Busy River Tyne in 1961 caught on film
WELCOME to CineSecrets.
Over the coming months, we will be revealing a host of hidden historical gems, showing Tyneside on film from the precious collections of the region’s North East Film Archive.
Once a month, we’ll release a Tyneside treasure from the archive on our website - www.chroniclelive.co.uk and on our Facebook and Twitter pages.
You’ll see the sights and sounds, the faces, changing landscapes and industries of a ‘lost’ Tyneside.
You’ll experience special events just as they happened and watch everyday lives and the region’s rich past unfold on screen.
If these films spark your own memories, or you spot a familiar face, then please tell us anything you know in the comments section below.
Any nuggets of information, and tales about the people or the locations featured all help to piece together the amazing stories of our region’s past.
And what better month than Local History Month to launch an inspiring look back at Tyneside’s incredible film heritage.
CineSecrets is just a tiny fragment of a vast catalogue of film collected and preserved by the North East Film Archive.
It’s part of the North East Film Archive’s major new project, North East on Film, which will re-connect the people and communities of the region with their film heritage, and provide important glimpses into our history through special screenings, events and online collections.
The Chronicle is delighted to be teaming up with the North East Film Archive once again.
CineSecrets: Tyneside has been specially curated with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund. We hope you enjoy our opening clip. It shows a royal launch for a grand ocean liner at Vickers-Armstrong’s Naval Yard in Walker, Newcastle, on June 27, 1961.
The modern Northern Star one-class
ocean liner was built for the Shaw Savill & Albion Company for their new roundthe-world services.
The ship carried huge numbers of working class British passengers to Australia and New Zealand on an assisted migration scheme, first started in 1947.
Many were seduced by the fare of just ten pounds, hence the colloquial name for the passengers of ’10 pound Poms’.
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother launched the ship despite an injury to her foot, which meant she was ferried to the launch platform in a wheelchair.
The ship could carry more than 1400 passengers, cruising to sunshine holidays or new lives in the Commonwealth.
It travelled with an exhaustive load of food and drink on board on its maiden voyage, including a quarter of a million eggs. Shaw Savill promised: “Perhaps you just want to sail on and on, with fresh horizons each dawn and a new port to look forward to. Shaw Savill Round-the-World voyages are for you.” Beautiful though the ship was, engine problems plagued the Northern Star during its short life, disrupting even its maiden voyage from Southampton on July 10, 1962. And, with no interested buyers, the ocean liner was finally scrapped in 1975. Our next CineSecrets feature will appear on Friday, June 1.
The ship carried working class British passengers to Australia on an assisted migration scheme started in 1947
■■Visit the website of the North East Film Archive: www.yorkshirefilmarchive. com/yfa-nefa