SOUTH SHIELDS

TYNE DOCK BORDERS -stories from the documentary

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Looking down Slake Terrace, Tyne Dock. Photo by Amy C. Flagg.

It was a cold, damp, windy day. I could hear the foghorn. Looking out the window I didn’t fancy going outside. If it clears up, I’ll go out later. 

First, I’ll have something to eat and listen to the news. I heated up a tin of pea and ham soup and turned the TV on.

Flicking through the channels I came across When the Boat Comes In. Never seen it before but within minutes I’m hooked. The writing was sharp, the story was great and central character Jack Ford, was the man.

Also recognised a few locations around Tyneside so next time in the Local History library I’ll search and see if there is any reference to the program.

There was, not only was the writer, James Mitchell from the North East, he was born in Tyne Dock, South Shields. And this area featured heavily in his and his father’s story, who was also a local councillor for the Tyne Dock ward. 

This was the catalyst for making a documentary about the area. I rang up Jarrow playwright Tom Kelly, we had a get together, threw some ideas around and started work on a script.

Using archive material and personal interviews with people who lived there, we look at the changes made in Tyne Dock. These are short extracts from some of the interviews filmed in 2012.

Tyne Dock Arches….

Kennie Chow: One of the major dare’s that we had was that along the arches was a ledge and above the arches was several little arches which you can get inside. But the only way you could actually get inside was to actually physically shimmy across the ledge.

Stephen Wilson: Used to play in the arches a lot. Was a great playground, very dangerous. We used to climb to the top and go into the little arches at the top. Which were yer access point, you could climb and go down but was quite a big drop. And inside it was chocka block with bricks and rubble.

Sheila Ross: The arches we thought were exciting cos you could get an echo in them. They were long, dark, very dingy. I mean they went for quite a distance. That distance from where Jarrow and Tyne Dock are, is quite a distance.

Paul Freeman: They were quite busy cos they were for taking the railways in and out of the docks. So, the road went through the arches and the railways went over the top, so they were filthy. But as children they were fantastic things to play in.

Olive Pinkney: As you get older you tend to reminisce about when you were young and of course Tyne Dock was a very close-knit community. And the arches were always our familiar focal point. If we had any family come from all over, we used to say you come through the arches and you are at Tyne Dock.

When I retired, I started doing watercolours and painted places of Tyne Dock where I remembered, and the arches was one of the main one’s.

Slake Terrace….

Alex Donaldson: For all the old, dilapidated houses, no bathrooms and outside toilets I think there was still a comradeship, a friendliness about the place. People were very close then, you knew who your neighbours where they were just next door living on top of each other (laughs).

In the ‘60s the River Tyne was still quite as busy as when I lived in Hudson Street. I can remember foreign seaman coming out of the dock’s during the day or later in the evening. They used to board the trolley bus that was stood there. I’ve still got happy memories of old Tyne Dock.

Sheila Ross: But it was all pubs. And they were not pub’s we would go into. Me motha’ wouldn’t even go into them, they were men’s pubs. For the dockers and the sailors who would come from all over the world.

Derek Pinkney: Well, Slake Terrace was one of the busy roads at the edge of Tyne Dock. Actually, it was full of public houses, that was its mainstay. There were pubs like the Green Bar, The Empress Hotel, The Banks of Tyne, The North Eastern. The Grapes which was on the corner of Hudson Street. And then round the corner was The Dock.

The best place where we used to get a good laugh when we were boys was a café called the Café Norge. And it was supposedly a place of ill repute. Because in those days there was lots of Norwegian and Swedish ships used to come into Tyne Dock and the crew’s used to frequent that place.

Paul Freeman: Now if you carried on up Hudson Street you came to another boarded out shop and a house where all these ladies used to live. Me sister Sheila and me used to get pennies off them, they were a lovely set of lasses.

Sheila Ross: So, we used to sit on the step at the bottom of the flat and there was some ladies used to come past, always very nice, give us sixpence each.

Paul Freeman: Just up Dock Street one of the first buildings was the spiritualists.

Sheila Ross: That was a big meeting place on a Saturday night because they used to faint and pass out with all these messages they were getting. And they used to lay them out in the street. Just lay them on the pavements ‘till they come round.

