OPINION & ANALYSIS
North pays penalty
for London’s suits
Phillip
O’Neill
A VERY straightforward road sign
recurs along England’s M1
motorway. It says ‘‘The North’’.
We followed the signs to The
North one day a fortnight ago as the
sky darkened, wind gusted, rain
eventually fell and I froze as I
refilled the car at a services plaza
somewhere west of Hull.
The coffee being putrid and the
boxed sandwich soggy on one side
and stale on the other, the purchase
that sparked us up was the two-for-£5
CD pack of heavy-metal music. For
the next hour we listened to 35-yearold lyrics angry at the hopelessness
of de-industrialised life in a region
that invented industrialisation in
the first place.
It is said that when Queen Victoria
steamed north to her Balmoral
estate in Scotland for her holiday
she ordered the blinds in her royal
carriage to be lowered as she passed
through The North to avoid looking
at its smoky mills, slag heaps and
drab workers’ terraces.
You can see what Queen Vic didn’t
want to see by visiting the Lowry
Centre at Salford, stuck among youcould-be-anywhere hotels and
factory outlets just down the canal
from Manchester. L.S. Lowry was
probably the most famous painter of
life in The North in its industrial
heyday.
On the gallery wall among Lowry’s
paintings you can read a comment
from John Rothenstein, director of
London’s Tate Gallery, on the
occasion of a Lowry exhibition there
in 1939.
“I stood in the gallery,”
Rothenstein said, “marvelling at the
accuracy of the mirror that this to
me unknown painter had held up to
the bleakness, the absolute
shabbiness, the grimy fogboundness,
the grimness of industrial England.”
It’s not the stuff of a tourist
pamphlet, is it?
But as any visitor to The North will
tell you, there is more there than
grime, pubs and footy.
Last Saturday we walked for
kilometres across the Northumbria
moors, near Newcastle. We climbed
out of a yellow and orange autumn
HEYDAY: “I
stood in the
gallery,” said
John
Rothenstein,
‘‘marvelling at
the accuracy
of the mirror
that this to me
unknown
painter had
held up to the
bleakness, the
absolute
shabbiness,
the grimy
fogboundness,
the grimness
of industrial
England.”
forest, and ambled across heath and
ridgelands and jumped perched
streams on the stillest, bluest,
clearest day imaginable.
Then we feasted in a village pub
on casseroles of pheasant and hare
warmed by an open fire and good ale
with Guy Fawkes fireworks all
around.
The weekend over, we drove along
the A686 across the northern
Pennines as early-season snow
frosted its peaks and we felt
privileged to have enjoyed The
North at its best.
When we were in Newcastle we
talked with local development
officials about their ambitions. They
spoke excitedly about their city’s
embrace of renewable energy.
They predict the old Swan Hunter
shipyards will fill with 10,000 new
jobs over the next decade. Old hands
will turn to the assembly of wind
turbines with blades exceeding,
impossibly, a 100-metre radius.
Tyneside is confident it will host
the ships and crews that will install
the turbines in electricity farms
across the North Sea and cable them
underwater to supply British homes
and industry with clean sustainable
energy.
As ever, t’other Newcastle is stoic
through and through. Its town centre
bustles with loyal shoppers. Its
theatres bill the best shows and acts.
The city tries to catch whatever
investment wave is surging.
In the 1960s it backed itself
building cars. Then it was silicon
chips for computers. Then drilling
rigs for the North Sea oil and gas
boom.
By the 1980s it was into call
centres then financial services via
Northern Rock, until the Newcastle
bank hit the wall in 2008 in the runup to the global financial crisis.
Catching the next economic wave
will not be easy, though, given the
severe funding cuts to The North by
Britain’s Conservative-Liberal
Democrat coalition government.
This government has not been
kind to Newcastle. In June it
abolished the north-east’s regional
development agency and scrapped
its $400 million support budget.
Last month it cut Newcastle City
Council’s budget by 30 per cent,
meaning an annual loss of
$180 million and 2000 frontline
jobs.
These cuts – and they are
reproduced across Britain – are
needed, according to the coalition,
so Britain can pay down its massive
public debt. The debt, of course,
came from the taxpayer-funded
bailout of British banks following
the financial crisis and the
subsequent taxpayer-funded
economic rescue package.
Up North, they are more than a
bit peeved that they are paying the
penalty for what was largely a
London-based cock-up.
Throughout last week we drove
south in daytime gloom, hearing
similar stories of cuts in
Manchester and Birmingham, with
rain still lashing, late autumn
turning to winter. We left our
generous hosts facing a bleak
season and their resignation that
economic recovery rests solely in
their hands.
Their government tells them they
live in an age of austerity with
public-sector funding in retreat.
