Ryan who was chair of the new Hartlepool Writers group and who had recently become involved in the work of the Write Around committee. Funded by Northern Arts, Top Copy lasted 2 issues but in the interim provided a much needed focus for Hartlepool writers, many of whom had contributed to Outlet since 1986 as well as others who hadn’t been published by us.

A great shame for Hartlepool but non the less, it was a bold effort by Stevan and his team and the Hartlepool Writers made a valuable contribution to Creative Writing in the area, via the group, their involvement in Write Around and this magazine. It underpinned that Hartlepool itself needed more resources and support to successfully develop writing in the town. 

“When I first envisaged a magazine which was the work of the Hartlepool area, I had in mind something to compare with the Spectator, or at least, Woman’s Realm…..but what has resulted is infinitely more preferable than either of these. What we have is an honest reflection of the many and varied characteristics of the Hartlepool folk…perhaps above all their wit.”

John Herbert Marr

 publication to many of the writers that were now emerging in the area. Outlet’s funding only enabled us to publish a limited amount of material and as funding became more difficult to achieve the magazine ceased to appear bi-monthly even as it originally did, although the work went on in between with developing other resources, especially the Write Around festival.

Like Poetic Licence before it, Exile started off publishing only local poets but very soon took contributions from all over

Bramblesthorne Writers began 1989 as a group for parents based at Brambles Farm Primary School and serving  the Thorntree and Brambles Farm areas of East Middlesbrough.

The initiative came from Eileen Moran, then head of Brambles Farm School and the East Middlesbrough Language

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 Project, which, to quote from Rebecca O’Rourke’s Written on the Margins – Creative Writing and adult education in Cleveland – Leeds University – 1994 page 2

” Sometimes projects designed with children in mind ended up serving adults’ needs, as was the case with Bramblethorne Writers.The original impetus came from a project designed to involve parents in boosting their children’s reading and writing skills, but it quickly became apparent that parents wanted to develop their own creative writing. This was an eye opener for teachers :

‘If there was one,there could be other talented writers in our midst. In the past we’d only considered that some parents would benefit from adult literacy classes. Whether illiteracy was a majority or minority problem we simply didn’t know. We assumed it to be a problem of the majority. We were about to discover something that was to change our attitudes and raise our level of expectation.’ “

Bramblethorne 2

Eileen Moran was introduced to Trev Teasdel by Community Arts Middlesbrough at the Pavilion in North Ormesby. They had outlined Trevor’s work with Teesside Writers Workshop, Outlet and the WEA Creative Writing courses and Eileen invited Trevor to a Creative Writing workshop she had organised for the parents at Brambles Farm Primary School with North East Writer – Wendy Robertson  Wendy took a group of parents through a short story writing workshop and gave them loads of encouragement.

After the workshop Trevor brought in WEA Tutor Organiser Maude Warwick to discuss the possibilities of Trevor running a Creative Writing course at Brambles Farm school for the parents. As a result Trevor tutored at course at the school from 1989 to 1991 with Andy Croft taking over in 1992 when Leeds University Adult Education took over as the provider from WEA.

The Bramblesthorne Writers group formed at the the first term with Trevor as an informal writers group alongside or in-between formal courses and produced with Trevor their first anthology – Bramblesthorne Writers – An Anthology of Short Stoires and Verse and in 1992 produced their second anthology with Andy Croft – Grimm Tales.

In addition, in the autumn of 1989 Eileen Moran asked Trevor to take part as a Writer In Residence in the East

Brambles in Outlet pt2

Brambles in Outlet

 Middlesbrough Language Project’s Book Week, delivering workshops in various East Middlesbrough schools, including Brambles Farm Primary, Caldicotts Primary, Thorntree Primary, St Alphonsus, North Ormseby and others in the area over Book Week. At Brambles Farm, the parent writers joined in with the kids.

The Bramblethorn Writers had a double page in the very last issue of Outlet and joined in the Write Around Festival.

More info and articles will be provided via linked pdf files shortly.

An early and long standing writers group formed at Hartlepool People’s Centre in the mid 80’s served by Charles Clark’s WEA Creative Writing Course and a writers group existed there for quite a long time -maybe even still going although I have no up to date information on that. In 1989 Les Wardle was the contact for the People’s Centre group.