Paul Freeman: You had a right mixture of the one’s that had been talking to the dead and glory to God on high and the other’s stinking of the other spirit’s and beer then you had the other ones who had been looking after more than the spiritual welfare round the corner at the brothel. It was quite a place to be actually.

James Mitchell and When the Boat Comes In….. 

Roz Bailey: I don’t remember meeting him when I was first cast as Sarah Headly. I didn’t think I was going to be in When the Boat Comes In because I remember when they were first casting it, I was going to go up for the part of Jessie. Obviously didn’t get that but a year later my agent rang me up and said there’s a part that they are casting for. I got it but didn’t know how it was going to colour my life.

I remember filming outside The Customs House which is now a theatre it must have been derelict then. They had set it up with the old cobble stones. The characters were so well written by James Mitchell, particularly for the women. Which you don’t often get now. And the attention to detail. Looking at them the great humour in his writing, the calibre of it. Very, very special.

Second Time Around Record Shop…

Alistair Robinson: Shields in the late ‘70s and ‘80s was well off for second hand and collector’s record shops. There was one halfway down Imeary Street in Westoe in the ‘70s, there was the Handy Shop just off Frederick Street in Laygate and there was Second Time Around in Tyne Dock. I didn’t know the guys who run it cos they maybe had a deal somewhere where they could get some quite rare material.

Stewart Cambell: I opened the shop in 1975 until 1985. We sold loads of Jazz in French and German imports. We had big Elvis fans come to the shop, we had imports from the States, Uruguay, most countries. Some people bought the same Elvis album with five different covers.

Tyne Dock Youth Club…

Stephen Wilson: We would play on the railway line from Tyne Dock until it crossed Eldon Street, then all the way up to Trinity High Shields. We played in the old shed’s when it closed down. We used to walk along the lines and play on the lines behind Tyne Dock Youth Club. We used to put screws, nuts and bolts, two pences on the lines and when the trains went past, they flattened them.

Kennie Chow: Tyne Dock Youth Club was a massive part of my life. Through personal reasons my family were split up at the time and I managed to join the youth club and I must have spent about 10 years of my life there. It really helped us pull through the bad times I was going through, and I became club DJ.

Paul Dix: I was a bit nervous coming to the club, but we were welcomed by Jack and Betty Inkster who ran the club then. We knew Kennie he was a great lad, he done the club discos.

I think the French trip was one of the biggest things that the club had done for years. We went in the minibus and piled it with kid’s, tents and sleeping bags and as many tins of beans and sausages as you can get in the back of a van.  Drove off down the motorway, down to Dover and on the ferry. We drove from the top of France through to Paris and Jack was using his cine camera and documenting the whole of the trip from start to finish.

Jack and Betty on the trip were fantastic. They done everything for us, Jack helping putting the tents up and Betty all those sausages and beans. We washed up and everybody chipped in. When you look back at the cine footage you can see how great a care they took of the kids. It was a real privilege to have been on that trip.

DVD copies of Tyne Dock Borders (70mins £10) are available to buy from The Word, South Shields. A short version is available to watch on the ALIKIVI You Tube channel.

Gary Alikivi    August 2019.

WILDFLOWER – South Shields born Eileen O’Shaughnessy 1905-45 timeline.

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In October 2018 I wrote about making a documentary on George Orwell’s first wife Eileen O’Shaughnessy. The short film had a real local interest as Eileen was born just two minutes from where I live on the Lawe Top in South Shields. Eileen was born at 3 Park Terrace now Lawe Road.

Little did I know when I started the search in 2012 that the film would be shown to the Orwell Society and Richard Blair, son of George Orwell, on the Isle of Jura where Orwell wrote the dystopian classic, Nineteen Eighty Four.

Timeline research 2012-13:

In a graveyard in Newcastle, you will find a headstone for Eileen Maud Blair who was married to George Orwell (real name Eric Blair), arguably one of the most controversial writers of the 20th century.

Books included The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), Homage to Catalonia (1938), Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty Four (1949).

But who was Eileen?

Eileen’s story starts in Ireland where her father, Laurence O’Shaughnessey, was born in 1866 on the small island of Valencia and Portmagee in County Kerry. His father, Edward O’Shaughnessy was employed in the Royal Irish Constabulary.

