VILLAGE ARTS & CLEVELAND ARTS

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Village Arts was a community organisation of charitable status, which was founded in 1981 to promote and

develop the arts in the rural villages of East Cleveland. Based at Stable House, Loftus.

Established by Community artist Doff Pollard and Lorna Price, Village Arts were instrumental in developing community arts festivals in East Cleveland villages such as Skinningrove and in initiating Village Verses (1982), East Cleveland Women Live ( 1983) writing projects in Skinningrove are in the early 80’s resulting in a TV programme for Channel four Broadside production.
Doff Pollard was also involved in the Write Together project with Keith Armstrong, bringing together the North East Community Arts organisations and Worker Writer groups together.More on that in a separate post.
Village Arts continued to be an important Community Arts force in East Cleveland for over thirty years and later around 2000 performance poet Val McGee (aka Maggie McGee) worked for them.
CLEVELAND ARTS
Cleveland Arts was established in 1982 as an independent arts organisation which was supported by Cleveland Music Festival and also presented specific arts events, usually in partnership with others in the county. In 1982 the director was Dennis Coe.
Northern Arts and Cleveland County Council. It’s main task was to assist in the development of new and existing arts activities in Cleveland, in association with local authorities and other arts organisations and local groups. It provided advice and support in all the major arts forms, cooperated in a variety of county wide arts activities such as the
In 2000 Cleveland Arts was re-branded Tees Valley Arts and focussed more on Arts and Education owing to changes in local authority arts development policies.
Cleveland Arts played a major role in the Creative Writing and Literature scene from 1987 when Trev Teasdel and Terry Lawson decided to take the work of Outlet Magazine forward and create a community based, Cleveland wide Literature festival that eventually became known as Write Around. Trev and Terry were busy with Outlet, tutoring courses and other work and called on Cleveland Arts to help develop ideas and achieve funding for the festival. Outlet brought representatives from the areas writers groups and other contacts from Hartlepool to Whitby and Cleveland brought the Representatives from Arts organisations, local authority and the Libraries and leisure around the table for two years of negotiations before the first Write Around was launched in 1989.
Write Around continued annually for 11 years, mostly thanks to the continued work of Andy Croft. Meanwhile Multicultural Officer Neelam Dhamrait (who was an enormous support during early Write Around) engaged an Asian Writer in residence around 1989.
Developments around Write Around led to the establishment of an Official Literature Development Officer in the early 90’s  – Mark Robinson, a Poet and editor himself who rose to become Director of Cleveland Arts and then for Arts Council North East. Andy Croft and Mark Robinson formed Buzzwords through the Cleveland Arts Literature programme in the mid to late 90’s with Bob Beagrie as the Literature Development worker.
Cleveland Arts and Tees Valley Arts has continued their literature work through organisations like Creative Partnerships, developing writer in residencies in schools.

VOICE OF THE NORTH

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Kevin Daws

Voice of the North (VON) was a magazine initiated and edited by Kevin Daws of  Marske in East Cleveland
in 1981, around various campaign groups that Kevin was centrally involved with at the time and including The Campaign for the North, CND, Friends of the Earth, Make Our Power Station Safe (MOPSS), Cleveland Peace Campaign etc.


It began as an A5 magazine with articles ranging from those on cultural heritage of the North to issues relating to some of the groups above and poetry from East Cleveland poet Tim Beswick.

Autumn 1982, Pamela Hutson and Trev Teasdel joined Kevin on the editorial board. Pamela had recently left Poetic Licence and Trev was organising the Multi Media Society at Teesside Poly at the time. Trev was keen to start a Teesside magazine and Pam mentioned that Kevin was looking for co-editors as his campaign work was getting more time consuming. After meeting up with Kevin in Marske, Pam and Trev became co-editors.

Pam and Trev introduced some new themes to VON including a Poetry Section for poems on Political or Social themes; Women’s issues ( with articles by Fran Watson and Judith Richardson) and Unemployment themes (by Trev Teasdel and Colin Walker). Maurice McGoldrick also joined to add in youth themes.
Voice of the North
In 1983 Kevin Daws linked up with the Newcastle based magazine Northern Survivor which had a wideNorthern Survivor being inserted into Voice of the North in Cleveland and Voice of the North inserted into Northern Survivor throughout the rest of the North East.
North East distribution but not covering Cleveland. Both magazines remained editorially independent but enjoyed a full North Eastern distribution with

To mirror the Northern Survivor A3 format, Trevor arranged for VON to be produced at the Darlington Media Group base at Darlington Arts Centre.Here they had access to typesetting, photography dark room and layout facilities and Voice of the North became an A3 magazine.

