Post-WW2 the ideology behind urban planning and architecture in general I would say has always been one of 'efficiency' - making everything as quote-on-quote 'utilitarian', cheap and mass produceable as possible. It's only really been recently with the New Urbanism movement and a small scale revival of some traditional architecture that the idea that the place you live in should be both functional AND pleasant, AND maybe even harmonious with the natural environment was considered. The obsession with motorways, big shopping centres and 'tower in a park' council flats in the 50s/60s/70s has had irreversable consequences on the look and feel of this country.
Because this rich kid has absolutely no clue about the west end of Newcastle. He wouldn’t last one night there with his posh accent he’d be robbed , beaten have his flat torched, the west end is a brutal place to live, nothing like this dreamer thinks.
Whoever thought that people would lose their community and be happy living in a block of high rise flats must have been mad. Or more likely they just didn’t care and got a back hander for giving the go ahead.
My great uncle Jimmy Gregg died earlier this year. The latter years of his life were sadly plagued with Alzheimer's. He'd often repeat the same phrases and the number one thing he always said was "I'm a Scotswood lad!". He could still remember things about Scotswood and was always so happy when he was talking about it. This video gave me a better understanding of why he looked back so fondly on his days in this area.
Folk who lived together in poverty, looked after each other & shared what little they had & friendships lasted a lifetime ! A strong sense of community existed & a sense of humour was vital, these people were the backbone of this country & ready & willing to fight for it when necessary. I'm elderly & remember living in a community where folk had sod all, but can say with all honesty, though life was hard, we were much happier & tougher people, than many of those today ! This Woke ideology, Cancel Culture & PC wouldn't have stood a chance & would've been called out for what it is, with much mirth & derision. It seems that when some folk have full bellies, everything on tap & time on their hands, they create ideologies & difficulties, then impose them on others !
"Gannin along the Scotswood Road to see the Blaydon Races." An event I only ever saw once as a toddler, as the various vehicular floats passed the family by on the Blaydon side of the bridge.
I used to live on Shafto Street. The first time I went to the local shop at the top of the hill, the woman said ' Are you new here?' I was a bit taken aback but said yes. She said 'Well if you ever need anything on tick, just let me know hinny'. That was Scotchy. I bought a cast iron frying pan from a junk shop there for 25p. I still use it 40 years later.
An excellent video Jordan, heartbreaking, but exposing the criminal vandalism of politicians seeking self satisfaction against the wishes of whole vibrant communities.
Oh stop, so tired of people pretending the past was better. It objectively was not better in almost every measure. Nostaligia is the great deluder, it makes you look at things romantically that weren't very good and makes you forget all the bad things. The level of poverty in Newcastle during the time you are talking about was so bad compared to today, my dad had nothing, was always hungry, wore plimsoles in the winter etc. Kids today who are so-called in poverty have good clothes and mobile phones even. Crime was higher, today we have the lowest violent crime rates since 1997. Unemployment was much higher, especially in the 70s, today we are practically at full employment and employers are struggling to find staff. We had less employment rights back then and no minimum wage. Women were paid less for doing the same work. Large areas of the city were literally dropping to bits with entire areas boarded up and derelict. Infrastructure was crumbling too. Tell me what was so great about our society in the period you are talking about? I'd much rather live now than any other time, today we have great technology like being able to watch videos like this and get info from any time period in seconds, using machines in the palm of our hands, before if we wanted info we had to go to the library and hope they had it. Today diseases like cancer are not a death sentence and we are living longer than ever before. We have more social justice and more government accountibility and we have a better social safety net.
@@mattwatson You have missed the most important aspect, Community, without it all you have are a bunch of people going about their business. The material things can not replace that and often take it away. Nobody ever says the past was perfect but neither is the present. I wonder if you lived at that time and if you did you most have been a right cheerful family.
I'm from the other side of Newcastle but I know those barren urban prairies between Scotswood and the river. They depressingly remind me of the inevitable failure of top down, command driven development policies. Why do we always have to demolish things?
I'm another northeast lad. They finally started building on those open fields now. Always had a laugh that they forgot Derwent St of the paperwork so it didn't get demolished.
I'm from whickham - had a great view of the fires that were always being set using the contents of the old houses. Could see it across the river (70's)
Im from Newcastle & in the 90s the area was taken over by drug dealers. The authorities couldnt get rid of them, they absolutely 'no go areas'. In 1 case in Elswick violent dealers chased the tenants out, took over an entire street of connected houses. They smashed down ajoining walls, baracaded themselves in & police had to use a tank to breach. They couldnt stop the gangs & dealers so they demolished the entire area, now its just grass fields.
Yep, the West End was grim back then. I lived in Benwell for a year in the early 90s and it was a lawless place. Half the houses were empty, the kids would break in, set fire to the place - and then pelt the arriving fire brigade with rubble.
It's all the same everywhere the old built buildings had solid foundations, all the council had to do was modernisation to them ie new windows, bathrooms, kitchens and central heating, yes it may have taken time but them poor families wouldn't have had to move out. That was their HOMES!! them that and is involved in this new generating crap need to get out and walk about and talk to people not hide behind a closed door..... sorry rant over
@@hazebren5999 It just needs imagination, look at the old warehouses in the London Docks, now £million plus apartments. I can (just) about remember "pre-fabs", many loved them but they put up tower blocks and wondered why they had problems? What mother living on the 14th floor with a broken lift is going to let her child play outside?
In March I spent a night at the Holiday Inn Newcastle at the Metrocentre Gateshead, on the fourth floor with a room on the Tyne side looking over the river and what I now know as Scotswood. Not being from the area I had no idea the history that I was looking at but wondered then what devastation had caused such a desolate place. Id forgotten about it until now watching your video. The new estate, the Rise looked ugly to my eye. Now I know it's a tragedy in short sightedness, poor planning, and greed. Excellent video.
My first flat 30 years ago was in Cruddas Park. The towers were an absolute dump. The rubbish chute was frequently backed up past my floor (5th) which left the hallways stinking. They had ventilation shafts running the height of the building that had vents in each flat. This meant that I could hear my immediate upper & lower neighbours when crapping while I had a bath, and also when my upper neighbour frequently beating his wife. Only lived there for 2 years and swore I would never live in a high rise again.
Fantastic video. So much of 'regeneration' for the past 70 years has been so bad, not because of any particular architectural or urban planning philosophy, but because planners and developers have always pushed a top down approach to redevelopment that has always excluded the communities of people, particularly working class communities, from having any real say in the matter. Whether that was led by local government in the 1950s-70s, of by private sector developers only concerned with profit today, it's always led to displacement, alienation and exclusion. I doubt very much whether the present iteration in Scotswood and elsewhere will be much different in the long run, but time will tell I suppose
@@arisnotheles I agree with what you say, but then the question for me is: Why didn't they reinvest in new economic activities in the west end? The vickers plant could have been moved over to creating something useful but of course global capital wouldn't support that.
Thank you Jordan, very well done. I live in Summerhill and am happy that it was not demolished (although it had become very run-down by the 1970s). Since then the whole area has been gentrified and shows what can be done privately (there are still residents here who bought their houses very cheaply 40 or more years ago!). The Council would never have been able to renovate all the houses in the West End though.
