An Anniversary to Remember

Saltburn has just ended its 150th anniversary year. Long-time resident Michael Morrissey talked to local people and reports on what over 50 events did for the town’s community and commercial hearts.

A widely-admired mosaic memento is brightening up Saltburn town centre to mark the town’s 150th anniversary last year. The five mosaic panels on Sainsbury’s supermarket wall form an attractive ‘welcome’ to the railway platforms and supermarket car park. Up until the end of January there was a race against time to complete payments for the panels, which show the town’s history. The last few hundred pounds towards the £9,600 cost was being raised by organiser Philip Thomson.

Probably the most striking is panel No. 4 on the walkway at the side of the supermarket. This shows town crier Sharon Wilson in the town centre. Befrocked and ringing her handbell, she did a shocked double-take last November when she saw a likeness of herself on the huge mural as it was unveiled.
“My immediate thought was: `My Goodness this is going to be there forever!`” she said later. “Everyone, both residents and visitors, loves the five murals. They are cheery and bright. They show the story of Saltburn from the arrival of the first steam train in 1861, our pier with a Victorian mum and her son walking along it through to the town centre buildings – and me.” Sharon, who hopes to continue her volunteer role in future, said: “My likeness looks better than me!”

About the year of celebrations, the mum-of-two teenagers, said: “It’s been good.” Others - both community and business representatives - agree.
Veronica Boland, a Saltburn Community and Arts Association committee member, was upbeat: “It’s gone really well. A lot of people have been involved.”

Councillor Stuart Smith, a former community policeman in the town, said the events had strengthened a strong spirit of community already existing in the commuter- and-holiday town of 6,000 people.

Activities ranged from a beer festival to beach spectacular drawing an estimated 10,000 people to the town in the summer, five formal heritage lectures and a town party involving 400 family members to mark Prince William’s wedding.

All these events were new to the annual calendar. Several organisations like the Folk Festival and WI added “150 activities” to their annual contribution.
The business association was revived during the year and its 30 members now are “working together and communicating more,” said secretary Di Parker.

Cafes have had a boost, said Bob Mitchell, 31, of the Profile lounge. He and his wife Becky plan an arts fair in association with Mima, the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art in August 2012.

Lee Ingleby, who has run an estate agency in the area for 30 years, said: “The whole town has been lifted by the celebrations and publicity. Property-wise we are bucking the trend. Saltburn has improved over the past five years and this is attracting a lot of potential house-buyers from the south and other parts of the country. All the publicity over the 150th anniversary has put Saltburn firmly on the map. We have no empty shops. House sales at the top end of the market are particularly strong. A Durham City businessman recently bought a group of semi-detached houses and flats to rent. He’s after growth of 5-7 per cent.”

Glenn Pearson, fish-and-chip shop owner, who organised the Extravaganza spectacular, is aiming to secure sponsorship from large local firms, for a repeat in 2012.
“I’ve formed a Saltburn events’ committee dedicated to putting on large-scale events. This will allow me to seek large funding because of the considerable expense of putting on the spectacular. Next year’s show will be based on the film The Italian Job. It’s taking a year to plan.”

Jackie Taylor, a community stalwart for over 20 years, said she was pleased the “birthday year” was ending with two permanent features - the mosaics’ panels and replica of a steam train engine being placed near the town’s entrance.
"We’ve got one or two new recruits for the bandstand work. They include a young dad who put his new twins down as helpers for the future! In 2012 we are to move the Saturday night concert to the afternoon.”

New vicar the Rev Adam Reed praised the “good community spirit” and felt there was a “buzz about the town.”
He is pleased that the Emmanuel church hall, which is used by several dozen community groups, was nearing the end of a major refurbishment costing over £300,000. Archbishop John Sentamu opened it on Sunday, January 15th.

What could other small towns learn from Saltburn’s 150th celebration year?
When Philip Thomson, a community buff for over 25 years and active borough councillor, formed a coordinating group in mid-2010 he suggested organisations’ representatives should “own” events they suggested.
This thinned out over-ambitious ideas which cropped up in early discussions. Individuals – helped by volunteers among the group – ran activities ranging from a Northern Sinfonia Chorus concert to a modest croquet match through to literary, photographic and film events.

Mr Thomson undertook to raise money for the mosaic panels. Some came from local authority grants and some from sponsorship for climbing Ben Nevis last summer. In the last few weeks he personally delivered 3,000 begging letters round the town. The deadline for contributions to be made at the library was Tuesday, 31st January.