While working at the Media group, Trev Teasdel and poet John Quinn interviewed Liverpool poets Brian Patten and Roger McGough at the Arts Centre for VON.
Northern Survivor
By 1985 VON had folded, making way Kevin’s more focussed Cleveland Peace News and other Outlet Magazine a year later. Trev Teasdel, Stiletto Pigeonetto, John Quinn (all of whom performed at the Castalians at the Dovecot Arts Centre at the time, became regular performers for the Cleveland Peace Artists (associated with the Cleveland Peace News) at venues like Tocketts Mill in Guisborough and other venues around the Cleveland area.
campaign news letters which kept the A3 style and which were distributed free throughout Cleveland libraries. The A3 format and the idea of distributing the magazine through the library system in Cleveland was adopted by Trev for
Pdf Copies of these magazines and others in my collection along with flyers etc will soon be linked here.

Previous A5 format

The Castalians & The New Poetry Scene – Dovecot Arts Centre

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Pdf documents and audio to come to this

The Castalians was a Poetry and music / spoken word event held at the Dovecot Arts Centre in Stockton on Tees between 1982 and 1985 and one of the most important developments on the Cleveland (UK) writing scene at the time.


The idea came out of discussions between Ann Wainwright, Trev Teasdel and Colin Walker. Trev had wanted to take the idea of the multi Media Society out of the Poly into the wider community and had made enquires of the Dovecot and Ann and Colin had wanted a showcase for local poets contributing to Poetic Licence. They put the ideas together and Ann organised a meeting at her flat in Hartington Rd Stockton in April 1982.

Trev brought poets and musicians along from the Multi Media Society and Ann and Colin brought along Stephanie Wilson – then Director of The Dovecot Arts Centre with a view to having use of the bar once a month and meanwhile the poets and musicians got together to work on joint performances of music and poetry or songs.
local poets and musicians. Ann and Colin agreed to talk to
Ann Wainwright organising the Castalians
at the Dovecot arts centre, Stockton 1982 – photo by Brian Stubley

The name ‘Castalians‘ was Colin Walker‘s idea and came from Herman Hesse‘s Novel The Glass Bead Game. Colin had originally wanted to include esoteric speakers in the programme. 


The monthly sessions were lively,creative and brought together some of the people who would become important to the Cleveland Writing movement in the future including John Miles Longden, Peter Stockill and Johnny Nichol. John Mile Longden and Peter Stockill had been involved in early groups and humourist Johnny Nichol took on compère duties. Trev brought along poets and musicians from the Poly’s Multii-Media Society and new poets came along including  Mel McEvoy, who would later be an co-founder / editor of Outlet and Stiletto Pigeonetto – a Guisborough poet in the style of  John Cooper Clarke.
Ann arranged for periodic guests paid for by the Poetry Society’s National Poetry Secretariat – including a
group of poets from the University of Crewe / Alsager’s BA in Creative Writing.

In between meetings poets and musicians would gather at Ann’s flat to arrange poetry and music or other performances (often around a theme given by Ann) for the next event.

The Castalians continued to function until mid 1984 when numbers seemed to drop off.

THE NEW POETRY SCENE
Dovecot Arts Centre

In 1984 Trev Teasdel – now graduate and with more time on his hands – agreed to help re-develop and re- The Castalians, retitling it The New Poetry Scene. They re-organised it along the lines of a folk club with a paid guest one month and a local poets night the next. The first session kicked off with a performance by Bradford poet Little Brother who had proved popular at Teesside Poly gigs. Trev took over compère duties and he and poet John Quinn did a broadcast on Radio Tees to re-launch it, during which John Quinn read poems on air to music the DJ played in the background. New members came along, again some of whom became important to later developments – Pauline  Plummer who became a co-founder of Outlet Magazine and later still a well published poet and tutor on the MA Creative Writing course at the university of Northumbria. Terry Lawson, a lifeboat man, shop keeper, poet and Jazz musician  from Staithes who came along with the Guisborough Poetry group and became a co-founder of Outlet and Write Around.
brand

One interesting link up was between the Cleveland Peace Artists (associated with Kevin Daws Cleveland Peace News)  who came along and invited poets from the New Poetry Scene to perform at CND and Peace gatherings in the area.Trev Teasdel, John Quinn and Stiletto Pigeonetto took part in this, performing at Tockett’s Mill in Guisborough and many other venues.

Around this time Community Arts Middlesbrough had initiated the Teesside Writers Workshop and many of the performers got involved with that group – important in that it led to the formation of a group around Trev Teasdel that initiated Outlet Magazine and Write Around. The New Poetry Scene ran between 1984 and 1985 until Teesside Writers Workshop became the new Vanguard.