Excellent video, informative and moving in equal measures. I grew up blissfully unaware of the impact these "developments" were having on local communities. A lrage proportion of out current social problems must have resulted from these changes. Very sad but great work, well done
I lived for many years in the West End, I found it very sad and emotional to see my past ripped apart.. communities decimated, the back broke - I lived in The Beeches in the 80s, revisited the renovated flats around there recently, I just didn't know what to make of it. The planners had a lot to answer for.
I grew up in Elswick and later lived in Summerhill Square which, I heard, was only spared demolition because Jane Gifford and her friends started a housing co-operative there, though @craigix rightly mentions local architect Richard in a comment below. One of our family friends was Joyce, who grew up in Scotswood road. She used to feed me Sunday dinner. Later she moved into one of those tower blocks. The open waste-bin by the lift had a sign saying, "In case of nuclear war take shelter in this bin - nothing ever hits it." When I was a lad there was massive unemployment and alchoholism all around. My dad, stone deaf, had grown up in Elswick and smoked 40 cigarettes a day, which the doctors at the time considered perfectly healthy. He'd bought his house when the whole west end was prosperous. My Dutch immigrant mother set up a day centre in Noble Street for early years children and their parents. I used to visit her work sometimes.
As a Londerner that has moved to the north east I found your film fascinating. I actually became aware of Scotswood through Auf Wedersehen Pet where Dennis used to take his drug dealing fare. It spurned me to research the area a little, but your film has given me a mucher better insight.
Many thanks for putting this on record. It really is shocking. I worked with older people in Elswick for years and their sense of community (in care homes) was a wonderful thing to see. Small thing, the reason they changed the orientation of the streets built parallel with the river is that it's an area of water run-off (down the hill) so the basements and lower floors of those buildings constantly flooded and had serious erosion issues. Many of the people I worked with had lived in them, they were apparently a nightmare. Good luck, well done, I've subscribed ❤
i lived in scotchy in about the 2010's. in fact i remember this wife,she did great stuff with the youngens, and i remember the youth centre getting knocked down and it was stupid because less kids went to the new one after that. in fact where she is standing, my house was just on the corner to the right of the right hand bus stop next to where the old pub used to be. next to an old guy called Billy that would do public gardens on the grass behind her for the kids to work on. i also knocked about there in the late 90's. and saw how bad it was. if anyone is wondering what the big boulders was for here 9:41 they were to stop hoysty cars. as for Keepmoat homes, they are cowboys. i live in one of their bungalows in a newish estate in byker and there is no insulation in any of the walls. every single one is hollow, i've seen loads of people selling the private places on the estate because they are probably badly built too. the roofs leaked when it rained the first year, the gardens are literally rubble a foot down into the earth, and the council and keepmoat squabble over whos job it is to cut the public grass areas so much that half the time it never gets done. we get rats from home bargains constantly too, the pavement lamps they put in would constantly get blown down by the wind because they weren't secured to the foundations properly and now they've replaced them with floor spotlights that are so bright you cant actually see where you are going at night. not to mention that every house has the pavement sloped towards the parking space in front of the houses instead of just having the road flush with the pavements. so everytime it snows or ices up, you cant walk on the pavements because its too dangerous too and you actually end up sliding off them into the road. the place may look nice on the outside,and people are actually great, but the houses keepmoat build are actual sh*tholes. and i cant see them lasting long. The rise house look very similar to the new houses that were built on Walker Road in the East End a few years prior, and already their roofs are starting to slant and droop, and fall down. these house are literally cardboard and plastic and it wont be long before they all start falling to bits and costing more to keep up than it would have been to do a proper job in the first place and renovate the existing houses that were already there in the first place years ago.
And what about Byker too? A whole community, streets, pubs, hotels, everything, instead of being modernised and improved, totally destroyed until nothing was left. What a crying shame and loss of a whole community.
The original plan for Scotswood was Operation Revitalise where as many of the houses as possible would have been saved and renovated however this was stopped by the national government who insisted on the building of new homes.
Had some mint laughs round the west end when a was a kid man, was a propa s**thole but it was ours n everyone knew eachotha n had wa backs! Hardlys nee locals about now man they have pure wrecked the place! Even gan back 20 year ago it was still sound! Anyone nah what it's like up Whickham View these days? Had some canny times up there anarl, haven't been owa in few year like. Mint channel mate love it ❤️🙌
great video love the new style i was brought up in scotswood moved to elswick i watched scotswood get pulled down when i was young and always thought why did they do that
As is often the case in the UK, we try to do things on the cheap. I lived in Canada for 6 years, they have no problem building high rise apartments there of good quality, with parking, shops, door security and elevators in every building. In Britain, the contract for the dreadful towers put up in the 60s and 70s was awarded to one company in Britain, who's owner was a major Conservative donor. It resulted in substandard buildings going up all over the country and where they were built there was virtually no infrastructure for the residents. The fact is, the working class in britain was treated like the worker ant. The UK Gov't and the developers never cared about ordinary people, which is why many parts of the UK still has dreadful housing.
If you are talking about John Poulson, then he was given entry into the North East and Newcastle by becoming mates with T. Dan Smith and Andrew Cunningham, both regional Labour Party bosses. Poulson was certainly a prolific figure in the jerry-building of the sixties but the entire system of the time was rotten. Still is, come to that.
Both sets of my grandparents, as well as my parents lived their from the 50s through till the late 90s, I grew up on the outskirts at Denton Road after they moved everybody out. My memories of this place from the late 90s as a child are sadly just playing in the fields where they built the new school in the 2000s. My granda lived on Heyleigh St, one of the last 3 rows of terraces until 2020 when he couldn’t manage on his own any more. All of my elders are proud to be scotswood born and bred. I grew up hearing stories of how amazing the community was back in the day. Yes, it might have a bad rep, but they were real working class people with real, hard souls that took every disadvantage thrown at them on the chin. And still were happy. I am proud of the ethic and struggles of these people and hope it returns to its former glory one day. Thank you for the video it has helped me visualise the story of my family and heritage ❤️
My brother lived in Scotwood . The area had a huge grant from the EU to rejuvinate the area. What puzzled him was the funds given did not seem to match the renovation. When talking to the builders that were tarting the area up he was told the council were using the cheapest materials possible which seemed odd given the size of the grant . Anyway , across the river (Metro Center side) new housing was being developed with posh residential areas . One was named Scotwood View. My brother thought it odd because it wasnt a really nice view to look at, well not until Newcastle Council bulldozed and landscaped it, then it became clear. Btw I was Essex born as were my three brothers My father was a Geordie born on Water Works road Benwell. It was renamed Axwell Park Road and is situated right next to the pumping station. I grew up and went to school in Newcastle . He relocated back to Newcastle with my mum and brothers in 1971
another very well-made video, i really enjoy your content! the topics and the way you cover them are so fascinating to me, and your videos are always so well structured and edited. makes me wish there was someone doing it for places i'm more familiar with, as i've only been to newcastle once. unfortunately it won't be me though, i can't imagine how much time it must take to do such a good job researching these, and i don't think i'm a good enough researcher to do it anywhere near justice! can't wait to see what's next :)
Thanks for this. My Grandad grew up in Scotswood and like others have said, I never understood how he grew up in Scotswood as there was nothing there... This explains it.
