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The
Baltic Beast
They
opened up a run down mill
to fill it up with art,
a building full of culture,
to mark a brand new start.
They threw a swinging party,
with food on which to feast,
the people came from everywhere,
to see the Baltic Beast.
The music drifted through the air,
as revellers danced away,
then came the stroke of midnight,
on that now famous day.
The laser lights, they filled the air,
then came a mighty roar,
the Baltic beast was now awake,
as
crowds rushed through the door.
For decades it had lain there,
just sleeping by the Tyne,
a giant monster from the past,
that folk now toast with wine.
The Baltic Beast is now alive,
its mouth is open wide,
it looks as friendly as can be,
but dare you look inside.
Ken Craggs
Millennium
Bridge
A
bridge not of sighs
Nor yet a bridge too far
Over non-troubled waters.
This no Willow-pattern bridge.
This no Scotswood bridge.
Not of Eland,
Nor that of Avalon,
But of great, historic Tyne.
Elegant, impressive, so sublime,
Saying ...
Look at me, follow me.
I am free, and I can see
The torrid, sanguine sun-dance.
Eye a sparkling, gleaming river-dance
Graceful, grand, Gateshead-thought,
Brilliant, bold, Tyneside-wrought.
Our Tyne-Toon Bridge, whatever the mood
Is eye-catching, winking, blinking good
Philip Holden Corbridge.
Belsay Hall
Ionic Doric
columns, romantic in style
Plus 'Sitooteries'
Jedzia Race, Heddon
The Blaydon Angel
I'm scrambling up Blaydon bank when it appears floating above
the newsagent-the Blaydon angel! I'm a newcomer to Blaydon
but I'm finding my way. I go to the club and the barmaid serves
my pint of lager before I even have a chance to place my order
and the blokes I drink with have accepted me. I know we've
got Gormley's angel up near 'The Bowes Incline' ('Double rooms
£25 a night!') but this is Blaydon.
I mentioned the angel one night in Blaydon Club to Billy who
worked in Vickers all his life, and he went very quiet. He
is an authority on all things local. He avoided my eyes and
got very interested in the TV which is not Billy. I knew there
was something the matter and then he said he didn't want another
pint, now that's never been known. I was shocked. Deeply.
He just muttered, 'Read Garibaldi's account' left his pint
and ran out early for the quarter to eleven bus. That was
the first time I've seen him leave a drop of beer. Had he
seen something and didn't want to say? '
What had Garibaldi seen?' Saturday morning found me peering
into Garibaldi's eyes, well his sculpture in Blaydon library.
I followed the Librarian into a room that smelled of dried
dish cloths. She pointed to this folder. It read, 'THE BISCUIT
MAN.' Garibaldi, the great Italian hero and his words reduced
to my least favourite biscuit. I sat until almost one reading
Garibaldi's cramped gothic writing.
He wrote about drunken nights in Blaydon's Staff Club. No
wonder with beer at a pound a pint, discussing Italian unification
with the lads in the corner.
I photocopied the document. I just had enough ten pence pieces.
The librarian was friendly by now and asked me not mention
that a member of staff had written, 'The Biscuit King.' I
said her secret was safe with me. Near the end of the tale
I found a tiny heading, 'Blaydon's Angel'.
After that he went on about a night in Blaydon club after
the dart team returned from a victory against the 'Hunstman'.
I started to dwell, as I do, on Garibaldi, in 1854, sitting
down in the club talking to the lads in halting English, getting
signed in and playing the one armed bandit. I felt closer
to this people's hero, sensed that he was with me, wanting
me to find something that he'd left and ended-up in the back
room of Blaydon's library.
Anyway to get back to the beginning. I'm scrambling up Blaydon
bank beside this climber, crampons, oxygen mask the lot. He
struggles out a few words, dragging off his mask, 'Didn't
know Blaydon Bank was so tough'. He'd led a sheltered life,
been a mushroom till he was nearly 18.
And then I see it above the paper shop that sells bedding
plant and advertises dry cleaning and are Newcastle daft supporters
- the Blaydon angel! I now know I'm one of the few that have
seen it and recall Billy's face in Blaydon club and Garibaldi's
words....'Blaydon Angel rarely seen but much loved'. My last
image of the angel is it floating toward the Tyne, shouting,
'Forget Gormley, I've been here for years, ask Garibaldi,
I'm the Blaydon angel'.