With guest – Darlington Punk Poet / Playwright Tony Stowers (Mad Tony)
The inside of the 1st Castalian programme May 5th 1982

More to come.

Station Identification – 1983 – 85

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Station Identification (1983 -1985) was a second magazine created by Ann Wainwright and published in Norton on Tees to contain more Avant Garde then was suitable for Poetic Licence. The magazine contained poetry, articles, graphics, reviews and stories. Like Poetic Licence, contributions came not only from Teesside but from the Small Press Network. Pdf’s of the magazine will be added soon.


Poetic Licence (1982 – 1985) (Teesside’s first Poetry Mag since the 19thC)

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Poetic Licence (1982 – 85) 

About Poetic Licence
Poetic Licence was the brainchild of Ann Wainwright and Pamela Hutson in 1982 and was the first poetry / literary magazine in the area since the production of  George Markham Tweddell’s Yorkshire Miscellany and North Yorkshire Tractates and Joseph Richardson’s Literary Pilot in the 19thC, as far as I know.

Ann Wainwright and Pamela Hutson

While studying Literature at Teesside Polytech in 1981 and writing poetry, Ann discovered there was a need for such a magazine in the area. Pamela had returned to Billingham after completing her degree in Sheffield and the two set about creating a monthly magazine called Poetic Licence. Initially the contributions came from Ann’s connection at the Poly and from members of Teesside Poly’s Multi Media Society Poetry and Music workshop run by Trev Teasdel and Dave Wood along with contributions that came via flyers, posters, local press and radio appearances. The magazine proved a huge hit with contributions from all age groups in the area.

Poet John Saunders judged  Poetic
Licence Poetry Competitions

The editorial policy different to the mainstream poetry journals in that they didn’t ‘judge‘ the poetry but sought, as far as space would permit, to be representative of what was coming out of the area and give a voice to it. The magazine also carried information on related activities in the area and graphics, mostly supplied by Ann and Pamela and, among others, a local lad Brian Gee who later contributed graphics to Outlet Magazine..

Soon Pamela Hutson moved on and became a co-editor of Voice of the North, introducing a poetry section to Kevin Daws magazine and Ann Wainwright went on to develop Poetic Licence in the various ways we can see below.

Press / Radio and Publicity
Ann and Pamela initially got quite a bit of press coverage in the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette and in the

Mike Hollingworth – centre

Northern Echo (cuttings can be seen on here) and both were on Radio Tees in Stockton a few times (one of the broadcasts can be heard here below). It was Radio Cleveland’s Housecall programme, presented by Mike Hollingworth that played host the magazine’s monthly competitions. Ann would give a theme each issue and John Saunders, Head of Leeds University Adult Education centre in Middlesbrough (and a poet himself) judged the competition and Mike Hollingworth would read out the poems on Housecall and offer prizes to the winners – usually a book token.

Evening Gazette – Middlesbrough 
Original Photo
The Radio Tees (Stockton) interviews 1982 
Ann Wainwright and Pamela Hutson talking about Poetic Licence and reading some of  the winning entries on Radio Tees Spectrum Programme, Stockton 1982. Several broadcasts merged together in the video. 

Children’s Poetry and Asian Poetry

Stan Laundon with Ishfaq Ahmed (Ashy)
From Stan Laundon’s history of
 BBC Radio Cleveland
http://www.stanlaundon.com/tees.html

Ann Wainwright pioneered encouraging both Childrens and Asian writing on Teesside, later taken up via Ishfaq Ahmed (Ashy), editor of Radio Cleveland’s Asian network publicised Poetic Licence on his programme.
Outlet magazine and Write Around.










Poetic Licence Collective – 1) Digester
Soon Poetic Licence developed in many other directions. It soon became a popular part of the National and
International Small Press Network, mixing work from Teesside alongside contributions from some of the popular poets from the small presses and gaining a growing reputation in many of those magazines.

It was at this stage that Ann created the periodic Poetic Licence Digester to promote these magazines and chapbooks. In this folded A4 sheet, Ann would review some of the main magazines. The full Digesters will be posted at the bottom of this post.


2) Chapbooks and Anthologies
Ann Wainwright produced a number of anthologies on a theme. The theme was advertised in Poetic Licence and work was chosen from the entries for a special anthology. The theme of  Love was one such anthology. Ann also produced chapbooks for poets whose work merited a special collection, including Clown in the Garden by John Saunders (Middlesbrough), Seasons and Sincerity – Sara Newby (Darlington), Now and Then – Peter Fairclough (Yarm), Love is a Glove – Linda French (Billingham), Pictures at an Exhibition – Peter Hanks. Where is the Heart / Pot Pourri / Tomorrow Sing – all by Ethel Robinson. Germinal – Anthony Clooney. Escaped Poet and Poet Reprobate – Trev Teasdel, Orange Aid – Ann Wainwright. Pictures of the anthologies and chapbooks below.