The answer, says London, lies with
local initiatives. Don’t come
running to us for help, it says. The
blinds on the carriage are down.
Professor Phillip O’Neill is director
of the Urban Research Centre,
University of Western Sydney.
Educating disadvantaged is a celebration
Learning is about a full life,
writes Brian Brown.
THE tradition of providing education
for disadvantaged young people, both
within and beyond the Christian
church, is one that deserves to be
celebrated.
Although it may not have been the
main reason for her beatification,
Mother Mary MacKillop, now St Mary
of the Cross, has gained the gratitude
and admiration of the wider
community for her untiring work with
her Sisters of St Joseph in bringing
education to disadvantaged young
people.
Her challenge to others was to
never see suffering without doing
something about it. Hers is an
inspiring story of compassion and
perseverance in the face of official
opposition.
Similar work goes on in our
community without most people
being aware of it. For example,
Dianne Gamage saw the need for
education of village girls in Laos. A
small group of Newcastle women
joined her to set up the Lotus
Foundation. Raising money in the
Hunter community, they started a
village school for girls that is now
thriving and expanding.
Another quiet work of
transformation goes on at the
Margaret Jurd Learning Centre. This
year “The Jurd” is celebrating its 25th
anniversary. Margaret Jurd, a teacher,
committed Christian and
philanthropist, was moved to do
something about the disadvantage of
Newcastle youth who, for one reason
or another, were unable to thrive in
mainstream schools.
The first school was set up in the
former Carrington Hotel under the
auspices of the Newcastle Youth
Service, an earlier initiative of the
then Hamilton Wesley Methodist
Church. The school was later
relocated to Lambton and has just
moved to new premises in the
grounds of Shortland Uniting Church.
The statement of school values
includes ‘‘never settle for
disadvantage’’. With its 20 students,
‘‘The Jurd’’ is by far the smallest
Uniting Church school. It is also the
only school in the Hunter with case
workers who help students
throughout their enrolment,
addressing their individual needs –
including a residential option for up
to five students.
The school is funded and
supported by the government, church
and wider community.
Such inspiring stories move us to
celebrate the spirit that seeks to
enrich the lives of children and young
people with that most precious of gifts
– an education that liberates and
empowers them to a future where
they can make positive, confident
choices.
For many of us, the primary
inspiration for this commitment is
Jesus Christ who, when he taught, was
heard gladly by the poor, especially
with his promise of ‘‘life in all its
fullness’’.
For others, it is simply a matter of
human decency and compassion to
seek to lift children and young people
to a future they deserve; to never see
disadvantage without doing
something about it.
That is surely something we can all
celebrate.
Rev Dr Brian Brown is Minister of
the Hamilton Broadmeadow Uniting
Church. This article is submitted by
the Churches Media Association
www.cmahunter.com.au
Topics today
Today’s fact
Ostriches can reach speeds of
70km/h.
Today’s word
Fatalism: the belief that all
events are predetermined and
therefore inevitable.
It happened today
From our files – 1941: Work on the
floating dock now being
assembled at Newcastle was
nearing completion and it should
be ready for use early next
month.
Today in history
1492: Christopher Columbus
notes in journal use of tobacco
among Indians: the first
recorded reference to tobacco.
1791: First grapevine in colony of
NSW is planted at Parramatta.
1889: Britain’s William FrieseGreene patents his motionpicture camera.
1942: After three days of sea
battles around the Solomon
Islands in World War II, the
Japanese suffer heavy losses at
Guadalcanal.
1972: Miloslav Harabinec shoots
himself dead after a shootout
with police and failing in an
attempt to hijack an Ansett
aircraft at Alice Springs.
1977: Israel sends formal
invitation to Egypt’s president
Anwar Sadat to visit Jerusalem
and address Israeli parliament.
1979: British prime minister
Margaret Thatcher names Sir
Anthony Blunt as a spy for the
Russians and the ‘‘fourth man’’ in
the Burgess-Philby-MacLean spy
ring.
Born today
William Pitt, English statesman
(1708-1779);
Ed Asner, US
actor (1929-);
Petula Clark,
English
singer-actress
(1932-); Frida
Lyngstad,
Swedish
singer of
Abba (1945-);
Kerri-Anne
Kennerley, television personality
(1949-); Benny Elias, pictured,
rugby league player (1963-).
Odd spot
A French couple have been
plucked from the El Altar
volcano in central Ecuador by a
police helicopter after the
woman fell inside the crater. A
GPS device alarm was picked up
by the French Foreign Ministry
and a police helicopter that was
on a rescue training mission in
the area was dispatched to the
stranded couple.
Today’s text
‘‘Create in me a pure heart, O
God, and renew a steadfast spirit
within me.’’ Psalm 51:10
Monday, November 15, 2010 NEWCASTLE HERALD 9