The 150 Group, of which I’ve been a member, has attracted dozens of organisations’ representatives at its regular meetings over an 18-month period.

Artists Derek Mosey and Helen Gaunt have put in many hours of work to create and produce the five panels - helped by some 2,000 locals and visitors who stuck glass tiles into place during Saturday morning workshops.

The 150th celebrations were publicised through the internet and local media. Several national travel publications have visited the town and boosted hotel and bed-and- breakfast bookings.

A £2 booklet is just out and a DVD is being prepared. It’s been “a year to remember,” say the booklet writers.

Cheque donations to the mosaic project can be made out to Derek Mosey, c/o Saltburn Artists’ Projects, 32 Marske Road, Saltburn. TS12 1QG.

Saltburn's 150th Anniversary Commemorative Booklet now available.

A 34-page commemorative booklet has been published after a year of celebrations in Saltburn held to mark its 150th anniversary.

The £2 booklet, which is available at local outlets including cafes and the SCAA office, contains a potted history of Saltburn compiled by local historians and a host of pictures exclusive to the publication. One shows the Halfpenny Bridge long before it was demolished in 1974 and another shows a major fire at Rushpool Hall in 1904.

The booklet also lists many of the 60-plus events which were held last year to mark the town’s 150th birthday. They included an air and car show on the beach, which attracted 10,000 people last summer, a beer festival, sea and rail trips to Saltburn and a town tea party.

Several events are planned for this year following the fillip given by the year-long birthday ‘bash.’ They include a beach Spectacular based on The Italian Job film and a town-centre arts fair planned to be run with Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art in August.

An important legacy is the five large mosaic panels showing the town’s history from building the pier to creating the valley gardens. Money is still being raised to pay for the £9,600 cost. Donations can be made at the library until the end of January. The mosaics have been created by local artists Helen Jane Gaunt and Derek Mosey with the help of 2,000 men, women and children.

“Saltburn at 150 - 1861-2011” has been published by Saltburn Community and Arts Association Ltd for the 150 group and was printed by Thurston’s Printers in Amber Street, Saltburn. Copies are available from the association’s office in Albion Terrace. Money raised will go towards a proposed town archive.

Aurora over Saltburn Pier

The Aurora Borealis - or Northern Lights - occur when solar particles collide with the earth’s magnetic field, lighting the sky, and thanks to a solar storm parts of the UK skies have been brilliantly illuminated over the last two nights.

The lights are one of nature's most spectacular displays, usually seen in the Arctic Circle. However, on Sunday night the first dazzling displays were seen in Scotland, in the north-east of England, Northern Ireland and Ireland. The stunning Northern Lights were also visible across the Teesside coastline.




This picture of the natural light phenomena was captured by Teesside friends and amateur photographers, Richard Glover and Michelle Bennett, on Saltburn seafront on Sunday at 8pm. Both took numerous shots on Michelle’s camera and the picture above was one of the results.

The solar activity is predicted to occur again tonight.

The Works @ Marske Mill Lane

Over the past year Saltburn Community and Arts Association (SCAA) has organised three public meetings to consider what should happen to the buildings and grounds formerly occupied by the Junior School which moved to the new campus in the summer of 2009.
In the spring of this year Redcar and Cleveland Council announced that along with a number of other assets the former school was to be disposed of. SCAA were aware that redundant assets of the council could be secured for community benefit by Community Asset Transfer (CAT).

Saltburn's old Junior School Marske Mill Base

For three months this summer a group of volunteers co-ordinated by SCAA has been working on a proposal for a CAT covering the school buildings and grounds. The group has been contacted by almost forty groups and individuals who wish to use the former school as part community or business activities.

From this work a big idea has emerged, to build on the impressive levels of creative activity which already exists in Saltburn and the surrounding area under the title of The Works @ Marske Mill. Provision will include:

· Studio and exhibition space along with specialist resources to support a wide range of  art and creative activity.
· Space for drama and music rehearsal and performance.
· Provision of an accessible local archive.
· Space for sport and outdoor activities including junior football and a skatepark.
· An enhancement of tourism through the establishment of a holiday hostel and campsite and support to environmentally friendly transport.

As this document is being prepared we are looking forward to the next public meeting. This is to be held at 6.00pm on Friday, 28th October in the Community Hall at SCAA Albion Terrace, Saltburn.