(3) Offshoots

Station Identification
Ann also started a 2nd magazine later in 1982 to cater for the more avant garde contribution – poetry, stories, articles and graphics. More on this in a separate post on here.

The Castalians – Teaming up with Colin Walker and Trev Teasdel a poetry, music performance venue was created at the Dovecot Arts Centre, Stockton in May 1982 for some of the contributors to Poetic Licence  and Teesside Poly Multi-Media Society and anyone in the area. By 1984, it was re-branded The New Poetry Scene with a different format and ran until 1985. More on this in a separate post.

Poetic Licence folded after 1985 when Ann moved to Hull but was briefly revived in a new form in early 1990’s as a broadsheet and Ann also had a new chapbook of her poetry published and produced a series of  poetry cards. Ann was also later involved in co-organising the Merlin’s Cauldron Arts Festival and the 2nd phase of the Writers Cafe at the Georgian Theatre in Stockton, both with Trev Teasdel and co-organisers.

Poetic Licence in 1990’s
Poetry Cards

Multi-Media Society – Teesside Poly 1981 – 85

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The Multi-Media Society was formed in autumn 1981 by Trev Teasdel, Dave Wood and Amelia

Ward as a Teesside Poly Student Union Society and continued beyond to possibly about 1985, after the original founders had graduated.


The idea came from Trev who had run similar events in Coventry in the mid 70’s at the Coventry Arts Umbrella and the Hobo Workshop in the years before the Two Tone put Coventry on the map. Trev wanted to do something similar on Teesside and his starting point was to get elected to the Teesside Poly Entertainment Committee, where he met the other co-founders and join The Humanities Society, through which he organised the first mixed media event posted below under Humanities. It was at the first Humanities gig, with Partners in Crime, that he first discussed the idea with singer songwriter Dave Wood, who liked the idea and they recruited Amelia Ward who was interested in forming a drama group at the Poly.  A meeting was advertised and the Multi-Media Society was born as a Teesside Polytech Society and thus were able to apply for financial resources to run the Society.
Overview
The Multi-Media Society comprised and number of linked ideas. First of all we established a number of  weekly Creative Workshops around Poetry, Music and Drama and writing and a regular Mixed Media Gig Venue as an outlet for the work produced along with invited performance guests. Offshoots of these workshop, which often came together over a project and gave fresh impetus to the workshops. These might include Student Union Campaigns to we we supplied creative material and performances, musicals, like Godspell, which brought together actors and musicians. Another aspect of the Multi-Media Society was the availability of  the Student Union minibus, which enabled us to organise trips to concerts, theatre and dance etc. Obviously, as students move towards their final year and exams and dissertations loom, new people take over the leading roles. To the best of my knowledge the Multi Media Society continued at least until 1985. Not sure after that as I had left in 1983. Fiona Richardson took over the Drama Group when Amelia left and Jeremy Hall took over as chair when Dave Wood stood down.

Multi-Media Workshops

Drama Workshop

As can be seen from the poster here, the Drama Workshop attracted a good contingent of students and was initiated by Amelia Ward and later overseen by Fiona Richards, who was also a poet. These two ladies did the Workshop proud. The first big project for the Workshop, alongside the Poetry and Music Workshop, was to take part in the Student Union Campaign for Youth Unemployment. This was a National Student campaign and the Drama Workshop undated an old Mumming Play (the pdf of which is below) to reflect the unemployment situation, along with songs etc. After lots of fun rehearsals, the Multi Media Society performed the play and song as street theatre in Middlesbrough town center and the Student Union hall under the direction of Amelia Ward.

Later, in 1983, Fiona Richardson organised and directed Godspell at Middlesbrough’s Little Theatre for the  Multi-Media Society. Sometime the group would write and perform playlets or sketches for the Multi-Media Gigs, including Dave Wood’s This is Your Life, featuring infamous poly students!

