The North East Film Archive is one of a network of regional film archives established to collect, preserve and show film made in, or about the North East of England. Our collections are non-fiction, and date from the early 1900s to the present day, providing a rich record of life in the region over the 20th century. Many of our films are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
This film is part of Free
Overview
From the collection of:
Life in the fast lane for a Teesside worker who flirts with disaster on his way to work. There’s no stopping this thrilling, roller-coaster of a ‘phantom’ car ride, careening through Middlesbrough on a high speed road trip to the north bank of the Tees. Crossing the magnificent Newport Bridge, the Mini’s driver passes into the industrial hinterlands of Haverton Hill and the once thriving Belasis Garden City, plagued by terrible pollution created by ICI’s chemical plants.
Shot by an amateur filmmaker from the Cleveland Cine Club, at 2 frames per second to create the exciting speed, this man on a mission tears past the now vanished homes of Belasis Garden City at Haverton Hill, ‘the place where even the birds coughed’. Adopting the social housing policy of Quaker firms like Rowntree’s and Cadbury’s, the Furness Shipbuilding Company constructed an estate for recruits from outside the Teesside area as they could not find enough skilled local labour. The Belasis estate suffered badly from aerial pollution and demolition of the houses began in 1966, soon after this film was made.