To learn more about these exiting proposals please visit the website at http://www.saltburnarts.co.uk/the-works-marske-mill/ or contact SCAA on 01287 624997.

Pageant of Light, ‘Back to Basics’

The ‘Pageant of Light’ has become a firm fixture in Saltburn’s annual calendar, drawing crowds of up to two thousand people and has a warm, local, family atmosphere. It takes place on the day that British Summer Time ends and seems to strike a real chord with everyone. We celebrate the passing of the seasons and prepare to enter the dark days of winter in a blaze of fire and light.

The Pageant of Light

Last year’s pageant ‘Peter Pan’ was possibly the most ambitious yet and with the biggest budget. As most people know, this past year has been very difficult for the Woodland Centre and for the ‘Friends of the Valley’ who create the pageant. Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council has had to make huge budget cuts in every department. We have expended a lot of energy in campaigning to keep the centre open and keeping going with our core activities of conservation and maintenance. People have been asking us what is happening about the pageant this year. Normally by now we are well on track with obtaining funding and with our planning. We are reluctant to let our pageant go completely but this year there is no way we can put on a real ‘spectacle’ with a fire sculpture, an image on the train and all the trimmings.
Hopefully next year we may be able to do it in real style once again. Meanwhile...

The Wings of Delight – Your Pageant of Light! Sunday 30th October from 5.30pm
This year the Pageant of Light is YOU! We need the people of Saltburn to make the Procession of Light their own, by creating, making, carrying their own illuminations. They can be torches, glow sticks, lanterns, fairy lights, costumes, wings and decorations on a theme of Bees and Butterflies…
The theme is to highlight the work that has been carried out by the Friends of the Valley who have planted a Butterfly Banquet and Bumble Bee Bistro near the Woodland Centre.
So if you feel inspired or you are wondering what you could do, get yourselves down to the Woodland Centre during half term week - 24th to 29th October (details will be posted outside the Woodland Centre). It will be a hive of activity with ideas for costume, lanterns, and musical instruments for the procession.
Bee there or be a butterfly!
You can contact us by email or through the website: friendsofthevalleysaltburn@gmail.com
http://sites.google.com/site/friendsofthevalley

It's 'Play Bach' Time

When I was aged 47 I set myself the unusual challenge of being able to play Bach’s famous ‘48’ in one day before I became 49. I’m no concert pianist so the challenge meant ‘to be familiar enough or fluent enough’ to be able to play through them all in one day, not necessarily to be able to perform them to any concert standard. This month I’m 56, but since I achieved that eight years ago, I have played very little else. I still try to play every day but sometimes the demands of editing, financing, organizing, distributing and heart-aching over Talk of the Town interferes with that. Producing the magazine is a very great burden for one person to carry and it takes its toll not just on my physical and mental health but on my finances. Playing the piano helps to keep me sane but doesn’t pay the bills.

On Thursday, 5th November, Saturday afternoon from 1.00 to 6.00pm in Saltburn’s Community Theatre I shall be performing Bach’s ‘48’ in public. To play through the whole collection would take me eight hours so I intend to play the whole of Book 1 followed by highlights of Book 2. I’d better explain what Bach’s ‘48’ is. It is a collection of 48 preludes and fugues (96 pieces overall) and is also known as ‘The Well Tempered Clavier’. This refers not to it being in a good mood, but the fact that it is written for a keyboard which has been tuned in the modern way as opposed to the traditional or natural way. If you look at the black and white keys of a piano you can see that the black keys are in between the white keys. The ‘white’ notes C and D for example have a ‘black’ note in between them and this is either C sharp or D flat, but they are of the same pitch in the modern or ’well tempered’ tuning. C sharp and D flat are equal. They are the same note, and exactly half way between C and D, but traditionally C sharp was higher than D flat. When the new tuning was first used around four centuries ago it was revolutionary and initially sounded a little out of tune but the human ear soon got used to it for it had one enormous advantage over the original tunings: it meant the music could freely change to any key without the need to retune the entire instrument! It allowed composers to create truly expressive, rich harmonies that changed the history of music forever.

In 1722 Bach composed a book of 24 preludes and fugues in every single major and minor key and twenty years later he composed another. Together these form the two books of his famous ‘48’, a landmark in the development of Western music which I would describe as the most important collection of keyboard pieces of all time. A prelude, as its name implies, is a piece which is followed by something else and a fugue is a complex piece of many voices which begin one at a time and then ‘fly away’ from each other, though not always at high speed, and certainly not the way I play them. As I say, I am no concert pianist and I lack the skill and the brain to play at breakneck speed so I play slowly and try to be accurate and expressive, but I certainly make mistakes. In any case, Bach’s exquisite melodies are too indulgent to be shortened by playing quickly!