Graphics on the the above poster by Pamela Hutson

POETRY AND MUSIC WORKSHOP

This weekly workshop was organised by Trev Teasdel and Dave Wood and attracted a lot of students interested in writing songs, poetry and music. The scope was quite wide to accommodate needs and interests within the group. It would an opportunity to play songs that you wrote for feedback, joining in and sometimes covers. An opportunity to read your poems, maybe even write some and to get poets and musicians together to create musical soundscapes to the poems. After The Castalians – (Poetry and Music venue at the Dovecot Arts Centre in Stockton kicked off a bit later in 1982, we’d take a minibus of poly poets and musicians to the venue. The Castalians was run by Ann Wainwright of Poetic Licence with Colin Walker and Trev Teasdel. Ann and Trev were both on the same course at the poly so there was a dynamic link to the Multi-Media Society. The group contributed to projects like the Drama workshop did and the big project was the formation of  The Euclidean Mushroom band (Aka The Multi-Media Band) talked about in another paragraph.

Middlesbrough Writers Workshop
Another offshoot of this group was the formation by some of the poets in the group of a poly Writers Group. Initially this was set up under the auspicious of  John Carthew, a Humanities senior lecturer as also part of his Literature course. The group therefore eventually became a Poly Society itself and when the Dovecot Arts engaged Bob Pegg (of the folk band Mr Fox) as their Writer in Residence 1983 – 5, Bob would become their mentor for a while along with john carthew, who was also on the board of the Dovecot and did the Radio Tees drama reviews in a very lively fashion! This writers group developed through a number of  student intakes and by 1986 is presided over by Richard Briddon and the group became Middlesbrough Writers Workshop (not to be confused by Middlesbrough’s longest standing group Middlesbrough Writers Group! Confusing  – yes! By 1986 / 7 Trevor and those involved with him had created Outlet magazine and were negotiating the creation of the annual Write Around festival and Richard even lived at the time in percy street where trev had lived also organising literary events. Trev got in contact with Richard and invited him on the Write Around committee where he went on to create Paranoia Press. So there is a neat and unplanned link between a former project and the new ones!
Multi-Media Gigs
The central idea of the Multi-Media Gigs was the Multi-Media Venue, which, at the start, in 1981, was at the Lord Wellington in Albert Road, Middlesbrough. Dave Wood and i were familiar with the Lord Wellington as we’d been involved with a group that set up the Poly Folk Club there, as part of our work with the Poly Ents Society. Later the gigs moved to the Student Union block and then the Empire pub in Linthorpe Road. (now called the Swatters Carr!).

The gigs would have a mix student singer songwriters, poets, sketches and other features that came out of the workshops. Each session there would be a paid guest, which included, at the Lord Wellington, Bradford poet  – Little Brother, Teesside singer songwriters Eddie Walker, Ying Tong John and others. There are some cassette tape recordings of a Multi-Media gig later when it was in the Student Union, which has a lot of hiss on it and noise from the bar but which i may be able to clean up and add here.Some of the gig posters are below.

THE EUCLIDEAN MUSHROOM BAND AKA THE MULTI-MEDIA BAND
Out of the Poetry and Music workshops evolved a band. It centred around singer songwriter Dave Wood who began setting music to some of Trev Teasdel’s poems. One longer poem, written about Birmingham’s Cannon Hill Park with various anti-war themes interlacing the text, led to Dave setting it to his acoustic music. On a visit to Manchester, we teamed up with one of  Dave’s friends who was a synth player. We tried it out with the synth player and saw the possibilities for building an effective soundscape. Back in Middlesbrough, some of the musicians had got together around a number of songs, some covers like Knocking on Heaven’s door and some new compositions. With Dave they formed the Multi Media Band and they took on Trev’s 15 minute poetry music extravaganza.

Multi-Media Band at the Castalians – Dovecot Arts Centre 1982
HERE

The band consisted of Dave Wood, vocals and guitar  / Ade O’toole – vocals / guitar / Geraldine Wade – Violin / Ted Carron – vocals, Keyboards, Harmonica and sound effects. Trev Teasdel was involved with the poetry extravaganza, reading and some effects. The band had two names, dave favouring The Multi Media Band and Ade favouring Euclidean Mushroom Band!

Apart from playing at the Multi-Media gig, the band did a mini-tour in 1982, playing at the Sheffield Art Here and Now, Wild Willy Beckett and Bradford poets Joolz and Little Brother. Teesside Poly students Union and The Dovecot Arts Centre, Castalian – poetry and music gig. it was very much a student band which broke as people left the Poly. However there is a recording of the Dovecot gig, without Trev’s poetry extravaganza and some poorer recordings from a later Student Union gig. These will be on this page soon.

College arts festival, Middlesbrough Town Hall Crypt – a CND gig with Virgin band

Multi Media Society Outings
Having access to the Student Union minibus enabled the group to run trips to various events of interest. Early ones included a trip to see the Blues Band at Durham University in 1981, to see John Martyn at Newcastle Town Hall, Theatre of colour, Bauhaus at Leeds, the Dovecot, Little Theatre, Roger McGough at Darlington Arts Centre and more cultural events mentioned in some of the material below..