Surprised this came up in my recommendations, great video altogether! I grew up 5 minutes away from Scotswood and it's still crazy to see how little development has happened since the 90s. Also as others have pointed out, the W in Elswick is silent, like Fenwicks :)
Fascinating, I lived in Condercum Rd for a few months in the early 90's with my band. I have also seen the snails pace development over the last 15 years as I drive to and from work up through Scotswood from Armstrong Rd. I also used to work on the door security systems of the tower blocks in the 80's, I never realised how connected I am with the area until now funny enough! You rightly raise some unanswered questions which also intrigue me, its a 'funny' area.
Best sitcom ever Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads summed it up with one shot, the tower blocks viewed through the wreckage of the demolished terraces.
Oh wow those retaining walls.... you can see why it was always done the other way in the past. Insurance is going to be wild once the builder goes bust unless they can unload it on to the council.
❤loved this so much.Its the story of the N.E. as a whole. In My hometown of Stockton-on-Tees. Newcastle was the Big Toon. Just up the road. Newcastle is a City with the biggest welcome from the friendliest people. 70s and 80s was a bleak time in the N.E. Everything went away. Jobs were scarce . I grew up on a large Council estate of hundreds of people. Only 2 families in hundreds had a Job. Crazy . Hopefully things will Improve. Lovely film Thankyou.
@@jimmyoconnell6167 Im from a similar place myself. A place called walker ,in the east end . I lived half a mile from the shipyard. I too have fond memories of where I lived. It was exciting,as I also lived near a railway track ,and the river Tyne.
@POLITICAL-BIAS. everyone I went to school with ended up in prison I joined the army at 16 to be honest I was glad to get away and totally different life style I live in Devon now I love the place I still get up to Tyneside see family and friends
I grew up in Lemington, passing Scotswood has always felt like a ghost town. It's an area that has so much history, its sad it hasn't got much of an identity in current times
Great video highlighting the destruction wrought upon our towns and cities in the postwar years. Exeter is a very different but perhaps an even more extreme example. A one time rival of York Bath and Chester for stunning mediaeval and georgian architecture, WWII bombing was followed by wholesale razing of entire blocks of mediaeval streets throughout the city centre. This leaves a beautiful cathedral in its close amidst what now resembles Peterlee, Harlow Newtown or Milton Keynes. I've come to the conclusion that the postwar architectural destruction of our urban communities very much heralded the national decline of the UK we see today.
3:14 those blocks of flats are either the flats at the Teams or the now demolished blocks at the former Chandless Estate, both Gateshead, had a mate who lived one of these flats at Chandless who actually moved from there to Scotswood
My mam lived Summerhill Terrace, her Block was demolished I think for the road and Newcastle college. One family would live in one room. With a toilet outside, and a cold dark basement. They were unfit to live in. My mam moved to kenton to a council house with her parents and great grandad. A bathroom and electricity for the first time when she was 6, she is 67 now. Summerhill now looks beautiful we love walking around there, I believe they are worth alot of money now. My aunt Polly lived in Scotswood, her house was demolished, and I thought it was a beautiful home. I,m shocked how they have built these 10ft walls. Thanks for the video x
Hey Jordan, glad to see a new video. If you ever need any drone footage for your videos I can help you out of you need. Always looking for an excuse to go fly it, I had been planning on flying ot over the new Scotswood development :)
Its absolutely mad to see how cavilier they were with demolitions, tearing down old but serviciable properties to erect untried and untested ideas. That generation of planners and architects owe us all an apology.
As a resident of the Rise I find this fascinating. I am not a Newcastle native being from South Shields but I remember the Newcastle of the 90s when this was barron land. Having grown up in a Victorian terrace in South Shields I can see some need for housing stock to be renewed as much as I love old houses I chose a new one for a reason. I am hopeful that this area will gain some of what was lost, but as ever time will be the judge.
No disrespect sir but you a resident of scotswood not the rise that's just the name of the estate you live on it will always be scotswood to people like me who were brought up on that estate with many others who have wonderful childhood memory of a grand community
@user-gv5bs3os5i yeah and no offence was meant by that, I appreciate it is the estate and not the area and you are right i do live in Scotswood, more pointing out its interesting to know more about what was here before where I live, as i didnt know the history of how it was.
An excellent documentary - your best yet. It suffers a tiny bit from the "benefit of hindsight" - Newcastle was one of the worst hit erstwhile "workshop of the world" - centres in Britain with the decline and fall of the empire. The British Empire was a trading bloc based on sterling with the highest added value industries deliberately placed in Britain. When that broke up, these hitherto protected industries were exposed to the world market, necessarily entailing a redistribution of industrial capacity to other centres - Germany, Japan, Italy, USA. As you documented, Vickers in Newcastle closed down whole works, causing major unemployment from the early sixties onwards. The government solutions of the 1950's - basically, exporting cars to the USA - was not replacing lost industrial capacity adequately. So the oldest industrial centres - Newcastle especially - suffered major decline. This of course reflected itself in workers' housing estates, with many people moving away, leaving houses empty, others having no capital to invest in improvements, the council having to purchase company housing from defunct heavy industry, the houses themselves being difficult/impossible to modernise and retaining increasingly unacceptable sanitary arrangements. There were no gardens and no trees! I remember the declining mining communities in Doncaster in the 1970's and the shock at the sight of the increasingly dilapidated infrastructure. My point is that faced with such decline and no immediate prospect of improvement, the council will have been forced to act. I for one would be very careful with criticism of the housing demolitions, because the case in favour at the time was overwhelming. One could say that the Le Corbusier nonsense so fashionable amongst young architects in 1960 was a highly unfortunate synchronicity (and the current building projects, e.g. The Rise, look so much better), but that's how things were and Newcastle took an enlightened line in urban regeneration. For some reason, it began to lose its way in the 1970's (this is worth closer study), and massive central government interference by the Thatcher regime in the 1980's bestowed on Newcastle a rudderlessness which it is only gradually recovering from. One of the last major improvements was the excellent Metro system envisaged in the late sixties /early seventies and opened ca. 1980.
Absolutely fantastic video..l live in Newcastle and its so interesting to learn about the past.. extremely well edited and narated..ive just subscribed.. thankyou 😊
Remember all that. I lived in Aline Street and Dad worked at Vickers beside the Vickers Office and opposite the library and canteen, all aside the underpass.
My family grew up in Scotswood. My family home is just up the road from the old site. Last time I saw it, the very few remaining houses with trees growing threw them were finally demolished despite plans that the old doctors surgery may be converted into housing.
I used to live on Buddle Road and the council were demolishing houses quite close to us. They only moved us out when the ceiling fell down in the living room.
As someone who grew up in Scotchy as a kid I didn't realise at the time just what exactly was going on. All the dilapidated houses were a playing ground for me and me pals. For all it was a run down and rough area I had some of the best times of me childhood.
