In 2010 the unabashedly Brutalist car park was demolished. Its severe beauty had served as a pivotal location in Mike’s film ‘Get Carter’. His National Service in the Royal Navy had introduced him to the absolute poverty and desperation of fishing ports in ’50s Britain and it was in one of them that he chose to set his film. A 25 year battle ensued when fans of the film tried to stop the car park being demolished. They lost; it’s now a Tesco. The demolition coincided with the 40 year anniversary of the release of ‘Get Carter’. The anniversary was marked with an award given to Mike by The Royal Television Society. Mike’s films have won many awards abroad but never any in his own country, he’d always wondered how he’d react. Mike was so choked he couldn’t thank anyone. The award was a pedestal of glass crafted in Sunderland, mounted on this was a piece of concrete from the Gateshead car park.
10 Jun 2012
Although Marlene was studying for a degree in the Jewellery School much of her time was spent in the Industrial Design School, and much of that time was spent in Margaret’s office. Margaret ran the library which housed all the material samples, in particular the acrylics that have formed the large part of Marlene’s work since her time as a student. Margaret was an early patron when Marlene graduated in 1977, her collection of jewellery spans their 35 year friendship, many of the pieces have been Birthday and Christmas presents from Marlene.
03 Jun 2012
Edith moved from Romania to be with Helmut in Dresden. They both studied as doctors but by 1938 he had left the country. He fled to the States as the Nazis tightened their grip. It was another year before Edith could escape and join him. As Jews they had to surrender any valuables, Edith left with only a few boxes and a simple day bed. She’d taken the day bed to an upholsterer friend. He created a secret cavity in it’s seat which she packed with the family silver. Chris now has his grandmother’s full set of cutlery.
27 May 2012
It had only been one month but Lucy arranged a weekend away. They drove from London to Lyme Regis on the Dorset coast. Lucy told Andrew about the Jurassic period, that this was fossil country, the home of Mary Anning, the village’s most famous resident and a prolific collector and paleontologist in the 1800s. Later Lucy and Andrew retraced her steps, heading east to Charmouth along the beach. Andrew, keen to impress his new girlfriend, searched frantically for fossils but it was Lucy who gently turned a stone with her foot to reveal a large ammonite. This was the first of their ‘stone museum’. They have a single stone from all of their travels, they mark it with the date and place where they found it. A few years later they returned to Lyme Regis with their baby son, Franklin. He was only recently out of hospital, the beginning of his life had been hard. This was their first family holiday. They set off down the beach, it was December 30th 2010 – as marked on the tiny ammonite that Lucy found that day.
20 May 2012
On nights when the moon was covered by cloud, foxes would rip through the colony killing every bird in their path. In the morning Bob would sift through the destruction with his dissection kit, picking out the shell-less eggs from the oviducts of dead gulls. He’d boil them up for his two friends and they’d eat breakfast in a caravan parked on the beach. They each lived in their own tent, pitched on the sandbanks near Sellafield. For months at a time, over a period of three years, Bob lived here collecting findings for his thesis ‘The functional significance of epigamic colouration in Larus ridibundus’ or why black headed gulls have black heads.
13 May 2012
Damian met his wife at 19, they were married a few years later and in the same year their daughter Zeyna was born. There were the usual excitements, heightened by this being their only child, of her first steps, her first words and the loss of her first milk tooth. Zeyna was very deliberate, even at aged four, in giving the tooth to her father. This was for him and no-one else was to have it. The marriage had faltered and a year later it ended. Zeyna is 11 now, Damian only sees her once a week but her tooth is always with him, hanging from the rear view mirror of his cab.
06 May 2012
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