Below are some of the posters and notices and Poly newspaper cuttings and some audio.

Poster above by either Dave Wood or Amelia Ward.
Not sure who did this poster.
From Cosmos – Teesside Poly Newspaper
From Goblin (An early version of  Teesside Poly newspaper)

HOUSECALL – BBC RADIO CLEVELAND WRITERS…

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HOUSECALL – BBC RADIO CLEVELAND WRITERS GROUP
Founded – 1972 – going on until the 1990’s
BBC Cleveland – Mike Hollingworth etc.

Founding Members – Mike Hollingworth (BBC Housecall Radio Presenter), Greta Thompson (also of Darlington Writers Circle), Fred Brunt, Fred and Lillian Poad and others.

Meeting Place -St Mark’s Church Hall, Brookfield Middlesbrough for 6 months, later Norton Centre, Norton Green, Stockton on Tees.
Description and main activities – A number of individuals who were writing poem etc for BBC Radio Cleveland (at that time known as Radio Teesside and based in Linthorpe Rd, Cleveland Centre (opposite Boots approx back then), decided to get together to form the group and call it after the Radio programme which used their poems – hence the name ‘Housecall‘ after the programme. They met on the first Wednesday of the month (except August) at 2.15pm to read whatever poems etc members had written on titles chosen the previous month. Suitable ones were considered for Broadcasting in the weekly programme. It should be mentioned thought that poems earmarked for broadcast weren’t only from this group also poems that had been sent in separately. All individuals were welcome to send in material
Finance – Each member paid 50p as they attended meetings- this was for a cup of tea and payment or use of the church hall.
Publications – Apart from publication of poems on the Housecall programme, one publication was issued via the BBC with items from members and others – this was at an early stage and is the only one actually produced with the group in mind.
Additionally in 1982 when Ann Wainwright started the Poetic Licence magazine in the area, Mike

Hollingworth was a great supporter of the magazine, advertising the magazine on air, setting a competition theme and offering prizes of a record token each month for the competition judged by John Saunders of Leeds University Adult Education Centre at Harrow Rd, Middlesbrough. The winning poem was read out on air. The radio programme was the source of more contributions to Poetic Licence.

Later Housecall Presenter  Bill Hunter supported Outlet in a similar way – not via a competition but often
read a poem or two from Outlet and advertise the magazine. The Housecall group also invited editor Trev Teasdel to do a talk to the group about Outlet magazine at their meeting in Norton c 1988.
Notable Members – Greta Thompson and Les Parsons of Darlington Writers Circle published a number of books and in more recent times many members published their own books or had poem in a variety of local publications.
Bill Hunter took over from Mike Hollingworth. No payment was made for the poems.
Thanks to Bill Hunter for supplying this material back in 1995.

Letter from Bill Hunter when i was with Teesside Writers Workshop 1985
Ann Wainwright at the Dovecot Arts Centre 1982 (Brian Stubley photo)
Bill Hunter and Radio Cleveland team 

STOKESLEY WRITERS’ GROUP…

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STOKESLEY WRITERS’ GROUP

Founded – 1983 at Stokesley Comprehensive School by the WEA



(Workers’ Educational Association) – Stokesley Branch. It began as a WEA Creative Writing Course and continue as such with the students continuing as an informal group in between  courses. The group were active into the 1990’s.

Stokesley Writers Group and WEA branch member Cynthia Wardley takes up the story in the group’s first anthology – Leven Lines –

“In September 1983, Maude Warwick, Tutor Organiser for the Workers’ Educational Association , arranged a new class in Stokesley called ‘Creative Writing‘. The tutor, Ray Brown, required every member of the class to write a short piece each week which had to be read out aloud at the next meeting. Amazingly, when the six week course came to an end, most class-members continued to meet once a week, writing and reading aloud as before. The following September, we once again had a tutor, Peter Rushforth 1984; in 1985 – Andy Croft ; and this year – 1986 – Trevor Teasdel. We thank them all for their help and encouragement.”
Cynthia Wardley 1986 said in the second anthology In 1988 that the group had Eugenie Summerfield
(who writers children’s books) as tutor. Other tutors included John Bond (Playwright / Eleanor Fairburn (author of The Green Popinjay), Mark Adlard (A Leeds University tutor and science fiction writer).