Aged 25, Laurence moved to England and boarded at 19 East India Dock Road, Limehouse in London and found work as a clerk for His Majesty Customs.

Eileen’s mother Mary Westgate was born in 1866 in Hempnall, Norfolk, at 24, Mary moved south to Greenwich in London and worked as an Assistant Teacher at Lewisham Hill Road School.

Laurence and Mary met and eventually married in Holy Trinity Church, Gravesend, Kent in February 1900. The couple then travelled to the North East and made a home at 109 Cleveland Road next to the Union Workhouse in Sunderland.

Laurence continued working as a Tax Clerk for HM Customs at Custom House, based at 138 High Street, Sunderland. In 1901 they had a son Laurence who went on to become a distinguished Medical Surgeon.

Six years later the family moved to 3 Park Terrace (re-named Lawe Road) South Shields and Laurence senior was employed as Port Administrator, Collector of His Majesties Customs and had an office in Midland Bank Chambers, 65 King Street, South Shields.

Then on 25th September 1905, Eileen Maud O’Shaughnessey was born and baptised on 15th November in St Aiden’s Church.

After a short time, the family moved to 2 and a half Wellington Terrace, now known as Beach Road. They called the house ‘Westgate House’ after her mother’s maiden name and it’s still visible above the front door of 35 Beach Road.

Eileen was educated at the local Westoe School then attended Sunderland Church High School and finally in 1924 the family moved south when Eileen graduated to read English at St Hugh’s College in Oxford. Sadly, Eileen’s father Laurence died not long after, he was 62 years old.

After leaving education Eileen held various jobs including work as an English teacher and purchased a small secretarial agency. But she returned to education in 1934 for a Masters degree in Educational Psychology at the University College in London.

By 1935 Eileen was a graduate student and living with her widowed mother in Greenwich. One night she was invited to a house party at 77 Parliament Hill in Hampstead where she met the journalist and author George Orwell, real name Eric Blair.

Eric was born on 25th June 1903 in India. The Blair family had returned to the UK, settled in Oxfordshire and Eric received a scholarship to Eton College.

Over the months the couple found they had a great deal in common, a passion for poetry, literature and countryside walks. Eric was attracted to Eileen’s blue eyes, heart shaped face and wavy dark brown hair, her Irish looking features.

They married at Wallington Parish Church in Hertfordshire on the 9th of June 1936 and lived at The Stores, 2 Kits Lane, Wallington.

In Europe, a Civil war had broken out in Spain and in 1936 Eileen’s husband travelled to Barcelona and joined the militia of the Workers Party of Marxist Unification. Orwell wanted to help the revolt against Franco and the Fascists.

Eileen followed in early ‘37 where she stayed in the Hotel Continental on the Ramblas in Barcelona. She worked as a secretary for the New Leader which was a newspaper for the Independent Labour Party.

The party’s General Secretary was John McNair from Tyneside. Orwell was stationed at the front and in battle was shot through the throat. He recuperated in a sanatorium outside Barcelona.

The couple returned to the UK and by 1939 Eileen worked at the Censorship Department of the Ministry of Information. For a time, they lived with her brother Laurence and her sister-in-law Gwen, at their home in Greenwich Park.

Orwell worked at the Empire Department of the BBC as head of cultural programming for India and South East Asia. Unfortunately, during the Second World War Eileen’s brother was killed at Dunkirk while serving in the Army Medical Corp, and her mother died a year later – this was a very sad time for Eileen.

But good news was on the way as Eileen and George adopted a baby boy and named him Richard. Eileen by now had given up her job at the Ministry and taken well to motherhood. Orwell began writing ‘Animal Farm’.

Growing tired of London and feeling unwell for the last few months, Eileen travelled back to the North East with their son, Richard. They stayed with her sister-in-law Gwen at her home near Stockton and with the Second World War nearing its end Orwell was in Germany working as a War Correspondent.

Harvey Evers was a surgeon friend of her brother Laurence, he had a private clinic at Fernwood House in Newcastle a train ride away from where she was staying.

Eileen made an appointment to see him but after the examination tumours were found on her uterus and a hysterectomy operation was arranged for 29th March 1945.

