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The Other South Bank (2008, 9 mins): a look at Teesside's South Bank area Filmed and directed by Paul Kelly Produced by Andrew Hinton Edited by Paul Kelly Music by Saint Etienne Filmed with the assistance of Jan Williams, Chris Teasdale of The Caravan Gallery Owen Hatherley Piece South Bank, a short distance from the centre of Middlesbrough on the river Tees, is about as far from the riverside leisure and commerce of the Southbank Centre on the Thames as could possibly be imagined. In Paul Kelly and Saint Etienne's short, quietly angry film it's a place that has been eviscerated, a panorama of dereliction and blight. Yet, oddly enough, it's a place that seems to retain a little of the optimistic socialist and social spirit that animated the creation of the Royal Festival Hall, albeit as a rather more distant memory. As we see the area's rusting workplaces, the remnants of the once massive employers (steel at Dorman Long, shipbuilding at Cammell Laird), voices tell us about a place where people felt they could share things, where they could leave their doors open, where they had 'everything necessary for life', a blasted 'slaggy island' whose dramatically unlovely appearance didn’t correspond to unlovely people – even today, the residents tell us, 'you'll never feel lonely'. That’s even with half the houses empty, as all we can see, for the most part, is row after row of tinned-up terraces. What happened here? It happened 20-30 years ago, we're told: 'Margaret Thatcher is the most reviled figure in the history of South Bank... there'll be a mass celebration here when she dies', says one, and no doubt this was one of the places that did have a street party when she expired. Absentee landlords are the other demon here, partly responsible for a place where the war looks like it ended yesterday, not in 1945. The only thing we see being repaired is a CCTV camera, though there are flashes of new uses and of life – a 'Millennium Green', a mosque and a corner shop still open, a garden full of odd sculptures, plants and objets d’art. For the people of the Other South Bank, as one of them tells us, 'community spirit is alive and kicking' – he pauses – 'to some extent'. |