In 1987 – Outlet co-editor Viv Harland was also a journalist with the Hartlepool Mail. As a result of her articles on Outlet

Top Copy

 in the Hartlepool Mail, Outlet received a lot of contributions from Hartlepool  Writers and some ventured over to Middlesbrough for Trev Teasdel’s Creative Writing courses and also joined the Write Around negotiations and later committee from 1987 onwards. The magazine Top Copy was also a response to Outlet and emphasising the need for their very own Outlet. More on Top Copy in another post.

On August 6th 1987 Hartlepool Poet Tom Nossiter – who had been published in Outlet, won the Hartlepool Times Poetry Competition and became the Hartlepool Times resident poet for 6 months. (see the copy of Hartlepool Times here).

On August 6th three poems from Hartlepool were published on the front page of the Hartlepool Times – Fish and Chips by Tom Nossiter Remember by Norman Dickson (also published by Outlet), An Early Morning Walk in Lakeland by Frank Clark and The Cathedral by Muriel Allison.

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The impact of Outlet via Viv Harland’s articles in the Hartlepool Mail had inspired this initiative in the Hartlepool Times as it was recognised the Town had many budding writers.

Among the many writers from Harlepool who had responded to Outlet in its early days were Norman Dickson, Tom Nossiter, Doreen Hoffman, Jean Tabley and Norman Dickson wrote to us for information on Hartlepool Writers groups. We referred him to the Hartlepool People’s Centre.

Hartlepool Writers Group

By 1989 Steven Ryan had become a leading light on the Hartlepool Writing Scene, organising a group, running Top

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 Copy and as a member of the 

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early Write Around team and his work was featured in the Harlepool Mail Feb 15th 1989 (see cutting). Steven is quoted as saying that he spent his “time quite happily writing for my own amusement until last year when I got involved with the Cleveland Writing Festival (Write Around)” “it was clear that nothing was going in Harlepool for the writing festival and there was no Harltepool  writers group” (which is why Write Around and Outlet invited Hartlepool writers to the meeting to help make sure something did happen in Hartlepool.Steven was the man to do that. Stevan formed the Hartlepool Writers Group and 30 people turned up and began meeting on a weekly basis with 12 to 20 people turning up. The group attracted members from all walks of life, from housewives to businessmen to retired professionals. Each week the members tell of the writing they have done and read their work aloud for the group’s opinion. Steven pointed out that the group wasn’t elitist

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 and open to all.

Steven and the group published Top Copy, funded by Northern Arts, although sadly it only lasted for two issues.

Later the group met at The Foggy Furze Library and in the 90’s work was done in Hartlepool via Karen Sheader, Andy Croft and Bob Beagrie.

 Outlet Magazine and network. Margaret Weir had been elected chair and there was a small group, mostly from Gt. Ayton, who wanted more of a poetry group. Margaret, Jean Cumbour and Demaris Perry were keen on forming a poetry group and asked Trevor to help. 

Briddon to develop a federation of local groups to organise joint readings and events. The Phoenix Poetry group led the way in 1989, bringing together the Phoenix group, Bramblethorn Writers, Redcar Writers, Guisborough Writers, Yarm Writers, Poetry 20+ for joint readings / workshops. It was a lively time for writers and the culmination of 5 years development work by the Outlet team.

“The Phoenix Poets were formed a year ago (1988),when it became evident that there was a need for a meeting place in the centre of Cleveland for poets who had attended the various Creative Writing classes in the area as well as for contributors to Outlet magazine and for poets whose needs were not met by any other group.

Phoenix Dates / Proposed Agenda – Summer 1989.

Redcar Writers Group was formed in February 1989 at Redcar Library and is still going 2010, albeit in a reduced form.

Joan booked a room at the library in Redcar and put out a press release to the local Free papers and Evening Gazette while Trevor mailed all those in the Redcar area on the Outlet and WEA Creative Writing mailing lists and put a notice in Outlet Magazine.As a surprise, 30 people turned up on the evening at Redcar Library and Trevor outlined possible structures and aims for the group to adopt. About 15 had come along thinking it was a Creative Writing Class,so Trevor directed them to his Saltburn Class and through the WEA set up an evening Creative Writing course at Ryedale School in Redcar and later another at the Library itself. 

Among the chair people were Sarah Telfer and latterly Brian Morton who has run the group since Joan’s passing.

 a Leed University Creative Writing Tutor in the 90’s and a performance poet, has tried to run some course to attract new members.The group, like others that were started from Trevor’s early courses in the 80’s have suffered from the demise of the WEA / Leeds University adult education provision of courses which always resulted in new people replacing those who left for various reasons.