Sadly, like so many other very poor areas in the UK, Scotswood and its surrounding areas started to get some very bad social problems over the years. In 1970, an 11 year old boy called Allan Graham was abducted from Benwell, sexually abused and murdered. The case is still unsolved. Poor Allan had been neglected and left to wander the streets. He'd developed a serious smoking problem despite being so young. His body was found dumped in a ditch in Ponteland. The sad story of Mary Bell also informs us of some of the problems in the area. Mary's mother was a prostitute specialising in S&M and Mary was regularly subjected to the sight of what was going on in her home, despite being very young. Her mother actually tried to sell her to another woman at one point and Mary's sister had to go and get her. Those investigating the case said that poverty was so bad in the area that 'every second home' had a prostitute of some sort - many women forced into casual prostitution just to feed their families. Up until the 1980s, Rye Hill by Newcastle College was well known as something of a pick up area for prostitutes from the West End.
@@sebastianvella8992 it's a real insight into an era which sone people want to misremember as "golden". The further we get away from the 20th century, the more it starts to look like an extension of Victorian times in many ways.
Last week I re-saw the movie Get Carter where the city of Newcastle is as much a protagonist as much as Caine's character and yes the first impression one gets is that the city was very run down at the time in the early seventies when the movie was made.@@zeddeka
Not a lot of SCOTSWOOD mostly about low Elswick SCOTSWOOD did not need demolished it was because council and police could not infiltrate the area so the council went on mass destruction
Great video! Growing up I heard stories from my grandparents of a close knit community in Scotswood with a pub on every street corner, I hope the new redevelopment has a similar communal centre but I’m not too hopeful looking at similar redevelopments.
I moved into Sctoswood in 1970 when I was 2 years old and moved out in 1979 when I was 11. The junior school I went to Dento ROad is gone the street I lived on Woodstock road Gone. It's all gone.
I lived on delaval gardens in scotswood whitch was north to south as well as whitehouse rd cranbrooke rd. Take a look at a aerial.view of the original scotswood from the 50s that is the real scotswood that was demolished for the rise.
Do you not mean demolished for card board city cos that's wht the houses look like card board boxes wouldn't have one rent free my brother helped to build them and said you couldnt swing a cat in the bedrooms even the living rooms are two small fir a three peice suit
it's funny to see that the terraced houses that were left are often the most in demand and nicest neighbourhoods to live in. city planners and architechs need a reality check and to bring the local materials and design back into it. most of all, they need to bring back in more humanism.
I lived just off Scotswood Road, in Aline Street and close to South Benwell school which i attended, 4 boys, 2 parents in a one bedroom, one front room a scullery, outside toilet and yard, till I was 11 when were rehoused in a 3 bedroom council house in Pendower, Benwell., in 1966. I have no fond memories, the place was a slum and would not have been out of place in a Dickens novel.,The accommodation probably was a factor in my elder sisters passing as a very young child, something my mother never really got over. I have no fondness for this place calling it a slum is being generous. I would move away in 1973 when I joined the Royal Navy, and would only return on leave. I now live in Western Australia,
My late uncle worked at Vickers Foundry before emigrating to Canada. He said there was anarchy in the Foundry it was in the complete control of the Foremen who would book in fictitious jobs to create income for the " workers " ,managers were nowhere to be seen .Hence the Foundry closed.
Excellent video, thank you. I was thinking of all those streets named after girls, I think. My dad lived in Matilda Street and could run down to work, at Vickers.
I always wondered, how much would it have cost to refurbish the old houses. To my mind, perfect starter homes within a ready made community. Stripped back to bricks and roof, surely modern plumbing, electrics, insulation and windows would have cost less than those awful towers. I lived in three different terrace houses in different parts of the city, loved working on them as they had good bones…
The trouble is they knocked down better houses than they built Jesmond as the same houses and its a lovey area Scots wood could have been the same to day with a bit of thought Byler is the same
I entirely agree about Byker. Most of our terraces could have been modernised and this would have kept our families and friends together. My street , Salisbury St had 120 houses of which over half had families that were interelated and had a self regulating society. Smith and Burns couldnt care less about the people. They just wanted Kudos which in the end backfired on them.
Despite only being born in the 2000s, looking back at what was going on in the 60s in terms of architecture completely crushes me as someone who loves history and its architecture. The 50s and 60s and 70s were, in my opinion, probably the worst period in English history for architecture.
Well done city planners. You managed to achieve what the Luftwaffe couldn't.
Funny how the planners never moved into the high rises
Post-WW2 the ideology behind urban planning and architecture in general I would say has always been one of 'efficiency' - making everything as quote-on-quote 'utilitarian', cheap and mass produceable as possible. It's only really been recently with the New Urbanism movement and a small scale revival of some traditional architecture that the idea that the place you live in should be both functional AND pleasant, AND maybe even harmonious with the natural environment was considered.
The obsession with motorways, big shopping centres and 'tower in a park' council flats in the 50s/60s/70s has had irreversable consequences on the look and feel of this country.
@@dog-ez2nu along with the corruption of the developers, in Newcastle, namely T Dan Smith
@@paulcarruthers1314Ha, I just made a similar point above.
@@paulcarruthers1314 That's because they were awful places.
Completely baffles me this channel doesn’t have ten of thousands of subscribers, it’s so well edited and put together
I agree... He does some decent uploads.
@@siliconicarus what's the matter with the way he looks.Has he got red eyes and horns
@@alanhargreaves-thevoiceofr2361 what? That’s gotta be fake news
Because this rich kid has absolutely no clue about the west end of Newcastle. He wouldn’t last one night there with his posh accent he’d be robbed , beaten have his flat torched, the west end is a brutal place to live, nothing like this dreamer thinks.
@@samyandkitty8399 bro he just likes making vids about parts of newcastle when did it get that deep wth 💀
Whoever thought that people would lose their community and be happy living in a block of high rise flats must have been mad. Or more likely they just didn’t care and got a back hander for giving the go ahead.
My great uncle Jimmy Gregg died earlier this year. The latter years of his life were sadly plagued with Alzheimer's. He'd often repeat the same phrases and the number one thing he always said was "I'm a Scotswood lad!".
He could still remember things about Scotswood and was always so happy when he was talking about it. This video gave me a better understanding of why he looked back so fondly on his days in this area.
Folk who lived together in poverty, looked after each other & shared what little they had & friendships lasted a lifetime ! A strong sense of community existed & a sense of humour was vital, these people were the backbone of this country & ready & willing to fight for it when necessary. I'm elderly & remember living in a community where folk had sod all, but can say with all honesty, though life was hard, we were much happier & tougher people, than many of those today ! This Woke ideology, Cancel Culture & PC wouldn't have stood a chance & would've been called out for what it is, with much mirth & derision. It seems that when some folk have full bellies, everything on tap & time on their hands, they create ideologies & difficulties, then impose them on others !
"Gannin along the Scotswood Road to see the Blaydon Races." An event I only ever saw once as a toddler, as the various vehicular floats passed the family by on the Blaydon side of the bridge.
