If, using your own body and without any props or materials, you’ve never been asked to construct a series of objects from a Lynx Helicopter to the Eiffel Tower, or stomp your way through a […]

If, using your own body and without any props or materials, you’ve never been asked to construct a series of objects from a Lynx Helicopter to the Eiffel Tower, or stomp your way through a […]
I’ve been back to Thorp Academy this afternoon, to tell sixth form students about my day job. What an impressive bunch of young people they all are – and set to lead lives far more […]
Names have been changed for this article. However, there is nothing written here which isn’t already in the public domain, and freely available on the internet via a Google search using real names. I love […]
6pm on Friday evening found me sitting in the midst of my old stomping ground, the Charles Thorp Academy school hall, stealthily munching my way through a bag of Haribo while I waited for the […]
I’m very sorry to hear that a Ryton icon has died. I’ve mentioned Ernie Brodrick before in this blog, and talked about my belief that over the time span of a couple of decades, from the early […]
A young lady called Katie Cutler has been in the news this week. She has raised a vast amount of money for Alan Barnes who was attacked a few days ago outside his home in […]
“Never grow old Tam,” was my Dad’s advice two or three years before he died and while he was still fit enough to go for a walk with me. We were walking on Ryton Willows, Dad […]
My first job on leaving school was in the popular music section of JG Windows in Newcastle upon Tyne. Late one afternoon I was lolling against the counter, fiddling with a roll of sticky tape, one eye watching the clock. The heavy glass entrance door swept open and in glided a middle-aged gentleman with grey bouffant hair, tinted in pinks and purples around the temples. He sported a green velvet jacket and a cluster of silk scarves and frills. The ensemble was topped off with a wide-brimmed black hat, accessorised with yet another silk scarf, black gloves, and what I would call a swagger stick. And boy did he swagger; flamboyance oozed from every pore. Today his appearance wouldn’t cause a stir, but on that afternoon in the 1970’s stirring was in evidence within a 50ft radius, as customers stopped leafing through LP sleeves to gawp.