting on one of them dangling my leg’s inside. You were always being warned off them.
On the Lawe Top is Arbeia Roman Fort…
Dave Slater: I noticed when we moved here when we walked up Lawe Road is on the wall, name plaques of Roman emperors like Julian Street etc.. and the one round the corner is the name of his wife. So you can always learn something new as old as you are and as many times you been up here.
Janis Blower: The fort was very open in those days, and we used to play in it as children you wouldn’t think about doing that now. I don’t suppose as a child you really appreciated what a heritage monument it was.
There used to be a caretaker’s house attached to it which has been demolished long since, and when you used to play on the green between the hilltop and the pilot house, if ya dug around you could find bits of stoneware. I remember the red samian ware that you see in the fort, and we would find these bits of things and we would take them to the caretaker’s house and knock on the door ‘Is this a bit of roman pottery’ and he would say ‘Yes look’s like it is’. But I think after we had done it after the fifth or sixth time it was ‘No it’s a bit o’ brick’.
The Lawe Top used to be home to St Aidens and St Stephens Churches….
Joan Stephenson: When a lot of the houses were pulled down around this area and people moved to other parts of Shields and they want their children baptised or anything they still say St Stephen’s is their church and they come back.
Ethne Brown: I was born up here and I was christened at St Stephen’s Church and all my family and father’s brothers were in the church choir. My Grandma Whale on more than one occasion opened the fete at St Stephen’s church. It’s always been the pilot’s church and nice that they were in the choir. I was also married at St Stephen’s Church.
Mel Douglas: With respect to that I was very fortunate when sadly they pulled the church (St Aidens) down that I was in a position where I could buy the pew that I sat on as a boy and have in a room upstairs. The pew used by people getting married, my father, Grandfather, myself, all male members of the family had sat on that pew when getting married. Very proud of it.
Joan Stephenson: When St Aiden’s closed, they amalgamated with St Stephen’s, it was sad because St Aiden’s was a lovely church. In the 1970’s we decided to make this building into a multi-purpose building to make it more economic to run and it stayed up while unfortunately St Aiden’s closed. Once the chairs are put to the side we hold dances, mother and toddlers, young kids come into dance, social evenings, it’s a really good venue for anything like that.
The street that overlook’s the Tyne is Greens Place where I spoke to Karen Arthur and her father George…
Karen: When you were little what did you used to see around here ?
George: We used to go to the shop along there beside the Turks Head pub. Shrybos you called here. We nicknamed her Fanny Mossy. Everyone knew her around here. She was an eccentric, she was an old maid and owned that shop.
Karen: Did she only let one person in at a time Dad ?
George: Yes if two of you went in she would say ‘Get out one of ya’. Cos she knew if she was serving one the other one would be helpin’ themselves with the sweets an’ that.
Lenonard Smith: We moved to 23 Greens Place in 1947 and that was great because at one time 17 lived in four flats. There was one tap outside and one toilet. Me happy days of the Lawe Top was I used to go to the Corporation Quay and I spent all my school holiday’s going away with the inshore fishermen. With the net’s it was driving, then crab pots and longlines.
We used to bait up in the cabins on the Corporation Quay and the light was done by carbine. The only thing with carbine was that when you went home you had black tash’s where the smoke would get up your nostrils.
On Baring Street is the art shop Crafty Corner….
Trevor Dixon: We purchased this property eight years ago now and it used to be Crabtree’s the Bakers. Where I’m sitting now there used to be a massive oven that came right from the back of the shop. Took six months to cut it out and skip after skip. Our shop is a craft shop and ceramic studio.
It’s a very old building that we are in and it’s reckoned that we have ghosts. They’re all friendly. We’ve had a few local ghost groups bringing all their instruments in here and in the basement. They reckon we do have a lot of ghosts and we have things moved around now and then, disappear for a few days then turn up again.
I don’t think we could have picked a better place to be cos as you know The Lawe Top goes back in history as a creative place and I feel we’ve meant to be here.
Final words about The Lawe Top….
Mel Douglas: If it was up to me I would live in this house for the rest of my life. It’s a beautiful house and I love the community that I live in. Fantastic neighbours, nice people, I’d live nowhere else.
Ethne Brown: I just love living here on this Lawe Top. The house is a bit big nowadays, but I don’t know where else I would go in the town. This is the only place to live.