Spot on!@@theseeker4642
I used to live on Shafto Street. The first time I went to the local shop at the top of the hill, the woman said ' Are you new here?' I was a bit taken aback but said yes. She said 'Well if you ever need anything on tick, just let me know hinny'. That was Scotchy. I bought a cast iron frying pan from a junk shop there for 25p. I still use it 40 years later.
I used to live on st Margarets road
An excellent video Jordan, heartbreaking, but exposing the criminal vandalism of politicians seeking self satisfaction against the wishes of whole vibrant communities.
It makes me sad seeing the way things used to be. Each house that goes is another nail in the coffin of our once great society.
Bring back cholera, that’s what I always say!
@@josephlatham5560 I always thought Cholera is contracted through contaminated food or water.
Oh stop, so tired of people pretending the past was better. It objectively was not better in almost every measure. Nostaligia is the great deluder, it makes you look at things romantically that weren't very good and makes you forget all the bad things.
The level of poverty in Newcastle during the time you are talking about was so bad compared to today, my dad had nothing, was always hungry, wore plimsoles in the winter etc. Kids today who are so-called in poverty have good clothes and mobile phones even. Crime was higher, today we have the lowest violent crime rates since 1997. Unemployment was much higher, especially in the 70s, today we are practically at full employment and employers are struggling to find staff. We had less employment rights back then and no minimum wage. Women were paid less for doing the same work. Large areas of the city were literally dropping to bits with entire areas boarded up and derelict. Infrastructure was crumbling too.
Tell me what was so great about our society in the period you are talking about? I'd much rather live now than any other time, today we have great technology like being able to watch videos like this and get info from any time period in seconds, using machines in the palm of our hands, before if we wanted info we had to go to the library and hope they had it. Today diseases like cancer are not a death sentence and we are living longer than ever before. We have more social justice and more government accountibility and we have a better social safety net.
@@mattwatson You have missed the most important aspect, Community, without it all you have are a bunch of people going about their business.
The material things can not replace that and often take it away.
Nobody ever says the past was perfect but neither is the present.
I wonder if you lived at that time and if you did you most have been a right cheerful family.
Eh? You done kind of russian troll? They were slums. People had appalling lives. They were lucky to get past 50. You call that "great" ?
A superb video chronicling the housing of the West end of Newcastle. Thank you for sharing Jordan👏
Thanks!
@JordanReeve Well researched insightful and revealing videos on Newcastle Jordan. Superb work 👏. Please do keep up your excellent work 🙏
I'm from the other side of Newcastle but I know those barren urban prairies between Scotswood and the river. They depressingly remind me of the inevitable failure of top down, command driven development policies. Why do we always have to demolish things?
I'm another northeast lad.
They finally started building on those open fields now.
Always had a laugh that they forgot Derwent St of the paperwork so it didn't get demolished.
I'm from whickham - had a great view of the fires that were always being set using the contents of the old houses. Could see it across the river (70's)
Because they were slums, unfit for human habitation?
Im from Newcastle & in the 90s the area was taken over by drug dealers. The authorities couldnt get rid of them, they absolutely 'no go areas'.
In 1 case in Elswick violent dealers chased the tenants out, took over an entire street of connected houses. They smashed down ajoining walls, baracaded themselves in & police had to use a tank to breach.
They couldnt stop the gangs & dealers so they demolished the entire area, now its just grass fields.
Not many remember how crazy the N.E. became in the late 80s and early 90s.
@@kevinsharp-kn7rm aye, Toon was no.1 in UK for car theft & joyriding & violent as f**k. & West end was the epicentre
i lived in ladtkirk road at the start of the riots. 7 years of shit, glad to get out@@kevinsharp-kn7rm
Yep, the West End was grim back then. I lived in Benwell for a year in the early 90s and it was a lawless place. Half the houses were empty, the kids would break in, set fire to the place - and then pelt the arriving fire brigade with rubble.
The number one question every architect, planner or politician should ask themselves is "Would I want to live here myself?"
The only thing they think about is ‘how do we keep poor people away from us important people’
Surely not? most of them were socialists lol.@@monika2745
It's all the same everywhere the old built buildings had solid foundations, all the council had to do was modernisation to them ie new windows, bathrooms, kitchens and central heating, yes it may have taken time but them poor families wouldn't have had to move out. That was their HOMES!! them that and is involved in this new generating crap need to get out and walk about and talk to people not hide behind a closed door..... sorry rant over
@@hazebren5999 It just needs imagination, look at the old warehouses in the London Docks, now £million plus apartments. I can (just) about remember "pre-fabs", many loved them but they put up tower blocks and wondered why they had problems? What mother living on the 14th floor with a broken lift is going to let her child play outside?
In March I spent a night at the Holiday Inn Newcastle at the Metrocentre Gateshead, on the fourth floor with a room on the Tyne side looking over the river and what I now know as Scotswood. Not being from the area I had no idea the history that I was looking at but wondered then what devastation had caused such a desolate place. Id forgotten about it until now watching your video. The new estate, the Rise looked ugly to my eye. Now I know it's a tragedy in short sightedness, poor planning, and greed. Excellent video.
Brilliant video, really interesting. My Nana grew up on Scotswood Rd. She was always very proud of where she came from.
Give this lad a like and help this channel take off, it deserves it!
My first flat 30 years ago was in Cruddas Park. The towers were an absolute dump. The rubbish chute was frequently backed up past my floor (5th) which left the hallways stinking. They had ventilation shafts running the height of the building that had vents in each flat. This meant that I could hear my immediate upper & lower neighbours when crapping while I had a bath, and also when my upper neighbour frequently beating his wife. Only lived there for 2 years and swore I would never live in a high rise again.
Post war Architects had absolutely no imagination. Great video btw
I suppose the priority was just to rebuild at that point, regardless of cosmetics
No - they had too much imagination!
Fantastic video. So much of 'regeneration' for the past 70 years has been so bad, not because of any particular architectural or urban planning philosophy, but because planners and developers have always pushed a top down approach to redevelopment that has always excluded the communities of people, particularly working class communities, from having any real say in the matter. Whether that was led by local government in the 1950s-70s, of by private sector developers only concerned with profit today, it's always led to displacement, alienation and exclusion. I doubt very much whether the present iteration in Scotswood and elsewhere will be much different in the long run, but time will tell I suppose
Thatcherite managed decline in a nutshell
They always claim to know better than the people who live there.
@@arisnotheles I agree with what you say, but then the question for me is: Why didn't they reinvest in new economic activities in the west end? The vickers plant could have been moved over to creating something useful but of course global capital wouldn't support that.
Thank you Jordan, very well done. I live in Summerhill and am happy that it was not demolished (although it had become very run-down by the 1970s). Since then the whole area has been gentrified and shows what can be done privately (there are still residents here who bought their houses very cheaply 40 or more years ago!). The Council would never have been able to renovate all the houses in the West End though.
lucky you...
Excellent video, informative and moving in equal measures. I grew up blissfully unaware of the impact these "developments" were having on local communities. A lrage proportion of out current social problems must have resulted from these changes. Very sad but great work, well done
Brilliant video. The best yet.
