Tag Archives: Urban Decay

Blog, Paradise Lost

Reflections on the dance phenomenon at Harehills Middle School by Nadine Senior

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by Nadine Senior, dance UK

Nadine Senior, Founder of Northern School of Contemporary Dance, reflects on the incredible success of her work as a dance teacher at Harehills Middle School in the 1970s and 1980s.

How it began

In 1970, I was appointed Head of Physical Education in an all-girls high school in Leeds. Many of the girls in this inner city, multi-cultural school had behavioural problems and one of them eventually burnt the school to the ground, though fortunately no one was hurt. Thereafter, we simply moved into the boys’ school which was on the same campus.

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Broadcast TV, The Blight

The Blight, Brass Tacks, BBC2 (1980)

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21.25 BBC2
BRASS TACKS
The Blight
Radio Times, 14 July 1980, BBC2

In many Durham mining villages residents are suffering from planning blight, whilst in Macclesfield, architect Rod Hackney refurbishes old houses and communities. As Langley Park’s Railway Street faces the bulldozers, we ask should local authorities demolish old housing or renovate instead?

Are The Kids Alright?, Blog

Picture of Wearside – in the right focus

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Evening Chronicle, 30 August 1979

JOBLESS teenagers hope to give ailing Wearside a television tonic. They believe there is plenty in Sunderland to smile about and to prove it they are to make a film of life in the town.

The film makers then plan to send their documentary to the BBC in answer to a film about the town called “Are the Kids All Right” which painted a dismal picture of dole queues and street fights.

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Are The Kids Alright?, Blog

Selected..the Rejected!

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Daily Mirror
23 August 1979
Story: Ken Tossel
Picture: Tom Buist

These four 16-year-old punk rockers might look dejected. But soon they may find it difficult to live down to the name of their group . . . The Rejected.

For they performed a song they wrote – about the plight of jobless teenagers like themselves in their home town of Sunderland – on a BBC-2 documentary last week.

And now three recording companies are interested in the boys who “seem to be able to speak for their generation.”

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Are The Kids Alright?, Blog

Tory councillor lashes BBC

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Evening Chronicle
21 August 1979

A TELEVISION documentary which painted an abysmal picture of Sunderland may discourage industrialists from moving to the town. It probably frightened off Argentinian soccer star Alex Sabella and it could spark a huge migration of youngsters.

So says Tory councillor Joseph Landau, who condemned last week’s BBC-2 Brass Tacks programme as one-sided and unbalanced.

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Are The Kids Alright?, Broadcast TV

Are The Kids Alright? Brass Tacks, BBC2 (1979)

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Radio Times,
14 August 1979
BBC2
8.5-9.0
Brass Tacks
Are The Kids Alright?

With unemployment running at twice the national average, and further redundancies in the shipyards, the age of leisure has come early for many of Sunderland’s youngsters.

Michael is 16, on the dole, and buying a £300 guitar on HP. His recently-formed group – The Rejected – is receiving encouragement from the local community theatre, which also faces redundancies as government cutbacks begin to bite.

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Are The Kids Alright?, Blog

Plight of the youngsters

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Bradford Telegraph & Argus
14 August 1979

In Sunderland the problems of youth unemployment are writ large. There are 40 percent fewer small businesses than the national average. The shipyards and coalmines are threatened with closure. Dole queues and boredom are the lot of many youngsters in the area.

In Are the Kids All Right? BRASS TACKS (BBC-2, 8.5) talks to the young unemployed of Sunderland including Michael, a 16-year-old whose dreams of making it are all centred on his £300 guitar and his new band, The Rejected.

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Are The Kids Alright?, Blog

We’re riveted by Brass Tacks

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by Stafford Hildred
Birmingham Evening Mail
14 August 1979

“BRASS TACKS” (BBC 2, 8.5), the current affairs show that has pioneered viewer participation, would like to announce a modest success. The Monday evening chance for feedback from the show – “Return Call to Brass Tacks” – has been extended until the end of the series.

And calls following the weekly Tuesday evening documentary to local radio stations across the country are building up to a regular avalanche.

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Are The Kids Alright?, Blog

NO JOB, JUST A £300 GUITAR

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The Liverpool Echo
14 August 1979
TV GUIDE
TONIGHT’S CHOICE

A SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD who’s on the dole and whose dream of making something of his life centres on a £300 guitar is one of the most interesting characters in tonight’s Brass Tacks film (BBC-2, 8.10).

Although the film is about Sunderland, much of what it has to say about youth unemployment and bored youngsters could just as well apply to Liverpool.

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Are The Kids Alright?, Blog

Kids on the scrap heap

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Sunday Sun
12 August 1979

The youth of Sunderland is being thrown on the scrap heap. Unemployment has sapped their energy, they are shattered and just hanging about miserable.

That is the picture gained by a BBC film crew which they will pass on to the nation via “Brass Tacks – Are the Kids All Right?” (BBC-2, Thursday, 8.05 pm).

A New-Wave group called The Rejected is featured heavily and programme researcher Ian McNulty said the lads in it were the only positive youngsters they met among the unemployed.

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