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ahh jimmy was so canny he used to come in to my dads shop at the crossing delaval rd and armstrong rd id love to find pics of jackys shop

Where were they exactly?

Ah loved Scotswood I lived in Chepstow Road and Langham Road just up from the baths and the boys club. I loved Scotswood its probably the most settled I've ever felt it'll never come back or be the communities that was in Scotswood.😢

My Uncle Paddy, the window cleaner. Lived in Joseph Street.

Served my time at VA Elswick works 1966 to 1980, best place I ever worked , people their were the salt of the earth. Good times indeed !

I'm drawn back there. I walked with my dog from Westerhope to St John's cemetery recently. All changed and everyone I knew gone. Sad.

Wonderful film. Why were the Planners, Council and T Dan Smith so incompetent and unfeeling to the community? T. Dan Smith himself ie 'One Coat Smith' was indeed not right in the head, great talker yes, but if only the North East had been lucky enough for him to have lived in some other part of the country, as far away as possible! I met one of his neighbours once, she described him as the most awkward man she had ever met.

Very interesting, thanks!

Eeeee taffy cakes 😊😊

They get awards for this bloody destruction yet for instance looking at the vids for say the Byker Wall it is a very subjective treatment, they only show the good bits, after all, the Byker Wall itself is a high-rise laid on its side! You'll notice tv crews are loathe to show you the inside of that. In my opinion there was something seriously wrong in the head of T Dan Smith, certainly a very clever talker, but so twisted and divorced from real lives and what goes to make a functioning community. Its as if the high rise developments were devised as a punishment, as if the Planners and Councillors really did hate ordinary folk to an incredible extent and degree! But hey everybody .... lets get those awards first, once we've smashed it all to the ground and Thompsons have flattened and cleared the lot ... its a blank canvas! Rendered into a void, become nothing. Theres more to architecture and planning than playing around with wooden blocks on a bit of plywood. Did they never once think what people do each day, their movements and habits, little journeys; the corner shop, the pub, the houses of your friends and relatives. That listening thro an open window you can tell who is walking where, the approach of a neighbour, kids back from school, dad coming home. I'm sure we don't need Norman bleedin Foster to work that one out. Tragic.

T.Dan Smith was a very peculier person (simple fact) and unfortunately he lived in the North East hence we suffered the consequences of his weird way of thinking, his obscene ambition. Yes a great talker, very clever indeed but his ideas, wishes and endeavours were anathema to any locality he focused upon. His was an absurd reasoning. I met a neighbour of his a few years ago and she told me he was indeed a most awkward man to deal with. Mike Hodges, Director of 'Get Carter' is recorded (bbc r3 Matthew Sweet 'Free Thinking' c. yr 2020) in interview as saying ''You could smell the corruption in the air''.

Imagine, what were the streets that once occupied those empty spaces? The Planners and the middle class Architects wrought greater destruction than the Luftwaffe. For re-generation read destruction.

I'm very touched by this, very well explained. Note that dreadful slogan 'Going for Growth' ..... going for what ...for demolition! Poor sods. Shameful. I don't know the area much but I am reading abt it as much as I can. These are hard lessons we must never forget. Very strange isn't it how covert and underhanded the Council actually was, it had its arguaments all cut 'n dried, all prepared, refusing to see honest arguament of what people actually would have preferred ... to be left alone! What the heck did they have against the area? And those compensation levels are indeed criminal. Why disturb something that functioned perfectly well. I think there was too much money sloshing around (or ambition and greed) and the Council grasped at whatever are they could think of to 'regenerate', ie a gravy train to be milked, self aggrandisement, something for the CV and rubbing their fingers a chance to get 'in on the take'. Drunk on Modernism. Shameful !!! And that quote 'not enough professionals in the area' is just utter bollocks from the Council, they'd never have said that when Scotswood and Elswick were full swing during the war!

I started as a store boy in 66 as i left school. Store boy, as I was too young to start an apprenticeship as Fitter & Turner. Realised it was not the life for me. so joined the RN as an engineer. Did 24 years. Vickers was jaw dropping for a young lad, I delivered plans to the Tank shop, spent ages just walking around.

I lived in Benwell in the 80s and as it happens l am a planner although l was not in practice then. People criticising planners do not know what they do or what others do, such as Council Estates offices, property developers or politicians for that matter. People use them as a scapegoat when the real issues are very little to do with planning and planners. The root of the issue is deindustrialisation. Shops are not a social service. If they don’t make money they shut. Simple as. The Shopping Centre was obviously a mistake but it didn’t make things any worse. And without being involved in its development my guess is local councillors wanted it in the hope it might improve things. And don’t be too judgemental- what were they supposed to do? People mostly imagine there are simple solutions to their problems because they have never had to think hard about what it is possible to do.

The 60s through until the late 90s really were grim times in so much of Britain. Industry in Britain had been in decline since the late 1800s. There was a brief upward turn after the war to rebuild the country, but from the 60s onwards, things got worse and worse and unemployment went up steadily. There was also an accompanying surge in crime during that period. It was only really during the Blair government that things started to feel like they were genuinely picking up, but the crash in 2008 and the following austerity put and end to it.

