Our Friends in the North

'Doesn't matter who wins elections, nothing changes ... 
the Labour Party was the first to stab the Jarrow 
marchers in the back'

So states a pitman from ‘Our Friends in the North’, a BBC drama series about working class attempts to change Britain through the period 1964-1995, from Hume to Blair.

The protagonist of the series was inspired by civil rights marches in the US and a desire to abolish housing slums in Newcastle by building ‘streets-in-the-sky‘ pre-fab high rise. So what was the outcome? … the writer of the original play was Peter Flannery who grew up in Newcastle … was it a socialist dream or did the tower blocks turn out to be shonky built by a developer who bribed Labour candidates on-the-take?

I’ll say no more, I’ll spoil the ending 😉

Ian Curr
Sept 2014