Core Members – (included) Core members of the group were –

Cynthia Wardley, Ann Earle, Daphne Franks, Nigel Beard, Stan McMahon, June Wakeford, Pam Betterton, M. Evans, Mary Bassett, Wendy Broad, Melinda Thompson, Paddy Sargeant, Magda Tinning. But members came and went.
Publications – Although early tutors had intended to do an anthology with the students / group, it was (in 1986) who finally started the group off. Trevor incorporated it into the syllabus of the course. He earmarked the last two sessions to it with some work being done at home to complete it. For the last but one session the members were invited to bring in some work both from this and previous classes that they wanted to be considered for the anthology. Trevor outlined some models of editing adopted by other groups and the group voted on the method they felt might work best for them. Two members had brought their Amstrad word processors in and as work was earmarked for the anthology, so they were typed up and spell checked and printed out for the layouts. Any pieces not typed in the class were sorted out when the students got hope for the next session. We also chose a title and one of the student’s volunteered their husband to do a sketch for the cover and illustrations. She took copies of some of the poems for him to illustrate for the next session. Next and last session was the layout. We did a manual layout as desk top publishing on the Amstrad was not as well developed as Publisher is on the modern PC’s. With graphics and typing complete over the week, Trevor organised them and instructed them on basic layouts. Final touches and amendments were done afterwards and Trevor got anthology printed or rather photocopied. Tutor Organiser Maude Warwick was invited to the launch at the Golden Eagle in Stokesley and over a meal copies of the anthology were distributed. In 1988 Eugenie Summerfield oversaw the second anthology also called Leven Lines. (Both anthologies are available on here as PDF files (or will be soon!).
Trevor Teasdel

The cover and graphics for both anthologies were drawn by Wilf Franks whose wife Daphne Franks was also a member of the Stokesley local history study group and Daphne and Wilf had been involved in producing local history booklets including the fascination booklet Printing and Publishing in Stokesley of which Daphne gave a copy and which later on stimulated my interest in George Markham Tweddell who features on this site quite abit.

Latterly the group’s secretary was Wendy Broad who with her husband ran the Stokesley bookshop until recent years.
What did members go on to?

In 1986 Trevor Teasdel was in the throes of initiating Outlet magazine and Write Around with Terry Lawson

By Daphne Franks
and was both a member of Tessside Writers Workshop and Write Now. Through Trevor the group members contributed to Outlet and the Write Around Festival as a group they got involved in the negotiations toward Write Around in it’s very early days – Nigel Beard in particular took an active part. Daphne Franks gave Trevor a copy of her booklet Printing and Publishing in Stokesley (available to buy from Stokesley Library and worth the read!) which later led to research into George Markham Tweddell – the Stokesley Printer Publisher and Chartist with Paul Tweddell – see sidebar links for details.








View the Anthologies on Issuu. If you want to download a pdf version, create a free account with Issuu and you can download it from the viewer on the site.

Humanities Society – Teesside Poly 1980 – 83

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Humanities Society – Teesside Poly 1980 – 83

The Humanities Society was pre-existing Poly society for those on the BA Humanities course at Teesside Poly, co-ordinated at the time by Pauline Thompson and supported by some of the staff. It’s relevance here is that it was the first organisation through which literary activist Trev Teasdel organised his first event on Teesside and which sparked a development that would continue outwards into the wider community.



Pauline assigned Trevor as a first year representative in 1980 when he arrived on Teesside as an undergraduate and later as Secretary. The Humanities organised educational trips for students for example the 1980 residential trip to Stratford to see a series of Shakespeare plays and social events and lectures / discussions.

Relevant here are several mixed media and spoken word events Trevor organised for the Humanities society. Trevor had previously run a music fanzine Hobo in Coventry and the Hobo Workshop in the mid

Aqua Velvas formed out of  Partners in Crime – Russ Teasdale right

70’s at the Holyhead Youth Centre. These mixed media gigs, with bands, singer songwriters and poets were aimed at musicians and poets who were just starting off, finding it hard to get gigs etc. In 1980 when Trevor arrived on Teesside many of the musicians that had started off or had early gigs at the Hobo Workshop were beginning to make it and some were in charts after Two Tone had broken through. The importance of providing first step venues and encouraging new musical and literary talent was becoming evident therefore.


On Tuesday 24th March 1981 upstairs at the Empire pub (now the Tavern) on Linthorpe Rd. Middlesbrough

Trev launched the Humpoesic Happening. Named after a word he put together for a competition to find a word that described what The Scaffold did -ie Humour Music and Poetry. The idea was never sent but he used it for various mixed media events. 
The event involved a mix of local or student performance poetry and music. The main event was the local band Partners In Crime – fronted by fellow student Russ Teasdale whose other band Moulin Rouge had won the Battle of the Bands that year with EMF (a Coventry Ska band Trev knew and had written for) coming second. Russ is pictured above with the Aqua Velvas, a band that formed out of Partners in Crime c 1983.