Janis Blower: Everybody knows everybody else, yeah, it’s a fabulous area to live. I can’t imagine to be living anywhere else to be honest.
Joan Stephenson: Just a lovely place to live.
Duncan Stephenson: Got everything here, beaches, parks. Home is where…
Joan: Your heart is.
To read more about the film go to the blog Skuetenders Aug.25th 2018.
On the 7th & 21st August 2018 research for a short film about Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884-1937) is featured on this blog. On today’s post I’ve added the script from the film I made about his life.
The narrators were North East actor’s Iain Cunningham and Jonathan Cash. Recorded by Martin Francis Trollope at Customs Space studio in South Shields and excellent soundtrack from North East musician John Clavering.
Start.
Russian born Yevgeny Zamyatin lived with his wife in Paris until his death in March 1937. Their last few years were lived in poverty and only a small group of friends were present at his burial. His death was not mentioned in the Soviet press.
Zamyatin was an author of science fiction and political satire. Famous for his 1921 novel ’We’ – a story set in a dystopian future – the book was banned in Russia. In his novel ‘1984’ George Orwell acknowledged his debt to Zamyatin.
But how does Tyneside fit in this story ?
Zamyatin was born in a small town 200 miles south of Moscow on 19th January 1884. He had an educated middle-class background, his father was a teacher and his mother a musician.
Zamyatin studied Naval engineering at the St Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. He spent winters in the city and summers enjoying practical work in shipyards and at sea. The Middle East being one destination – a rich experience for the future writer.
He was a supporter of the revolution and joined the Bolsheviks, attending demonstrations and meetings. But he was arrested during the 1905 Revolution – for this he was sent to prison for several months. His time there was spent learning shorthand and writing poems.
He completed his course in Naval Engineering and was employed as a college tutor. He was also writing short stories and essays – his first published in 1908. Zamyatin immersed himself in the bohemian life of St Petersburg and was an important part of the cultural scene in Russia.
At the time of the First World War Russia were having ice breakers built in UK shipyards. Zamyatin was sent to North East England in 1916 to work as a Naval engineer for the Russian Empire.
He supervised the construction of the ships on the River Tyne. While there he lived in Jesmond near Newcastle and during his eighteen months stay, he was reported to travel around Tyneside and improve his knowledge of the language.
“In England I built icebreakers in Glasgow, Newcastle, Sunderland, South Shields, and looked at ruined castles. The Germans showered us with bombs from airplanes. I listened to the thud of bombs dropped by Zeppelins”.
Laurence O’Shaughnessy lived in South Shields and worked there as Customs Collector on the River Tyne. His daughter Eileen married the author, George Orwell. Was there a connection to Zamyatin ? Leslie Hurst from The Orwell Society looked at the possibility.
‘Would the Russian ships have been checked by customs before leaving the Tyne ? When Orwell learned of the existence of ‘We’ he might have discussed it with Eileen and heard her say that her father had met its author. When Orwell died, Eileen’s library was found mixed with his.
Might Eileen have read Orwell’s copy of ’25 Years of Soviet Russian Literature’ and mentioned the Russian engineer who visited South Shields in her childhood? It is an intriguing possibility’.
When living on Tyneside, Zamyatin wrote two short stories ’The Fisher of Men’ and ’Islanders’. After a day at the shipyards, he would sit at his desk and write about the blinkered and pretentious world of the middle class.
‘By Sunday the stone steps of the houses in Jesmond had as usual been scrubbed to a dazzling whiteness, like the Sunday gentlemen’s false teeth.
The Sunday gentlemen were of course manufactured at a factory in Jesmond, and thousands of copies appeared on the streets. Carrying identical canes and wearing identical top hats, the respectable Sunday gentlemen in their false teeth strolled down the street and greeted their doubles’.
Both stories were published on his return to Russia. But by then, the 1917 revolution was burning. He regretted not witnessing the start of it.
“I returned to Petersburg, past German submarines, in a ship with lights out, wearing a life belt the whole time. This is the same as never having been in love and waking up one morning already married for ten years or so”.
The famine, war and economic collapse of the country had a major influence on his literary career.
“If I had not returned home, if I had not spent all these years with Russia, I don’t think I would have been able to write anymore. True literature can only exist when it is created, not by diligent and reliable officials, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels and skeptics”.