I lived for many years in the West End, I found it very sad and emotional to see my past ripped apart.. communities decimated, the back broke - I lived in The Beeches in the 80s, revisited the renovated flats around there recently, I just didn't know what to make of it. The planners had a lot to answer for.
very well made video Jordan well done
Thanks mate!
I grew up in Elswick and later lived in Summerhill Square which, I heard, was only spared demolition because Jane Gifford and her friends started a housing co-operative there, though @craigix rightly mentions local architect Richard in a comment below. One of our family friends was Joyce, who grew up in Scotswood road. She used to feed me Sunday dinner. Later she moved into one of those tower blocks. The open waste-bin by the lift had a sign saying, "In case of nuclear war take shelter in this bin - nothing ever hits it." When I was a lad there was massive unemployment and alchoholism all around. My dad, stone deaf, had grown up in Elswick and smoked 40 cigarettes a day, which the doctors at the time considered perfectly healthy. He'd bought his house when the whole west end was prosperous. My Dutch immigrant mother set up a day centre in Noble Street for early years children and their parents. I used to visit her work sometimes.
what a great video! Well done!
Thank you!
I recorded Northbourne street Demolition with my camcorder in 2005/2006 and I still have the videos of it
As a Londerner that has moved to the north east I found your film fascinating. I actually became aware of Scotswood through Auf Wedersehen Pet where Dennis used to take his drug dealing fare. It spurned me to research the area a little, but your film has given me a mucher better insight.
Very informative and enjoyable. Continue the good work you are doing, Jordan!
Many thanks for putting this on record. It really is shocking.
I worked with older people in Elswick for years and their sense of community (in care homes) was a wonderful thing to see.
Small thing, the reason they changed the orientation of the streets built parallel with the river is that it's an area of water run-off (down the hill) so the basements and lower floors of those buildings constantly flooded and had serious erosion issues.
Many of the people I worked with had lived in them, they were apparently a nightmare.
Good luck, well done, I've subscribed
❤
i lived in scotchy in about the 2010's. in fact i remember this wife,she did great stuff with the youngens, and i remember the youth centre getting knocked down and it was stupid because less kids went to the new one after that. in fact where she is standing, my house was just on the corner to the right of the right hand bus stop next to where the old pub used to be. next to an old guy called Billy that would do public gardens on the grass behind her for the kids to work on. i also knocked about there in the late 90's. and saw how bad it was. if anyone is wondering what the big boulders was for here 9:41 they were to stop hoysty cars. as for Keepmoat homes, they are cowboys. i live in one of their bungalows in a newish estate in byker and there is no insulation in any of the walls. every single one is hollow, i've seen loads of people selling the private places on the estate because they are probably badly built too. the roofs leaked when it rained the first year, the gardens are literally rubble a foot down into the earth, and the council and keepmoat squabble over whos job it is to cut the public grass areas so much that half the time it never gets done. we get rats from home bargains constantly too, the pavement lamps they put in would constantly get blown down by the wind because they weren't secured to the foundations properly and now they've replaced them with floor spotlights that are so bright you cant actually see where you are going at night. not to mention that every house has the pavement sloped towards the parking space in front of the houses instead of just having the road flush with the pavements. so everytime it snows or ices up, you cant walk on the pavements because its too dangerous too and you actually end up sliding off them into the road. the place may look nice on the outside,and people are actually great, but the houses keepmoat build are actual sh*tholes. and i cant see them lasting long. The rise house look very similar to the new houses that were built on Walker Road in the East End a few years prior, and already their roofs are starting to slant and droop, and fall down. these house are literally cardboard and plastic and it wont be long before they all start falling to bits and costing more to keep up than it would have been to do a proper job in the first place and renovate the existing houses that were already there in the first place years ago.
Excellent work 👏
Thank you!
And what about Byker too? A whole community, streets, pubs, hotels, everything, instead of being modernised and improved, totally destroyed until nothing was left. What a crying shame and loss of a whole community.
Absolutely fantastic movie, so well put together. Loving the channel!
The original plan for Scotswood was Operation Revitalise where as many of the houses as possible would have been saved and renovated however this was stopped by the national government who insisted on the building of new homes.
Had some mint laughs round the west end when a was a kid man, was a propa s**thole but it was ours n everyone knew eachotha n had wa backs!
Hardlys nee locals about now man they have pure wrecked the place! Even gan back 20 year ago it was still sound! Anyone nah what it's like up Whickham View these days? Had some canny times up there anarl, haven't been owa in few year like.
Mint channel mate love it ❤️🙌
great video love the new style i was brought up in scotswood moved to elswick i watched scotswood get pulled down when i was young and always thought why did they do that
As is often the case in the UK, we try to do things on the cheap. I lived in Canada for 6 years, they have no problem building high rise apartments there of good quality, with parking, shops, door security and elevators in every building. In Britain, the contract for the dreadful towers put up in the 60s and 70s was awarded to one company in Britain, who's owner was a major Conservative donor. It resulted in substandard buildings going up all over the country and where they were built there was virtually no infrastructure for the residents. The fact is, the working class in britain was treated like the worker ant. The UK Gov't and the developers never cared about ordinary people, which is why many parts of the UK still has dreadful housing.
Can u get me to Canada bud best wishes from Durham ❤
@@Granto-ni9qw Sorry bud, I live in Greece now :)
@@stewartmackay been to greese not for me bud
If you are talking about John Poulson, then he was given entry into the North East and Newcastle by becoming mates with T. Dan Smith and Andrew Cunningham, both regional Labour Party bosses.
Poulson was certainly a prolific figure in the jerry-building of the sixties but the entire system of the time was rotten. Still is, come to that.
@@anthroposmetron4475 I dont remember the chaps name but that sounds like its right to me.
Both sets of my grandparents, as well as my parents lived their from the 50s through till the late 90s, I grew up on the outskirts at Denton Road after they moved everybody out. My memories of this place from the late 90s as a child are sadly just playing in the fields where they built the new school in the 2000s.
My granda lived on Heyleigh St, one of the last 3 rows of terraces until 2020 when he couldn’t manage on his own any more. All of my elders are proud to be scotswood born and bred.
I grew up hearing stories of how amazing the community was back in the day. Yes, it might have a bad rep, but they were real working class people with real, hard souls that took every disadvantage thrown at them on the chin. And still were happy.
I am proud of the ethic and struggles of these people and hope it returns to its former glory one day. Thank you for the video it has helped me visualise the story of my family and heritage ❤️
My brother lived in Scotwood .
The area had a huge grant from the EU to rejuvinate the area.
What puzzled him was the funds given did not seem to match the renovation.
When talking to the builders that were tarting the area up he was told the council were using the cheapest materials possible which seemed odd given the size of the grant .
Anyway , across the river (Metro Center side) new housing was being developed with posh residential areas .
One was named Scotwood View. My brother thought it odd because it wasnt a really nice view to look at, well not until Newcastle Council bulldozed and landscaped it, then it became clear.
Btw I was Essex born as were my three brothers
My father was a Geordie born on Water Works road Benwell.
It was renamed Axwell Park Road and is situated right next to the pumping station.
I grew up and went to school in Newcastle .