Before the operation Eileen was aware that she might not survive and wrote long letters to Orwell. Sadly, under the anaesthetic Eileen died. Aged only 39, Eileen was buried on 3rd April in St Andrews Cemetery, Newcastle.

With Eileen’s death a deep sense of loneliness overwhelmed Orwell. He put off a return to the family home and went back to Germany to report on the end of the Second World War. Close friends looked after his son Richard at their flat in Canonbury Square, London.

His novel, Animal Farm was published in the summer and in it he credited Eileen with helping to plan the book. In May 1946 Orwell rented Barnhill, a farmhouse on the remote island of Jura in Scotland and wrote Nineteen Eighty Four, the book was published in 1949.

Sadly, on 21st January 1950 George Orwell died of tuberculosis in London aged 46. He is buried in the churchyard of All Saints in Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire.

Sources: George Orwell biographies by Gordon Bowker and Scott Lucas. Family history research on Ancestry website. Local Studies in South Shields, Newcastle and Sunderland City Libraries.

Thanks to David Harland present owner of Westgate House, South Shields.

 Gary Alikivi.

WESTOE ROSE – The story of Amy Flagg, South Shields Historian & Photographer 1893-1965

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Research and script I wrote for the 2016 documentary ‘Westoe Rose’.

Amy Flagg is fondly remembered as the lady in a hat and trench coat, who quietly went about photographing buildings and recording the history of a town she loved. But who was Amy ?

This is a story of courage and determination of a very unique woman who captured some of the most devastating images of South Shields in the 20th century.

At the end of the nineteenth century the North East was the industrial heartland of the UK. Collieries, Shipyards and Steelworks covered the landscape. Small villages dotted around the area offered their residents some clear breathing space away from the hazy smog of the town.

Westoe Village in South Shields was home to many notable people of the town. The shipbuilding family the Readheads, Robert Ingham MP, and in Chapel House was the Flagg family. In this grand 20 roomed house was Ambrose, his wife Annie and their only child Amy who was born on 30th of September 1893.

Amy’s father originally came from South London, and was educated at Cambridge University. In 1889 he married Annie Broughton of Westoe and was appointed Headmaster of the Marine School in the town.

He was also member of the Ancient Vestry of St Hilda’s where he rubbed shoulders with influential people. He arranged for Amy’s private education.

The young Amy had a brief romance with a neighbour in the Village but sadly like many men from the town he went to fight in the First World War and never returned, throughout the rest of her life she never married.

There is no record of her being employed so what did she do with her education ? This was a time when women had just fought for the vote, was she involved in the Suffragette movement ? Reports describe Amy as a shy, quiet and gentle woman willing to help others.

There is accounts of her spending hours in the garden of Chapel House and having an active role volunteering in the local hospital and library. Whether helping someone find information about the town or reading to a patient in hospital, was Amy now becoming aware of her surroundings and her purpose in life ?

By 1930 she was a member of the local photographic society. At a time when only a few female photographers worked in the UK, a woman behind the camera was very unique.

This is the time when Amy blossomed and began to see the world around her in a different light. She was fascinated by the changing landscape of the town and photographed the housing clearances along the riverside.

But the camera techniques that she had been using were brought into sharp focus in a period that would be Amy’s defining moment in her creative life. She captured the town’s suffering through one of it’s most traumatic episodes: the Second World War.

When the bombs dropped, she captured the scars with her camera.

Amy’s father had died in 1936 and her mother died during the war, plus the town she loved was falling apart from the German air raids. Her life was crumbling around her. These were her darkest days.  

But Amy was determined that these events would not destroy her, having a purpose and remaining active helped strengthen her. She gained recognition for her work and became the town’s official photographer during the war.

After receiving permission from the Ministry of Information and the Chief Press Censor, Amy produced a series of booklets of the Air Raid Damage.

An intelligent, determined and very courageous woman, at nearly 50 years old, she was climbing into demolished houses and onto bomb sites to capture the photographs.

To accompany the photographs, she documented as much information as possible about the areas and streets which were hit by bombs. She also recorded in great detail the time of the air raids and if there were any casualties or deaths.

‘On January 11th 1940 shortly after 10.00 hours South Shields felt the first impact of warfare by the Luftwaffe. The Air Ministry announced: Enemy air craft crossed the coast near Newcastle today. No bombs were dropped. Fighter patrols were sent up and Anti-aircraft guns opened fire’.

