Mrs H 🇬🇧 ... I'm a Nana now but doesn't anyone else crave how life use to be... Middlesbrough my home & always will be... The best years of my life yet we had nothing worth bragging about...We where all equal back then...
Thanks for the video, very enjoyable I lived on Theodore Street for a while with my gran in the mid 60's. I went to Archibald infant school and fondly remember the Sunday school there too. For years into my adulthood, I had reoccurring nightmares about Newport Bridge even though I had no fear of being on the bridge at all 😊
Lived in Edith Street, left early 74 to work in Shetland, came back in summer of 75 to find our house empty and smashed up, they had moved to near Albert Park.....before the days of house telephones ( mail only to communicate)......people just wouldn't get it these days....we didn't have much but overall we were happy...
Lived in Melbourne Street just off Newport Road. Those back alleys and lamp posts brought back some memories. Went to Newport school until going to Berwick Hills to live in late 50's. Then to Australia late 63. When I go to England try and get to this part of town. So different now. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
I grew up in Wicklow Street (still standing) and the closest I got to Cannon Street (a mile away) was St. Michael's School but a lot of this imagery is resonant with me. Obviously Jesus does not save..... I think the man with the white stick limping along the apocalyptic abandoned street is the lucky one -at least he cannot see the disintegration around him. Lampposts were our trees too, and we used to tie ropes around them and swing just like this. Cobbled alleys, drainpipes and abandoned buildings were our playgrounds too. I remember going around the alleyways catching blue bottle flies in a shrimping net and putting them into a milk bottle thinking I was ridding the world of germs! I still remember how they felt careening into the palm of my hand covering the top of the bottle. Those hooded children at 5.33 of the clip, whose rust-coloured jackets almost blend into the bricks behind them as if they were camouflage, looking like something out of an Aphex Twins video...? Wow. These clips are as artistic as a Picasso painting to me. Thank you.
Great documentary filming reminds me of Bridgeton in Glasgow exactly at the same time in '72 looked like this, the bricked up tenement flats where we lived, looks desolate and harsh looking at it now, but for me as an 8 year old it was just a great big adventure finding cats that given birth to kittens all over the place making ''saps'' bread steeped in milk and taking them to the kittens me and my big brother found and feeding them sure we were covered in flea bites, but you didn't care at least you had done something good in helping baby kittens, best days amongst the sadness of my childhood, it helped me through it now on reflection, thanks for posting this Derek, all the best.
The Jesus Saves sign always amused me in the mid-60's as I wanted to know at which bank Jesus saved and how much he had accumulated over his time in Cannon St. Mmmm... always was a bit of a renegade...ha! Great video... thanks for uploading. My Gran around the corner near there on Lamport St.. loved the area as a kid in the 50's.
Excellent to see this again after 40 years. I was in Mbro High School at the time it was made and a couple of years younger than Derek. All hail our visionary Art Teacher, Tom Hume, who encourage us kids to make movies like this! The soundtrack is by "Tonto's Expanding Head Band". Well, it was the seventies...
Hello Kevin it's a while since we were in touch. Some sad. news Tom had a cardiac arrest at Seaham while swimming on Monday the prospects don't look good. maybe we can be in touch via e mail - you can leave a message on my website just google Derek Smith Productions
I was born in Palmer street in 1964 Cannon Park area and went to Fleetham street school until we moved to Linthorpe in '71 we lived there until we moved to California in '76. I well remember those old streets from my childhood. Did the 'Jesus Saves' church also double as the 'Mutual Aid' building? Would love to see some footage of my old senior school Kings Manor
I was watching this and thinking I left Newport in Jan 1973 to join the Army at 15 and was wondering at the run down housing and thinking I don´t recognise this desolation. But I was from Newport Gwent and now realise why so many recruits were from this area. Maybe the title should reflect this?
Great video🙏 thanks🇬🇧..Shows what a SHITHOLE this area was..My Dad had a Chemist shop on Cannon Street.I used to go and help.sometimes .A walk down from Newport Rd down Millbank Street onto Cannon.Even as a kid.and smelling the Gasworks too I thought what a dump this place is !Constant Grey skies.Smelly air etc etc .When I was old enough we hot footed off to Blue skies clear airs of America and Australia.Sorry .Smoggies !🥰
You're right, we were the sick man of Europe back then, joining EEC helped slow the decline, then along came Thatcher and the Tories to kick us while we were down...
Reading this comments. Mad to think British people back then who were even dirt poor had the chance to go elsewhere. Now people living in estates like this are stuck on them. Seemingly trapped on an island prison. Bet the people who escaped fly back every four years to vote Tory though!
My Nana Betty Hill(Smith) was born on St Paul's road 1923 she was one of 15 kids(yes 15 all didn't live through infancy), she told loads of stories about cannon st and Newport area good and bad. I said was that right Nana you could leave your door open all the time, she laughed and said yes son only cos we had not to rob lol. Part of Boro died with Newport, and st hildas(over the border) but the Spirit lives on UTB.