He relocated back to Newcastle with my mum and brothers in 1971
Please do more videos like this about Newcastle
another very well-made video, i really enjoy your content! the topics and the way you cover them are so fascinating to me, and your videos are always so well structured and edited. makes me wish there was someone doing it for places i'm more familiar with, as i've only been to newcastle once. unfortunately it won't be me though, i can't imagine how much time it must take to do such a good job researching these, and i don't think i'm a good enough researcher to do it anywhere near justice! can't wait to see what's next :)
Thanks for this. My Grandad grew up in Scotswood and like others have said, I never understood how he grew up in Scotswood as there was nothing there... This explains it.
The politicians and the council are still destroying Newcastle …
Surprised this came up in my recommendations, great video altogether!
I grew up 5 minutes away from Scotswood and it's still crazy to see how little development has happened since the 90s.
Also as others have pointed out, the W in Elswick is silent, like Fenwicks :)
Fascinating, I lived in Condercum Rd for a few months in the early 90's with my band. I have also seen the snails pace development over the last 15 years as I drive to and from work up through Scotswood from Armstrong Rd. I also used to work on the door security systems of the tower blocks in the 80's, I never realised how connected I am with the area until now funny enough! You rightly raise some unanswered questions which also intrigue me, its a 'funny' area.
Great video, I lived in noble Street as a kid in the 60s, also lived in summerhill as a kid , lived all over the westend also❤
Best sitcom ever Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads summed it up with one shot, the tower blocks viewed through the wreckage of the demolished terraces.
Flint and his bald head
This sorta shit breaks my heart. Higher up lining the pockets while the poor get used and abused, so much for councils.
Oh wow those retaining walls.... you can see why it was always done the other way in the past. Insurance is going to be wild once the builder goes bust unless they can unload it on to the council.
❤loved this so much.Its the story of the N.E. as a whole. In My hometown of Stockton-on-Tees. Newcastle was the Big Toon. Just up the road. Newcastle is a City with the biggest welcome from the friendliest people. 70s and 80s was a bleak time in the N.E. Everything went away. Jobs were scarce . I grew up on a large Council estate of hundreds of people. Only 2 families in hundreds had a Job. Crazy . Hopefully things will Improve. Lovely film Thankyou.
Noble Street lived there memories
Poor you .
What an absolute hovel
@@POLITICAL-BIAS. it was we moved over the river to gateshead
@@jimmyoconnell6167 Im from a similar place myself. A place called walker ,in the east end . I lived half a mile from the shipyard. I too have fond memories of where I lived. It was exciting,as I also lived near a railway track ,and the river Tyne.
@POLITICAL-BIAS. everyone I went to school with ended up in prison I joined the army at 16 to be honest I was glad to get away and totally different life style I live in Devon now I love the place I still get up to Tyneside see family and friends
Another great video Jordan.Forgive my pedantry but aren’t your East ends & West ends mixed up?👍
I can’t believe I missed this. Thanks for pointing it out
I grew up in Lemington, passing Scotswood has always felt like a ghost town. It's an area that has so much history, its sad it hasn't got much of an identity in current times
Excuse me, pet. It is correctly called Scotswood Road. Not Scotchwood road.
Start your sentence with "It" completely..... Your grammar is atrocious.
Great video highlighting the destruction wrought upon our towns and cities in the postwar years. Exeter is a very different but perhaps an even more extreme example. A one time rival of York Bath and Chester for stunning mediaeval and georgian architecture, WWII bombing was followed by wholesale razing of entire blocks of mediaeval streets throughout the city centre. This leaves a beautiful cathedral in its close amidst what now resembles Peterlee, Harlow Newtown or Milton Keynes. I've come to the conclusion that the postwar architectural destruction of our urban communities very much heralded the national decline of the UK we see today.
3:14 those blocks of flats are either the flats at the Teams or the now demolished blocks at the former Chandless Estate, both Gateshead, had a mate who lived one of these flats at Chandless who actually moved from there to Scotswood
My mam lived Summerhill Terrace, her Block was demolished I think for the road and Newcastle college. One family would live in one room. With a toilet outside, and a cold dark basement. They were unfit to live in. My mam moved to kenton to a council house with her parents and great grandad. A bathroom and electricity for the first time when she was 6, she is 67 now. Summerhill now looks beautiful we love walking around there, I believe they are worth alot of money now. My aunt Polly lived in Scotswood, her house was demolished, and I thought it was a beautiful home. I,m shocked how they have built these 10ft walls. Thanks for the video x
Hey Jordan, glad to see a new video.
If you ever need any drone footage for your videos I can help you out of you need. Always looking for an excuse to go fly it, I had been planning on flying ot over the new Scotswood development :)
How kind ✌️
Its absolutely mad to see how cavilier they were with demolitions, tearing down old but serviciable properties to erect untried and untested ideas.
That generation of planners and architects owe us all an apology.
As a resident of the Rise I find this fascinating. I am not a Newcastle native being from South Shields but I remember the Newcastle of the 90s when this was barron land. Having grown up in a Victorian terrace in South Shields I can see some need for housing stock to be renewed as much as I love old houses I chose a new one for a reason. I am hopeful that this area will gain some of what was lost, but as ever time will be the judge.
No disrespect sir but you a resident of scotswood not the rise that's just the name of the estate you live on it will always be scotswood to people like me who were brought up on that estate with many others who have wonderful childhood memory of a grand community
@user-gv5bs3os5i yeah and no offence was meant by that, I appreciate it is the estate and not the area and you are right i do live in Scotswood, more pointing out its interesting to know more about what was here before where I live, as i didnt know the history of how it was.
I've been waiting for this un
Hope you enjoyed it !
An excellent documentary - your best yet. It suffers a tiny bit from the "benefit of hindsight" - Newcastle was one of the worst hit erstwhile "workshop of the world" - centres in Britain with the decline and fall of the empire. The British Empire was a trading bloc based on sterling with the highest added value industries deliberately placed in Britain. When that broke up, these hitherto protected industries were exposed to the world market, necessarily entailing a redistribution of industrial capacity to other centres - Germany, Japan, Italy, USA. As you documented, Vickers in Newcastle closed down whole works, causing major unemployment from the early sixties onwards. The government solutions of the 1950's - basically, exporting cars to the USA - was not replacing lost industrial capacity adequately. So the oldest industrial centres - Newcastle especially - suffered major decline. This of course reflected itself in workers' housing estates, with many people moving away, leaving houses empty, others having no capital to invest in improvements, the council having to purchase company housing from defunct heavy industry, the houses themselves being difficult/impossible to modernise and retaining increasingly unacceptable sanitary arrangements. There were no gardens and no trees! I remember the declining mining communities in Doncaster in the 1970's and the shock at the sight of the increasingly dilapidated infrastructure. My point is that faced with such decline and no immediate prospect of improvement, the council will have been forced to act. I for one would be very careful with criticism of the housing demolitions, because the case in favour at the time was overwhelming. One could say that the Le Corbusier nonsense so fashionable amongst young architects in 1960 was a highly unfortunate synchronicity (and the current building projects, e.g. The Rise, look so much better), but that's how things were and Newcastle took an enlightened line in urban regeneration. For some reason, it began to lose its way in the 1970's (this is worth closer study), and massive central government interference by the Thatcher regime in the 1980's bestowed on Newcastle a rudderlessness which it is only gradually recovering from. One of the last major improvements was the excellent Metro system envisaged in the late sixties /early seventies and opened ca. 1980.