The pictures are haunting and as time passes they take on a new meaning for a wider audience. It is as if she was aware of the effect and importance they would have in years to come.

In her dark room she printed every photograph herself of the devastation caused by air raids on the town. With the traumatic events revolving around her, Amy would go to the darkroom where she could feel warmth and security in her own home as images she had taken that day were revealed by the mix of the chemicals.

She would watch the magic happen in front of her eyes.

Even the Flagg family home didn’t escape from the German bombs.

‘At zero 45 hours on the 16th April four bombs fell in the grounds of residential property in Westoe. The first on the edge of a field at Seacroft failed to explode and was dealt with by the bomb disposal unit at a later date. The second and third fell in the gardens of Fairfield and Eastgarth respectively.

The last one on the lawn ten yards from Chapel House. No casualties were reported but considerable damage was done to a large number of houses in the neighbourhood, including over forty roofs of houses in Horsley Hill road which were penetrated by lumps of clay thrown up by the explosions’.

These incredible photographs are considered to be her most valued and precious legacy. In her very extensive diary notes of October 2nd 1941

‘At daylight on Friday morning the Market Place looked like the ruins of Ypres; nothing could be seen but broken buildings; the square was littered with debris and a tangle of fire hose; all the remaining windows in St Hilda’s Church were shattered, the roof dislodged and the old stone walls pitted and scarred with shrapnel.

The Old Town Hall suffered heavy interior harm and none of the business premises were left intact. All the overhead wires were down and it was not until the afternoon of October 9th that buses were able to pass along King Street’.

Experiencing the two world wars, a changing landscape to her town, and both parents recently deceased, creatively and emotionally events of this magnitude would have tested the resilience of most people.

But she picked herself up and threw herself into a frenzied period of her life.

Recording information from parish records, researching family tree’s from notable people in the town, collecting various reports and photographs from the local paper that she would then cut out and paste in scrap books.

She was continually surprising librarians by asking to see little known documents, and then by hand she would record facts then type them up at home.

Amy was tireless in her thirst for knowledge about the town she loved, and with a lot of buildings disappearing during the war she thought it important to record as much information as she could.

Sadly this lead her to the last piece of work which was published by South Tyneside Library Service in 1979. It took Amy eight painstaking years of research to produce the book ‘Notes on the History of Shipbuilding in South Shields 1746-1946’.

‘Shadwell Street and Pilot Street. It is very fitting that these two streets should be the first section in these notes; the eastern extremity of the old township of South Shields was the birthplace and for long the nursery of shipbuilding in our town.

John Readheads story is that of an extremely successful industrialist in South Shields, from being a practical blacksmith, he built up one of the most prosperous shipbuilding firms on Tyneside. He made his way from wood and iron tugboats to large steamers for every part of the world.

John Readhead died on the 9th March 1894 at his home Southgarth, in Westoe Village; he had been in failing health for some time but had visited the West Docks almost daily until the last few weeks’.

Amy also noted the huge effort by Readheads during the First World War. Amongst the constant procession of merchant vessels which needed repairing after being torpedoed or mined, they supplied 20 cargo vessels, 3 armoured patrol boats and one vessel which was converted into an oil tanker for the Admiralty.

Amy noted in the book that nothing better illustrates the importance of Readheads than the genuine rejoicing when local newspaper the Shields Gazette announces in large headlines ‘ANOTHER ORDER FOR READHEADS’.

In her later years it was reported that Amy put as much work into her garden as she did of her house. She spent countless hours planting unusual flowers and plants.

Family, friends and neighbours were constant visitors to it, and she delighted in showing them the statues and conservatories. Even turning the crater caused by a world war two bomb into an ornamental garden.

Amy lived in Chapel House until 1962 when she gave the house and grounds to South Shields Corporation to enable the expansion of the Marine College. This was a heart breaking decision as she lived there most of her life.

‘I have not the slightest idea about the value of the house, but I shall not leave yet. I intend to spend one more summer here’.

But it was something that would of pleased her father as he devoted his life to education in the town. The Marine and Technical College being the successor to the Marine School where he worked for most of his life.

Amy stayed in the village for another three years until her death from stomach cancer on the 22nd February 1965. Her body was cremated and the ashes buried in the family grave in Harton Cemetery.

