The QT

Monday 21 October 2024
21/10/2024

20 March 2024

Life changing power of storytelling

The North East has always been a cultural cradle for artists yet there remains challenges to overcome when it comes to turning creative dreams into reality. That is why writer and founding director of โ€˜Write on the Tyne,โ€™ Helen Aitchison, has made it her goal in life to help others tell their stories. โ€œWe all …

Levelling up is โ€˜not working as promisedโ€™

The UK parliament has heard findings that levelling up โ€” arguably the Conservativesโ€™ flagship policy agenda โ€” is beset by critical delays. In a report published on March 15, the public accounts committee, parliamentโ€™s expenditure watchdog, has said that, as of September 2023, local authorities had spent only ยฃ1.24 billion of the ยฃ10.47 billion the …

Life through a lens: Topher McGrillis

Travelling gave Topher McGrillis his first taste of the joys of digital photography, sowing the seeds for a passion which would become part of his professional career. Up until that point, his big passion had been film-making . โ€œI was always obsessed with playing with my friends’ camcorders growing up but didn’t get my first …

The past, present and future of Sacriston

Nathan Hopkins and his energetic dog Penny are welcoming hosts โ€” which is just as well. In February a leading academic invited a House of Lords committee to visit Nathanโ€™s village as part of its investigation into failing high streets in towns and villages. If committee members head to Sacriston in County Durham they need …

Potted history of life in Sunderland

The owners of Sunderlandโ€™s thriving 18th and 19th century pottery industry were no mugs. They produced vast numbers of jugs, mugs and wall plaques, many of which illustrated dominant occupations such as mining, maritime, farming and brewing. Pieces were relatively cheap and decorated local workersโ€™ homes and were also bought as keepsakes by visiting sailors. …

Full steam ahead for iconic workshop

The multi-million-pound conversion of an historic engineerโ€™s workshop into a centre for businesses has been completed in Newcastle. The Pattern Shop, behind Central Station, is where Robert Stephenson built and exported steam engines all around the world, putting it at the heart of the industrial revolution in the late 1800s. When it fell empty in …

Conference brings writers together

A full house is expected for this yearโ€™s Newcastle Writing Conference for which tickets go on sale today (March 20). Writing may be a solitary activity but that doesnโ€™t mean all writers are solitary people. Grace Keane, senior programme manager at New Writing North, says itโ€™s been five years since the conference last took place. …

Levelling Up: the case for the prosecution

Almost 10 years ago the then Chancellor coined the term ‘Northern Powerhouse’. When Boris Johnson became Prime Minister and replaced it with ‘Levelling Up’ many here asked โ€” isnโ€™t that a downgrade?  After all, the 2010 Coalition Government had not got off to an auspicious start. We lost our regional development agency, One North East, …

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