Absolutely fantastic video..l live in Newcastle and its so interesting to learn about the past.. extremely well edited and narated..ive just subscribed.. thankyou 😊
Remember all that. I lived in Aline Street and Dad worked at Vickers beside the Vickers Office and opposite the library and canteen, all aside the underpass.
My family grew up in Scotswood. My family home is just up the road from the old site. Last time I saw it, the very few remaining houses with trees growing threw them were finally demolished despite plans that the old doctors surgery may be converted into housing.
Great piece of work, eye opening shows again the incompetence of Newcastle Council
I used to live on Buddle Road and the council were demolishing houses quite close to us. They only moved us out when the ceiling fell down in the living room.
As someone who grew up in Scotchy as a kid I didn't realise at the time just what exactly was going on. All the dilapidated houses were a playing ground for me and me pals. For all it was a run down and rough area I had some of the best times of me childhood.
I really enjoyed this. My Grandad was from Scotswood rd, he had plenty of tales to tell! Subscribed.
Sad to see and learning more about the area having moved to The Rise. Don't want the history to be lost so trying to learn about it's past.
Really enjoyed watching this
Excellent. Thanks for posting.
Really enjoyed this ,great stuff 👌
For 4 years I drove a bus through Scotswood and found that there was wonderful people lost in the ruins of planners dreams
Sadly, like so many other very poor areas in the UK, Scotswood and its surrounding areas started to get some very bad social problems over the years. In 1970, an 11 year old boy called Allan Graham was abducted from Benwell, sexually abused and murdered. The case is still unsolved. Poor Allan had been neglected and left to wander the streets. He'd developed a serious smoking problem despite being so young. His body was found dumped in a ditch in Ponteland. The sad story of Mary Bell also informs us of some of the problems in the area. Mary's mother was a prostitute specialising in S&M and Mary was regularly subjected to the sight of what was going on in her home, despite being very young. Her mother actually tried to sell her to another woman at one point and Mary's sister had to go and get her. Those investigating the case said that poverty was so bad in the area that 'every second home' had a prostitute of some sort - many women forced into casual prostitution just to feed their families. Up until the 1980s, Rye Hill by Newcastle College was well known as something of a pick up area for prostitutes from the West End.
Sad , but very informative information. Thank You.
now the west end is completely full of indians and africans ...-so tragic . . .. !
@@sebastianvella8992 it's a real insight into an era which sone people want to misremember as "golden". The further we get away from the 20th century, the more it starts to look like an extension of Victorian times in many ways.
Last week I re-saw the movie Get Carter where the city of Newcastle is as much a protagonist as much as Caine's character and yes the first impression one gets is that the city was very run down at the time in the early seventies when the movie was made.@@zeddeka
Joe Owens Talking Sense
Has Suella Braverman been watching Joe Owen's videos?
Not a lot of SCOTSWOOD mostly about low Elswick SCOTSWOOD did not need demolished it was because council and police could not infiltrate the area so the council went on mass destruction
Thanks for this video. You might want to give a listen to a song called All Fall Down written by Alan Hull about this exact subject.
Great documentary, love from NE
What a great video. Thank you.
Same as Glasgow the east end of Glasgow just disappeared. For years there was nothing were once was homes.
Great video! Growing up I heard stories from my grandparents of a close knit community in Scotswood with a pub on every street corner, I hope the new redevelopment has a similar communal centre but I’m not too hopeful looking at similar redevelopments.
Brilliant video
I moved into Sctoswood in 1970 when I was 2 years old and moved out in 1979 when I was 11.
The junior school I went to Dento ROad is gone the street I lived on Woodstock road Gone.
It's all gone.
I lived on delaval gardens in scotswood whitch was north to south as well as whitehouse rd cranbrooke rd. Take a look at a aerial.view of the original scotswood from the 50s that is the real scotswood that was demolished for the rise.
Do you not mean demolished for card board city cos that's wht the houses look like card board boxes wouldn't have one rent free my brother helped to build them and said you couldnt swing a cat in the bedrooms even the living rooms are two small fir a three peice suit
How different it looks now changes every day
it's funny to see that the terraced houses that were left are often the most in demand and nicest neighbourhoods to live in. city planners and architechs need a reality check and to bring the local materials and design back into it. most of all, they need to bring back in more humanism.
Most of them were Tyneside Flats. They still aren't popular today.
Just what I think when popping over the bridge to B&Q from the Metro: this is just like Brasilia!
Wonderful video
Excellent work 👏🏻
I lived just off Scotswood Road, in Aline Street and close to South Benwell school which i attended, 4 boys, 2 parents in a one bedroom, one front room a scullery, outside toilet and yard, till I was 11 when were rehoused in a 3 bedroom council house in Pendower, Benwell., in 1966. I have no fond memories, the place was a slum and would not have been out of place in a Dickens novel.,The accommodation probably was a factor in my elder sisters passing as a very young child, something my mother never really got over. I have no fondness for this place calling it a slum is being generous. I would move away in 1973 when I joined the Royal Navy, and would only return on leave. I now live in Western Australia,
My late uncle worked at Vickers Foundry before emigrating to Canada. He said there was anarchy in the Foundry it was in the complete control of the Foremen who would book in fictitious jobs to create income for the " workers " ,managers were nowhere to be seen .Hence the Foundry closed.
Excellent
great video. amazing how corruption and backhanders have shaped this country. im feeling it in my neighbourhood in edinburgh right now
Awesome work!
My mother-in-law lived there in the 40 until late 60 as was rough as shit. It was the poorest part of Newcastle
Excellent video, thank you. I was thinking of all those streets named after girls, I think. My dad lived in Matilda Street and could run down to work, at Vickers.
I always wondered, how much would it have cost to refurbish the old houses. To my mind, perfect starter homes within a ready made community. Stripped back to bricks and roof, surely modern plumbing, electrics, insulation and windows would have cost less than those awful towers. I lived in three different terrace houses in different parts of the city, loved working on them as they had good bones…
I lived in the flats just up from the sycamores for a while, looked down on the rock pub..it was an interesting period let's say....
That would be the Larches I recall!!!
The trouble is they knocked down better houses than they built Jesmond as the same houses and its a lovey area Scots wood could have been the same to day with a bit of thought Byler is the same
I entirely agree about Byker. Most of our terraces could have been modernised and this would have kept our families and friends together. My street , Salisbury St had 120 houses of which over half had families that were interelated and had a self regulating society. Smith and Burns couldnt care less about the people. They just wanted Kudos which in the end backfired on them.
Despite only being born in the 2000s, looking back at what was going on in the 60s in terms of architecture completely crushes me as someone who loves history and its architecture. The 50s and 60s and 70s were, in my opinion, probably the worst period in English history for architecture.
Have they forgot about the rows of terraces that are still there? Around st. Margarets?