Amy requested a quiet affair but her popularity meant her funeral was attended by over 200 people including the Mayor of South Shields, her close friend and Librarian Miss Rosemary Farrell and a contingent of medical staff and nurses from the Ingham Infirmary.

In a last generous gesture Amy left a substantial amount of money in her will to Ingham hospital. A small remembrance in the town is Flagg Court, and the local photographic society where she was a member hold a yearly competition where the winner receives the Flagg Cup.

Amy’s extensive papers, research and photographs were all placed with the local library and are still held there to this day. Amy Flagg will be remembered as one of the town’s most important photographers and local historians.

To watch the 12min film check the You Tube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB1a3Y-yFhM

 Gary Alikivi  2019.

SKUETENDERS – documentary about The Lawe, South Shields.

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Over seven years – 2009-2016 – I produced over 20 documentaries around South Tyneside. I never received any funding to produce the films, each DVD was sold to help fund the next one.

‘Little Ireland’ in 2009 sold well and was sent to ex-pat’s around Europe, Canada and Australia but ‘Skuetenders’ was the most successful. I’ve lost count the number of copies sold, it’ll be around 800. 

The length of any programme can differ from very short adverts to full length films of 100 minutes plus. It depends on the story that you are telling. An interesting documentary on tv can be turned into just a number of soundbites.

They can tell the story but rush over some really good bits with the interviewee talking for less than 10 seconds. I’ve watched a few.

When I had the idea to make a documentary around the Lawe Top in South Shields I didn’t want it to be full of soundbites. I wanted the interviewee’s to have enough time to tell their story. Not only was it important what they had to say but it was all in the Geordie accent.

The idea was to wander around The Lawe Top collecting stories from residents with a narrator explaining the history of this oldest part of South Shields, it even has a Roman fort.  

As with all documentaries made over the seven years, arrangements were made with Hildred Whale at the South Shields Heritage Club to screen the film in the library.

Downstairs had a great theatre with over 100+ raked seats, a stage, large screen, video projector hanging from the ceiling and projection room with VHS and DVD players. It also had an audio mixing desk and mic’s for invited speakers. A great set up.

A date for the first screening on 2pm 19th October 2011 was arranged and that quickly sold out. A later show at 7pm was added. That sold out. Another date was added. Same again, a quick sell out. This was repeated until the film was shown six times.

Further evidence of a thirst that people have to see and hear stories from their hometown. The documentary had a running time of 70 minutes and was repeated in the next documentary ‘Tyne Dock Borders’. Another area of the town with a long history. 

To view the edited film go to the ALIKIVI You Tube channel and subscribe to watch more.

Gary Alikivi August 2018.

LITTLE IRELAND – documentary on Irish immigration into Jarrow, UK

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Sarah McFadden, (7th from left) my Great Grandmother, at Haggies Rope Works, in Willington Quay, Wallsend. A long way from Derry.

Little Ireland came about after I’d been researching my family tree in late 2007. I knew I had Irish background but not sure of the exact locations where they lived.

The Local Studies Library in South Shields was a great source for information. The filing system with the old press cuttings and the brilliant photographs by Amy Flagg and James Cleet of Tyneside in the 1930’s of area’s where some of my family lived after travelling from Ireland.

The old maps were really interesting. I could see where my Great Grandfather Dawson Downey from Derry lived. Bell Street, East Jarrow, across the road was the chemical works where he worked, next door was The Alkali pub and just up the road was St Bede’s Church. I thought thousands of families would be exactly the same. Never having to go very far. Living a small life.

I never realised the full impact that the Irish had on the North East and in my case, Jarrow. The population had grown so much around the 1890’s that the village became a small town.

I started to jot down a few notes when I read an article in The Shields Gazette in 2008 about Irish immigration written by Tom Kelly (Jarrow born playwright). I got in touch and we met up at The Customs House in South Shields. Quickly, a plan was made, a structure for a documentary and interviews with Jarrovians with Irish ancestry fell into place.

It wasn’t forced, it was easy to put together. 

We started filming at St Paul’s in East Jarrow. Tripod up, camera ready, Tom reading the opening lines from the script, but it didn’t feel right. We stopped and went back to my studio. Had a cup of coffee, talked about it then went out in his car again to Jarrow.