In 1921, ‘We’ became the first work banned by the Soviet censorship board. In 1923, he arranged for the manuscript to be smuggled to a publisher in New York. After being translated into English the novel was published.
With his political satire, a number of essays that criticised the Communist ideology and dealing with Western publishers, Zamyatin has been referred to as one of the first Soviet dissidents. As a result, he was blacklisted from publishing anything in his homeland.
The English writer Harold Heslop had seven books published and his first was in the Soviet Union. In 1930 he was invited to the Ukraine to speak at the Revolutionary Writers Conference. While there he also travelled to Leningrad to meet Zamyatin who he wanted to help promote his latest book.
Harold was born in Durham but for many years lived in South Shields. He was a miner at Harton Colliery before winning a scholarship to Central Labour College in London.
(Zamyatin to Heslop) “I cannot quite place you. Are you a Geordie may I ask. I catch the Tyneside dialect in your speech. Am I right ? I know Tyneside well. I liked the people very much. I also liked their strange, musical dialect.
Often, I found it most amusing. South Shields… Sooth Sheels! I never learned to sing the Tyneside speech!”
Zamyatin read lectures on Russian literature, served on boards with some of the most famous figures in Russian literature, but by 1931 he was experiencing difficulties.
Under the ever-tightening censorship and becoming unpopular with critics who branded him a traitor, he appealed directly to Joseph Stalin requesting permission to leave the Soviet Union – a voluntary exile.
“I do not wish to conceal that the basic reason for my request for permission to go abroad with my wife is my hopeless position here as a writer, the death sentence that has been pronounced upon me as a writer here at home”.
Eventually Stalin agreed to Zamyatin’s request, and he and his wife left for Paris, where there was already a small Russian community.
While there he wrote new stories, most of his earlier work was translated around Europe, but a notable piece of work was his co-writing of a film with French director Jean Renoir.
Just before his death he had told a friend…“I had to leave Soviet Russia as a dangerous counter revolutionary and abroad I hesitate to approach the Russian community, while they treat me coldly and suspiciously”.
He lived out his last years with his wife until his death from a heart attack in 1937, and a final resting place for Zamyatin can be found in a cemetery south of Paris.
End.
Research:
Zamyatin – A Soviet Heretic by D.J. Richards.
Islanders/The Fishers of Men – Salamander press Fiction.
Searching your family history can throw up a few surprises. My Great Uncle Alexander Allikivi was born in Russia at a time of political and social unrest resulting in two revolutions, the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Soviet Union by the Bolsheviks. Have you ever wondered why some awkward people are called bolshy ? Was it Bolshy Alex ? A name passed round the family so who knows.
Little is known about the life of Allikivi pictured below. He lived in South Shields during the ‘20s married my Great Aunt Lavinia Ewart and died in 1933. We know he received two Mercantile Marine and British Medal ribbons by 1921, where these from the First World War? Did he first arrive in the UK between 1914-18 and why did he leave Russia ? Was it because of the revolution?
Alexander Allikivi 1880-1933
In the search for some clues I read the excellent book The Kremlin’s Geordie Spy the story about father and son Heinrich and William Fisher by Vin Arthey.
Heinrich was born in Russia in 1871 and William was born in 1903 in Newcastle. In 1921 the Fishers were in Moscow. The Spielberg film Bridge of Spies starring Tom Hanks features what happened to William.
Reading Vin’s book I came across this…
’He (Heinrich Fischer) maintained all his political links. He remained a member of the Russian Socialist Democratic Workers Party and in UK politics aligned himself with the Social Democratic Federation members who seceded to found the British Socialist Party, working for the party south of the Tyne, in South Shields, rather than in Newcastle’.
Was Allikivi involved in politics? Were other Russians attending the meetings in South Shields and would he be attracted to gatherings with people who spoke the same language as him? He would look forward to having conversations rather than using a few words or short phrases when meeting friends and family.
Vin Arthey photograph by Andy Catlin.
I decided to contact Vin and asked him what was the inspiration behind writing ‘The Kremlin’s Geordie Spy’ ?
When I was freelancing in the ‘90s I was offered an Associate Producer role by Trevor Hearing who’d just had his series, Stranger Than Fiction commissioned by Tyne Tees TV.