Trev had invited another fellow student – Dave Wood (a link to Dave website and songs)- a singer songwriter who, along with Trev, was on the Student Union Ents committee and were involved with the Poly Folk club at the Lord Welling pub in Middlesbrough. After Dave had played, Trev told him of the idea he had for developing this into a regular event and running creative workshops towards the performances. They decided to progress the idea through the Student Union, forming a Multi Media Society and this was launched in autumn 1981. The Multi Media Society is discussed further in a separate post.

Meanwhile Trev continued to be involved with the Humanities Society and ran an annual mixed media event

for them in addition to the regular Multi Media ones. In March 1982 he organised the second event for the Humanities Society. This time it had a folk emphasis with Alistair Russell – the Scottish folk singer associated with the Ossian and the Battlefield Bands as well as being a fine solo artists. Alistair was living in Middlesbrough at the time. The event was supported by poets and musicians from the Multi Media Society including Dave Wood who played a solo spot and backed Trev on an extended poem. Other singers included Kay Castle,Paul O’Neill, Colin Scarf and Mike Campbell. The gig was advertised on Radio Cleveland’s Folk Programme presented by Stuart McFarland (the audio will be attached here soon).


In 1983 the Humanities event included some street theatre from the Multi Media Society and a playlet written by Dave Wood and a performance by the Multi Media Band.

This is an audio clip from Stuart McFarland’s Folk programme on BBC Radio Cleveland 1982, advertising the Humanities Gig with Alistair Russell. Listen here
http://a7.typepad.com/6a0134873eac15970c0134873eb2df970c-pi

Alistair russell with the Battlefield Band.

Alistair Russell with the Battlefield Band

Some other bits and pieces from Teesside Poly Humanities Society and or The Entertainment Committee work.

A poster I did for the Poly Folk Club
The Ents Committee put Mr Clarke on in the Main Hall
Another of my posters for the Humanities Society.
Jeff Lawson – Social Secretary Teesside Poly 1980 / 81 Jeff was also a singer songwriter from Peterlee.
After the poly folk at the Lord Wellington in Middlesbrough folded a new one opened at the Albert in Albert Road. I did an ad for Voice of the North. Run by Ged and Billy.
Trev Teasdel c 1982

Thornaby ‘Pavilion Poets’ 1968

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THORNABY PAVILION POETS
Thornaby Pavillion

Founded / Ended -Founded about 1968 (not sure when it finished but it didn’t last as long as some of the the early groups and wasn’t in evidence after 1980 when  arrived on Teesside.

Thornaby Pavillion was another early group in the Cleveland (UK) area and Norah Hill has recently sent me details of this group which also featured John Miles Longden – who was the subject of the previous post on the Purple Onion and around the same time – late 1960’s
Founding Members – John Miles Longden, Ray Tester, Norah Hill and Vincent Mulholland
Meeting Place Thornaby Pavilion (which was new then).
Main Activities – According to Norah Hill, “We had readings on Sunday afternoons, producing astonishingly large audiences of all ages and backgrounds. Participants read their own or others’ work. However, virtually none came to the week-day evening groups. Mr Phelps was manager of the then new pavilion and a very active supporter. I ran a shoppers’ childrens’ Creative Writing group group every Saturday afternoon. We had a children’s’ poetry competition which had 300 entrants. Billingham Forum was the  venue for the prize giving ceremony. The Sunday afternoon readings were very popular – possibly could be revived. We even had the technicians adjusting lighting to create atmospheres appropriate for each poem!
Publications The group did produce some anthologies of which Peter Stockill has some formerly  belonging to John Miles Longden. I hope to be able to put them on here as PDF files if I can borrow them from Peter.
John Miles Longden was also frequenting the Purple Onion in Middlesbrough at this time as describe inCastalians, New Poetry Scene, Teesside Writers Workshop and Write Around. John was published in Outlet also.
another post and went on to be involved in many other groups such as the
Vincent Mullholland was also involved with Poetry 20+ and was published later in Outlet. He also joined Yarm Writers group and participated in joint reading between the Phoenix Poetry group and Poetry 20+ in the early 1990’s.
Norah Hill by Dermot Blackburn

Norah Hill became a Creative Writing tutor for Leeds University adult education and a well published writer published both locally and nationally and in particular did a lot of Creative writing teaching with Special Needs and latterly was a regular reader at the Writers’ Cafe at the ARC.
Thanks to Norah Hill for supplying details.