I started filming in his car and Tom started talking as he drove. This was more like it. Hand held felt more comfortable, being part of the film. As though an old Irishman had come back and was searching for his town ‘Like driving into the past’.

Over the next few weeks, I filmed interviews with people who had Irish relatives. For one interview I arranged to talk to singer Leo Connolly at his home in Jarrow.

I turned up, knocked on the door but got no answer. I knocked again and heard someone in the house. I looked through the front window and there they were. Two blokes with acoustic guitars and Leo in the middle singing his heart out. That was Little Ireland right there.

The documentary was successful it was screened for the first time to two sell out audiences at The Customs House on St Patricks Day 2009.

The film has been shown at various venues including St Bede’s Church Hall where most of the Irish, and my family, attended when they first came to Jarrow over 100 years ago.

Link to the documentary, to check out other films on You Tube subscribe to the channel.

Gary Alikivi   August 2018.

ON THE FRONT LINE – miners strike documentary

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I was walking down King Street in South Shields when I noticed a group of lads walking up the street laughing, joking and looking as if they didn’t have a care in the world. I wondered if any of them had jobs?

Were they killing time until their next shift at work ? Or their next giro? This led me into thinking about the unemployment problem in my hometown. 

I sat down on a bench where two old men were. I overheard them talking about how they had spent their working lives down the mines. Westoe Colliery used to be nearby. Listening to their banter, made me think back to when the strike began in March 1984.

I was 18 at the time, about the same age as those young lads who passed earlier. It was always on the telly. Scargill, Thatcher, pickets and police. TV footage of the battle of Orgreave. Explosive scenes of a class war. 

Reality was that thousands of men weren’t working. There was no money coming in to pay bills and feed kids. How did their families survive?  Whole communities were brought to their knees due to financial insecurity. Families torn apart.

I thought it would be interesting to find how people coped in that time of crisis. People who were directly involved given a voice to record their cold, hard, bitter truths. 

During research for the film the stories that I heard were laughter, sadness, courage and pride. Some people didn’t want to talk about the strike, or for any of their comments to be recorded. After all these years feelings still ran deep. Emotional scars. 

The years have rolled on and out of the ashes of the pit’s new businesses and housing developments have appeared. But the mining industry will never be forgotten.

Link to the documentary and to check out other films on You Tube subscribe to my channel: 

 

Gary Alikivi.

SECRETS & LIES – Shields Gazette article on documentary about Baron Avro Manhattan

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As the blog hits 35,000 views Journalist Peter French wrote in The Shields Gazette 7th August 2018….

’The life and times of Avro Manhattan, an Italian born Baron whose artwork and writing made him friends and enemies throughout the world, and who chose to spend his final years, living with his wife in South Shields are truly fascinating. But don’t take my word for it – let the man himself reveal to you all about it’.

To read the story go to…www.shieldsgazette.com/lifestyle/nostalgia/hit-man-s-target-settled-in-south-shields-1-9288202

Or watch the documentary ‘SECRETS & LIES’ posted on 17th July 2018.

Gary Alikivi    August 2018.

WESTOE ROSE – making the documentary about South Shields Historian & Photographer Amy Flagg

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Amy Flagg is fondly remembered as the lady in a hat and trench coat, who quietly went about photographing buildings and recording history of the town she loved. But who was Amy ?

By the Second World War both her parents had died, plus the town she loved was falling apart from the German air raids. Her life was crumbling around her. When the bombs dropped, she captured the scars with her camera.

This is a story of courage and determination of a very unique woman who captured some of the most devastating images of South Shields in the 20th century.

Just some of the script from my documentary about South Shields photographer and local historian Amy Flagg. I came across her photo’s a few years ago when I was part of a group who volunteered to digitize the photographic collection held in South Tyneside Library.

They were excellent photographs especially her record of the Second World War bomb damage in South Shields. A brave woman.

In my research I found that Amy had a darkroom so was able to print her own photograph’s. I know the magic that can happen there as I had my own set up during the early ’90s. My darkroom was in a cupboard under the stairs where I’d print the black and white images.

Before I had the home set up, I went on a short course in photography and darkroom techniques at a local community centre. If I was investing time and money, I wanted to know my way around a darkroom first.