I used to love going up and down those ramps on my skateboard 😊

Beautifully put🙌🏻 Smashing up communities is how they control us....divided we fall. It was never about regeneration💔😓

Ah another successful smashing of an established community and replaced by nothing.

Love this video, thank you for posting it.

Got all nostalgic seeing the waste ground where the old houses of Helen/Joan Street once stood

You got it right there Jimmy. All over the Country generations of people spread all over the place. The dreaded high rise never worked anyway with most people.

Me nana Alice n me da, aged about 8-9years old 😂 mad x

Seven minutes in that is me, my mother, sister and family pet dog.

What happened in Newcastle happened in Glasgow but on a bigger scale blocks of flats knowing as deserts with eyes the idea came from Sweden with high rises totally destroyed the communitys

The noble Street flats never forgot them

U don't see begging addicts on them streets like nowadays how things have changed for the worsed

Them were the days

when I think of where I grew up, my mind goes back 60 years, the roads are gravel and cobbled, EWS is painted on the walls, the old man's shelter is still there (made from an Anderson shelter) the gas lamps I shinned up to light my cigarettes, I expect to see the man who sharpened lawn mowers and hedging sheers on his bicycle, the food van outside my old house, the Methodist chapel, miners welfare hall and my Sunday school but they were all demolished in the 1970s along with the brickworks and woodyard, it's like they exist somewhere I can't go. the new has been there longer than the old but when I think of the area it's the old I see not the new, we live in two worlds, the one we are presented with and the one we want. I think !

Awww bless ❤ my great granny owned a sweet shop on byker bank .all geordies are lovely friendly people .they had no money but they all dressed very smart not like today .

Beautiful remember pendower was a lovely area.

Jimmy's work photography was outstanding God bless 🙏 Great story thanks .

That’s my nana 10:39 ❤

I lived next street up from Buddle Road, Matilda Street from 1962 to 1972. Was when the demolition of Benwell was happening. Never got over moving away from there aged 10!

Film was a bit over exposed couldn't watch.😢

Yvonne, Thank you so much for your memories of Benwell. It all helps me build a picture of the area rich in my family history and with the places that once named after my family, will be there forever. Kind Regards, Ross Buddle Atkinson

Great to watch Yvonne. Very evocative.

I believe the Likely Lads film had the 'Fat Ox' pub demolition scene taken around the lower Joan Street area, where the wildlife park is now.

I know I'm not from the north east being a Sheffielder, but this area looks like it MIGHT have been where they shot a demolition scene for The Likely Lads film c1976. It appears they used TWO different places to shoot the scene outside the 'Fat Ox' pub before it was pulled down. The strange-shaped modern housing behind them can be found in 2 locations now - one of them being on Buddle Road and the other St Johns Road. The latter would have meant the location of the old houses were where the cemetery is, so it only leaves the former.

Born in Be well lane 1954,we were poor but there was a great community everyone knew all the people who lived on the estate,adelaid terrace was a great shopping centre,once they built the block of flats over from the dwelling the place fell apart like aton of bricks,killed the community

To anyone who visits here. I run a get together at Labour Club in town from 1.00 every 2nd Wednesday in the month. People from West End but friends of those who lived there more than welcome.

Very sad seeing the de-industralisation of the North. The British were sold out by their own business elite from the 60s onwards.

John Marlay lower school makes a brief appearance here. I unfortunately was a pupil there...a lot like being in a young offenders home, despite being innocent. Dreadful place with dreadful alleged teachers.

Politicans will make sure the rich will not lose money. The people they don't care about

I was born in 72 Rye Hill in 1958... some good memories some not so good. I'd like to know what batman is doing in this film... probably playing tricks on people...as usual.

No 1 was a great service when it was run by the Council. Now it us crap only there to get vast profits.

My parental Grandfather, Thomas Smith also worked there at Elswick as Fitter and Turner on lathes,, my dad also served his time there as a Fitter and Turner on lathes. He spent time in 27 shop, Elswick, just below the underpass at Elswick. He then went into the training school beside the under pass, the old office block. He then went to work at Michells, Scotswood and retired before he was asked back into what was then Rolls Royce. Just next to pressing shop at Paradise Yard which still makes Jaguar parts. My Niece, Nicole Chamberlain started there as a Electrical Engineer, sadly after my dad, her grandfather died. He would have being so proud of her. My dads name was Thomas Smith and I still know a lot of his appentices whom he taught, as Nicole did also. He was very well respected by the lads as he called them. I went into the Construction industry and served my time as a Carpenter and Joiner with John T Bell & Sons, now known as Bellway's. Dad did not want me in a factory and boy am I glad he said so.

I lived in Helen st and had a crush on a girl called Christine Love , she had a sister called Patricia who lived opposite on Atkinson road ..l remember a shop called Applebys where l went with sledge to get a 28ib bag if coal in the bleak winter of 63'

Joan st ..there was a club there and a corner shop ..up the road a fish/chip shop wiv a big beefy lad serving with rosy cheeks who looked better fed than the rest of us poor sods..

Superb..love all these all videos..so glad billy got those Pics and videos..well done