Having observed the rise and fall of several governments over the course of my career, it seems to me that there always comes a point in the lifetime of an administration where all events conspire to the one end of inevitable electoral defeat. I witnessed it with the long, slow demise of John Major’s Government …
The date was May 4 1964. The Leamside Line, stretching 21 miles from Pelaw in Gateshead to Ferryhill in County Durham, officially closed to passenger trains. Another victim of the Beeching Cuts. Almost three decades later, in the early 1990s, the line was also closed to freight trains. The man who oversaw the concluding years …
Special consideration has to be given to an artist who reckoned he spent about a third of his life in semi-darkness. It was a miner’s lot but Oliver Kilbourn endured it uncomplainingly and dedicated many of his daylight hours to standing at an easel, recording what those half-lit subterranean hours were like. “I couldn’t express …
In a village hall in the Tyne Valley a group of locals contemplates the end of the world. They do so with a smile, gallows humour, and an astonishing degree of positive thinking. For this is the extraordinary village of Humshaugh, six miles to the north of Hexham. And this is a meeting organised by …
A feast of after-hours culture looks set to – perhaps ironically – arrive right on schedule next month. The programme for the 16th incarnation of The Late Shows has been unveiled, offering two packed evenings of free activity across Newcastle and Gateshead. More than 60 music and performance venues, art studios, galleries and museums have …
It was the ‘where were you’ moment of the decade. While privileged spectators lined the shores, the public was glued to TV sets around the world to watch grainy black and white images of a futuristic jet-powered hydroplane skim across Coniston Water at speeds of around 300mph. On the second run, the nose of Bluebird …
As a kid, Ben Ducker always loved being outdoors — building camps in the woods near his home, sleeping under the stars, and getting his wellies as muddy as possible. Today, at 33, he’s as happy as the proverbial pig in muck after taking charge of a 50-acre ‘playground’ that’s the setting for an outdoor …
Hands up everybody who watched the film Zulu for the umpteenth time on TV over Easter. If it’s Easter, it must be Zulu, and the same goes for Christmas as the 1964 movie, which made a young Michael Caine’s name is aired again. Caine took the part of Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead, second in command to …
In this busy awards season it would be remiss to overlook the success of a play which emerged from research into young fatherhood by a Newcastle University academic. Father Unknown, co-created by Dr Michael Richardson, senior lecturer in human geography, and freelance theatre maker Jonah York, lifted the prize for best online production at The …
In 1995, as Alan Hull focused on putting the finishing touches to critically acclaimed solo album Statues and Liberties, he could hardly have imagined it would be his final set of politically charged folk songs. Tragically, the Lindisfarne frontman passed away before the record was released and co-producer Dave Hull-Denholm has always wanted to revisit …
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