Our first trip to the Teesside area was a opportunity to gain first insights into an area built around steel. The steel provided the basis for a thriving shipbuilding industry. It also made it a hub for other industries, not least the biggest chemical works in the country built by ICI. On the periphery of Teeside were the mines, providing the fuel that powered the steel industries. What remains of the steel industry now has few employees, the jobs of banders and rollers replaced by computers. The mines have closed, so have the shipyards and ICI.
As previously, our strategy has been to go where the people are. Our first visit was to a community centre which allowed us to talk to volunteers as well as councillors and members of local agencies and NGOs. Our conversations gave us insights into one part of Redcar that had been built to house steelworkers. Further discussion groups were held with members of a Parent-Toddler group, a Later Life group, a parish community group and an ex-steelworker and his wife who have taken on farming. These were complimented with five interviews with those who had worked in, and been made redundant from, the steelworks, chemical factory and shipyards.
A common theme was the breakdown of community across areas like Dormanstown in Redcar, Grangetown and Southbank areas of Middlesbrough and the suggestion that the problems the areas face are in some part due to the loss of the industries, the mass employment and the scaffolding provided for those who entered the industries after leaving school. The other theme is pride. As the slogan reads Middlesbrough ‘built the world’. Many spoke of building the Sydney Harbour Bridge, proud to be a Smoggy (from Middlesbrough) or being from Slaggy Island (Southbank). The steel from the area also went into the sculpture The Angel of the North, build on the site of the pithead baths of Team colliery using steel from Teeside and manufactured in Hartlepool. On the last day of this first trip to the region as we headed off out of Newcastle we visited this fitting memorial to the coal and steel industries on which most of the north east of England was built on.