So why am I doing this? Well, inspired by Philip Thomson’s recent heroic sponsored assent of Ben Nevis on behalf of financing the new town mosaics I wondered what I could do to help the magazine. Yes, Talk of the Town has financial difficulties. It always has! I’ve made no secret of the fact that these last nine years have been a constant struggle to make ends meet. I talk to anybody who will listen about this and it becomes obvious what they are thinking: ‘Oh Ian’s just having a whinge but he always gets the job done so why should we care?’ Well, I might not be able to get the job done much longer and it’s time to alert the people of Saltburn to the unpleasant reality that they might lose their unique magazine unless something is done to help. Unfortunately, the only help I need is financial and that’s the only help that’s in short supply at the moment.

Every good idea to help save the magazine seems to have some real or imaginary negative aspect to it. A fundamental problem is that the magazine is a private business and not a registered charity. It’s not even one of those ‘community enterprises’ but it should be. People offer to help me convert the magazine into one, but nothing then happens. It’s an intolerable burden for one person to carry on behalf of the whole of Saltburn, but that’s the way it is. In many ways, the magazine only exists because I have kept it alive and nurtured it when a committee would probably have folded it and walked away years ago. Another good idea was to set up a group called ‘Friends of Talk of the Town’ where members would pay me £1 a month, basically to buy their copy which they had been getting for free. That could make a difference but nothing ever happens. It was suggested last year that I could put an envelope in the magazine asking for donations. This was an excellent idea but it was killed off by one negative voice saying I would be criticized for asking for donations when I’m not a registered charity. This is nonsense! There is no law in this country that forbids the raising of funds for a worthwhile project that isn’t a charity. It is an excuse for mean-spiritedness and a refusal to help. In any case the criticism I might get would not have been as bad as the blame I’d receive if ever the magazine ceased to exist.

So it’s down to me to make it work or fail. Nobody is going to save the magazine except me, no matter how much the people of Saltburn love it. So what can I do? I can play the piano. On November 5th I shall be busking, begging if you like (there’s no dignity in being the editor of Talk of the Town!), for funds to save the magazine. If you like trendy language you can call it a ‘sponsored pianothon’ and sponsorship forms will be available in participating shops this month. All money raised will be paid into the magazine’s bank account and become part of the general, accountable finances of the magazine. Please support me and drop in to the theatre to listen to some Bach, have a cup of coffee and make a donation to help this much loved magazine continue to serve the Saltburn community, in its current style and format.

 Ian Tyas

SaltburnbySea.com is supporting 'Talk of the Town'

The Hunt is on for Saltburn's Mystery Guerrilla Knitter.

A mystery knitter has been pulling the wool over the eyes of both residents and visitors to Saltburn who are baffled by the appearance of a number of intricately knitted scarves which have been attached to various parts of the town centre including lamp-posts, railings and buildings.

The appearance of these novel pieces of public art may be connected to Saltburn’s 150th anniversary as many of them, including the latest 6ft long scarf left outside the library, had a note attached to that effect.

It was signed the “Yarn Junkie” but leaves no clue as to the identity of the knitter.

Other knitted pieces with different designs have appeared in Station Street and outside the local supermarket.

Three knitted teddy bears have also been seen regularly enjoying a tea party at a table on the Marine Parade picnic area.

The scarf outside the library is an impressive work of art. Staff locked up as usual one evening, but overnight the long woollen scarf appeared on the railing outside the library door. A tantalising feature of Saltburn’s latest scarf is the play on words in the titles of the books knitted on to it. A local resident commented, "Instead of The Secret Garden one is called The Secret Cardigan. Another is called A Ribbing Yarn instead of A Ripping Yarn."

Saltburn librarian Lynne Mackenzie said: “It is very clever and colourful and must have taken a while to knit. It’s a mystery, but a very attractive one. Staff find most library users appreciate the fun item. But rumours are rife about the identity of Saltburn’s Yarn Junkie."

The scarves could be a local version of a worldwide campaign by knitting enthusiasts to place knitted garments in public places. The pieces placed nationally are also anonymous.

Who is Saltburn's mystery knitter and why have they decided to wind everyone up? Can you identify the culprit(s)? Perhaps all will be revealed very soon...