I’d go out with a roll of film and shoot some photo’s, develop them into a roll of negatives then put them into the enlarger and exposed the photographic paper to the light shining through the negative. Then put the paper through the tray of chemicals.

The image started to come through – it was like magic. I knew I had to do more of this, and I did.

In June 2016 the time was right to make a short documentary about the life of Amy Flagg. Using archive information, Amys local history diary entries (pic above) and photographs from South Shields Library I put a script together.

North East playwrite Tom Kelly provided the narration, local journalist and writer, Janis Blower, added the voice of Amy. We  recorded the voice overs at The Customs Space studio in South Shields.

As with many documentaries I’ve made, North East musician John Clavering captured the mood with some great music.

On March 8th, 2017 ‘Westoe Rose’ was screened at The Word in South Shields on International Woman’s Day.

Watch the documentary ‘Westoe Rose’ and to check out some of my other films go to You Tube and subscribe to my channel.

Gary Alikivi    June 2018.

SECRETS & LIES – making a documentary based on the the life of Baron Avro Manhattan.

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I came across Avro Manhattan in Summer 2012 in the Local Studies Department of South Shields Library. At the time I was researching South Shields born Eileen O’Shaughnessy, wife of 1984 author George Orwell.

The library have a couple of large cabinets, inside are files with photographs and cuttings from local newspapers of notable people and events on Tyneside. All in alphabetical order. I flicked through to the O’s but landed in the letter M’s and came across a name which was unusual for Tyneside.

Sounding like a ’70s rock star, Baron Avro Manhattan was born in Italy in 1914, he was an author and artist. In the articles they reported he met Picasso, had homes in London and Spain, and a plot of land in the Bahamas. In his will he left over half a million pounds. Impressive story for someone who ended their days in a terraced house in South Shields.

A week later I was in a charity shop when I came across a small book ‘Poems by Manhatten’. At the entrance of South Shields library there was a small plinth about 5ft tall with a bust of Manhattan on top. I started to tap his head a couple of times for luck.

After completing the Wildflower film about Eileen O’Shaughnessy (available on the Alikivi you tube channel) I started research at the end of his life, records show he is buried in the Blackhill cemetery in Shotley Bridge. His wife’s parents lived in the town which is 30 miles from South Shields.

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Article from The Shields Gazette, June 2015.

There was more information on various websites but a lot more digging was needed, I talked to his former neighbours and friends. Stories I heard about him were getting bizarre – who was he? I put a request in local newspaper The Shields Gazette and received a few calls in response.

The story was on their website and a woman from Germany called Gunda Kraepelin got in touch. She sent over photos of Avro when he was a young artist in Italy. She also told stories about him when he was young as her mother knew him well.

A visit to London was arranged as I got in touch with an art dealer from Sussex who has an extensive collection of his framed artwork. Then another response from somebody closer to home.

A woman had bought the South Shields house that he died in. Inside were carpets, curtains, old bits of furniture and in a spare room upstairs was a box of artwork, books, letters and photographs – full of personal stuff. Lucky she had kept hold of it and now handed it over to me – it was a goldmine of information about Avro’s life.

After months of research and writing the script, I was ready to record and make a documentary. North East actors Jonathan Cash with his wife Helen were going to be the voices of Avro and his wife Anne. We recorded the narration and musician’s John Clavering and Dom Santos added music and sound.

In The Customs Space studio in South Shields, I was sitting with the sound engineer Martin Trollope and Helen Cash in the control room. In the studio Jonathan was sitting next to a microphone with a copy of the script.

After reading all the material on Avro, writing the story and looking at his photo’s I imagined what he might sound like. I was looking down at the script when Martin said ok let’s go for it. Jonathan read the first sentence and immediately I turned to Helen and said, ‘Avro’s in the room’. 

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Leaving plenty of space and time when working on a project allows more information to be collected – a positive aspect of not having to work to a deadline. I did receive a couple more leads but nothing that would add to the film.

Then in 2018 I shared this intriguing story. The search isn’t over to find out all the secrets and lies surrounding Avro Manhattan.

Watch ‘Secrets & Lies’ here and check out some of my other films on You Tube and subscribe to the channel. 

Gary Alikivi    July 2018.