This film is part of Free

River Tees Trip

A river trip explores the industrial heartlands of Teesside in the 70s.

Amateur film 1979 4 mins

From the collection of:

Logo for North East Film Archive

Overview

Take a fascinating downriver cruise through Teesside’s very own hard-working rust belt region with the filmmakers of the Cleveland Cine Club. This brooding boat trip slices through a collage of the great industries that transformed the Tees Valley in the twentieth century, from the Dorman Long steel that built the magnificent Newport and Transporter Bridges to ICI’s chemical plants and giant cargo ships from around the world at Tees Dock.

Just 5 years later, Margaret Thatcher’s infamous ‘walk in the wilderness’ across the derelict site of former steel foundry Head Wrightson in Thornaby was caught on camera as a defining moment for the north east in the Conservative 80s, an era from which the region's industries have yet to recover.