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
Your Heritage: The River Tyne
A beautifully composed travelogue circles the River Tyne as the Cold War plays out on the world stage.
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Overview
As the Cold War bristles with menace in the 60s, the youth at Kielder Workman’s Club celebrate free time with an American dance called the ‘Twist’. But it’s the Faustian pact with industry this brilliant travelogue focuses on first as it maps the path of the River Tyne. The sounds of heavy machinery and graft pitch us into Newcastle’s shipyards and collieries, whilst drugs spin off a machine called Bliss in Winthrop Laboratories’ production-slick war against pain.
Between 1962 and 1963 Tyne Tees Television broadcast superb documentaries on the rivers and coastline of the North East in a series called Your Heritage. This programme was the first part of a trilogy on the regional rivers, Tyne, Wear and Tees, accompanied by a playful, informative and occasionally pithy narrative, here spoken by cigarette-puffing presenter Mike Neville. Sprinkled with allusions to the Tyne’s polluted waters and to Cold War politics – the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in October 1962 and this travelogue was broadcast two months later, on 6 December 1962 – the picture is not always pretty, but it is beautifully composed.
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