Tom Kelly
Bomb Scare
I was living in Bewick Court, Newcastle in the mid 1970's
when terrorist activity was rife and everybody was very security-conscious.
Returning to the flat one afternoon, I found a paper bag parcel
outside the door. It had no label or message attached to it.
Taking it into the flat, I suddenly became nervous and went
instead to the room where the rubbish chute was situated.
I hesitated about actually putting it down the chute and decided
to leave it on the floor instead. Several hours later, when
it hadn't blown up, I went back to collect it. Inside was
a teddy bear and a small religious plaque and I realized that
a friend had left it for me. Every time I look at Noddy, as
I named him because his head was very loose, I remember the
Bewick Court bomb scare.
Margaret Hall, Hexham
Birtley - the Way There
Take the A68 north from Hexham and you will come across the
turning for Birtley. It's a small road and one that is easily
missed as it lies at the bottom of a dip between two 'blind
summits'.
The way is narrow, usually muddy and likely to have escapee
livestock waiting to leap out in front of the unwary traveller.
The scenery is wild and on a cold winters day, bleak, the
fields dotted with sheep wearing dirty grey fleeces, at night
their eyes eerily reflect the light from car headlights. The
road winds and climbs through windswept fields, fenced only
by post and wire, at times reminding me of the 'ribbon of
darkness' from the poem 'The Highwayman' by Alfred Noyes.
After dropping down the road turns to the right, then climbs
again taking you through a tunnel of trees, perhaps the remnants
of ancient woodland. Once passed the trees the road and verges
widen, and throughout the spring and summer these verges are
home to a host of wild flowers, from primroses to orchids.
Its here that on the left-hand side of the road the views
across the valley open up. T
here can be few places in Britain to rival this vist, when
on a warm summers evening you rest by a gateway to drink in
the scene. Farms nestle here and there, sending columns of
smoke from their chimneys straight up into the still evening
air, mirrored by Eggers chimneys smoking in the distance.
Across the valley rise the hills beyond Hexham. It is not
to far now to the picturesque village of Birtley with its
pub, church and stone built houses; the road continues on
and winds down the hillside to Wark.
Chris McEwen
Hexham writing group
Bridging
Crime and art floating
which will catch
the passer-by on Tyne.
Crime and art drinking
by the new bridge
dividing a sliding Tyne.
Crime and art disbelieving
gargoyles spouting
faucets fill the Tyne.
Crime and art unveiling
behind bars framing
swirling waters of the Tyne.
Crime and art reflecting
changes in the people
New canvas upon Tyne.
Steve Emsley
Big Meeting
No black ribbons this year
No dead miners
No miners dead or alive
Just memories, memorabilia.
Tears in the eyes at Gresford
A lump in the throat
At the banners waiting
Silksworth, South Lodge, Hetton.
And the bands, old men,
Young women, school children
Unironed sweaters, grubby skirts
Well rehearsed instruments
The crowds enjoying the day
Enjoying the sunshine, and the beer.
Not what it was, but then
That’s been said for 30 years.
Here the politicians are all out
Except, of course, for Sedgefield but
Cummings, Steinberg and Foster
Joyce Quinn the only woman.
Still this is the North East
Word is a monkey with a red rosette
Could win in Easington or Houghton
But, For God’s sake, there are limits.
Not for the lily livered, this
No New Labour here
This is the land of Wedgie Benn
Arthur Scargill, Unison, the T&G
The Morning Star, New socialist
Better deals for pensioners,
Immigrants, Iranian dissidents
And ‘Close the Byker Plant’
Not
what it was, but still -
But still a good day out
Mixing of marras with tourists
Reaffirmation of the ordinary.
Not like those other marchers
Spitting their words of venom
At the television cameras
Dividing the ‘us’ from them.
Jean Beard Durham
Durham bus station (after Shelley)
Friday night uncages here, a waste land
of untithed charity shops, coal-fouled stone,
gum-pebbled streets dumped on like once gold sand
under 14 ft of tipped slag, a frown
on the coastline under a chain of command
of unending buckets past signs unread
of pollution & global warming, things
masters and miners left to fish, fed
more like a fire, with damp slack, to appear
banked, and when it was all axed like a king's
head, sea, fish, sand, delivered from despair,
the blight bled from mines to towns, decay
all that's left of industry, the once bare
Bus-stands a sea scum of fags unswept away.
S.J. Litherland
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