Visit of Their Majesties King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to the Team Valley Trading Estate

“Not only has the North East been put on the map, but we made a new map to put it on!” Filmed on 22 February 1939, an excited crowd surge forward to catch a glimpse of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on a grim day for an official opening ceremony at the modern Team Valley Trading Estate in Gateshead. The royals tour some of the 110 factories and a Ministry of Labour Training Centre, admiring decorative brickwork built by unemployed trainees.

In June 1937 the new king was one of the visitors to the British Industrial Fair at Earl’s Court in London who gazed at the industrial city of tomorrow contained in a 50ft square model of miniature factories, roads, railways, and gardens that made up the future Team Valley – billed as the finest trading estate in Europe and built to alleviate Depression era unemployment (67.8 per cent on Tyneside in 1934). It is believed that this film for Gateshead Council was produced by the gifted amateurs of Montagu Pictures including Arthur Greaves FRPS, a member of Newcastle ACA, whose The Day Thou Gavest won the Victor Saville Cup for the most outstanding film at the Scottish Amateur Film Festival (SAFF) in 1936.