This was a series of six half-hour dramas and drama documentaries covering true regional stories such as those of the Darlington MP who turned out to be an international outlaw and leader of an obscure Chinese cult, and the Newcastle auction mart owner and television hypnotist who was jailed for swindling his mother out of thousands of pounds.
Also, the County Durham relief bank manager who correctly foretold that his bank would be robbed and that he would be killed during the robbery.
Another story I researched was of Newcastle born William Fisher who turned out to be a KGB spy, used the name Rudolf Abel and was jailed for espionage in the United States in 1957. Five year later he was exchanged across Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge for the American U-2 pilot, Francis Gary Powers.
Fisher’s birth in Newcastle had been ascertained by Newcastle University historian David Saunders, and I had a number of meetings with David during the pre-production phase.
Trevor Hearing and I were convinced that the story was worthy of a network production, but it was turned down by BBC 2’s Timewatch and Channel 4’s Secret History. However, I kept on researching and writing, because I was absolutely hooked by the story.
You see, I could remember when I was 12 year old watching the news story on my family’s first, rented, TV set, of the KGB spy Rudolf Abel, who was arrested, tried and jailed in New York in 1957. The Cold War was very real to me as a teenager in East Anglia.
My home was close to a number of United States airbases, and there were regular sightings of USAF Sabre, Phantom and Voodoo jet fighters and fighter-bombers.
I remember well the shooting down over the Soviet Union in May 1960 of Gary Powers high flying ‘weather reconnaissance’ aircraft, the ‘U-2’.
As one of our teachers put it the day the news broke, ‘Awfully high weather we’re having these days,’. Also I was still at school when the famous exchange of Powers and Abel took place.
You might imagine my excitement when I discovered that the Soviet spy at the centre of perhaps the greatest Cold War drama, the man who featured so strikingly in my school years, was a British subject, Newcastle born, at that. I couldn’t let the story go, and when I was approached by St Ermin’s Press to write a book I jumped at the chance.
St Ermin’s published it as a hardback with the title Like Father Like Son: A Dynasty of Spies. Later, Biteback Publishing bought the paperback rights and repackaged it as The Kremlin’s Geordie Spy: The Man They Swapped for Gary Powers.
When the Spielberg movie Bridge of Spies was released in 2015, Biteback reprinted with yet another title, Abel: The True Story of the Spy They Traded for Gary Powers.
Did you do any readings or tour with the book ?
The book or should I say books! have been well received, although I have to be realistic – Fisher was our enemy during the Cold War, a villain of the piece – a villain of the peace even!
Over the last dozen years I’ve given talks on the Fisher story in various places and at a range of venues in Newcastle, North Shields, South Shields, Middlesbrough, Edinburgh, Reading, and there has been great interest in the United States, where the books have been reviewed for the CIA’s ‘Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf’.
I visited the USA for research and subsequently got to speak at the Brooklyn Historical Society and at the International Spy Museum in Washington DC.
What is your background Vin ?
I was born, brought up and spent my early adult years in Ipswich, and although most of my life has now been spent in the North of England and in Scotland, I still regard myself as an East Anglian.
I follow Ipswich Town football team through thick and thin – thin at the moment as we’ve just been relegated to what I still call the Third Division, and our arch rivals Norwich City have just made it back to the Premiership.
I’ve had a dual career, in education and the media, teaching in schools and a college of education then, when the birth rate dropped and the colleges were closing and merging, I was at Newcastle Polytechnic where I taught drama and media studies.
While this was happening, I started freelance scripting and reviewing for BBC Radio Newcastle and Tyne Tees. In the early ‘80s an opportunity arose to work fulltime at Tyne Tees, so I took it.
Researching and producing across the whole range of the station’s output – current affairs, religious programmes, comedy, arts and features.
I went freelance again in the mid ‘90s, but at the end of the decade went back into university teaching and to heading up the TV Production degrees at Teesside University.
Now, I’m settled in Edinburgh and supplement my pension with income from writing and speaking.
What are you working on now ?
I review books about espionage, the Cold War and Russia for newspapers The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday. I’ve just finished a piece of ghost writing – a privately commissioned piece for a retired hydroelectric power engineer, and I’m currently clearing my desk, and my head with a view to tackling a new book – still nonfiction, but still under wraps.
To hear from Vin check this link to an interview with Spy historian Vince Houghton at Spycast
ALIKIVI : NORTH EAST UK CULTURE 