East Cleveland Online

There’s a fantastic collection of photos from Christine Wilson on the Skinningrove site. Below are just three examples. You can see the full set if you click here.

The Teesside Embassy to the Republic of Uzhupis (Lithuania) hosted a hook up between countries celebrating the Republics independence day. The live video streams have gone silent now but messages from Teesside to the republic are still viewable. Click here to see them. Here’s to April 1st next year or we may perhaps host some other cultural events from the embassy before then.

Work has started on content for Animex Fringe 2011 which will take place on Feb 10 2011 at Saltburn theatre. First two off the blocks began in destinations with the script conference for “Tommy and Barry Go Back” (below) and Redcar and Cleveland Mind’s character building session (bottom pic). Mid have not yet disclosed the nature of their work but we gather it is to be set in Redcar.

Following on from yesterdays Marske visit we once again hit the Healthy Heritage Highway and had an afternoons walk right through Skinningrove. We were met at the Tom Leonard Mining Museum by Barry Hunt and by the time we reached the Doorstep Green we were also  joined by Tommy Evans so we had the full compliment of the famous Skinningrove dynamic duo. Tales of folklore, history, nature and regeneration abounded as the team snapped away with their cameras.

Image below the team at the Sealife Mosaic (click here for the story)

June had brought along her mum and whilst she matched us step for step she had her own Skinningrove stories having herself lived there and attended school in what is now the Riverside building. There was some tale of buying cigarettes at school aged 6 but we turned a deaf ear to this. Luckily our route took us past the Riverside building so we enjoyed tea and lemon cakes (no cigarettes this time) We have  heard stories about the German air raids during WW2 from the school log but but Junes mum had actually experienced the evacuation from the school and taking cover in the mine.

After tea we went onwards through the village. At 14 Stone Row we stopped for my own little bit of Skinningrove heritage about how I installed first public computer in the village there. Then it was back to the professional raconteurs (Tommy and Barry) whilst we visited the  landmarks of the Sylvania Anchor, the Village Mosaic and the Repus. Barry even repeated the story of “The Boat Comes Home”  (The Repus) for some passing walkers on the Cleveland Way. How times have changed, walkers used to hurry through here without pause.

Our visit ended with a privileged visit to the Skinningrove Chapel. The Tour Goes On ! if you want to be involved email s.d.thompson@tees.ac.uk

The gallery below (click to enlarge) shows the team at work. The actual pictures will be seen at the exhibition in the summer.

For European Get On Line Day March 4th we’re organising a Day of Cultural Blogcasting from Destinations, Saltburn UK.  We’ll plan to use the “live blogging” approach employed for the recent Saltburn Community Animation event so that media is released throughout the day to a schedule. The site is here: www.destinations.uk.com/gold

At this short notice it’s unsure how much content will come from Europe but we at least expect items from Latvia and Finland, possibly Greece. We’ll be firing up 5-10 min videos, some audio stuff and perhaps image galleries: all hoping to reflect who and where we are. If anyone has anything they would like to have considered for inclusion contact me direct on s.d.thompson@tees.ac.uk