New Writing North

One November evening in 1869 a group of men met in the Market Tavern in Durham, looking to improve the lot of the working class after decades of hardship and struggle against Victorian coal owners. That meeting led to the creation of Redhills, known as the ‘Pitman’s Parliament’: home of the Durham Miners’ Association, which formed in 1869.

A Literary Pilgrimage of Durham is written by Ruth Robson and was commissioned as part of Durham Book Festival 2020

The Colpitts Hotel was established around 1836 by John Colpitts. John died in 1891 and in 1892 it was bought by the Smith family of Tadcaster, Yorkshire, and continues as a Sam Smith pub. In 1975 its back room became the venue for a series of live poetry readings known as Colpitts Poetry.

A Literary Pilgrimage of Durham is written by Ruth Robson and was commissioned as part of Durham Book Festival 2020

Folklore and legends are prevalent in writing in and about Durham. One such legend is that of the Dun Cow, part recorded by the 12th Century monk Symeon of Durham, and further recorded in The Rites of Durham in the mid-16th Century.

A Literary Pilgrimage of Durham is written by Ruth Robson and was commissioned as part of Durham Book Festival 2020

Tony Harrison, poet and playwright, was born in Leeds and lives in Newcastle. His poem ‘Durham’, written in 1970, starts playfully:

‘Durham

St Cuthbert’s Shrine, founded 999’

A Literary Pilgrimage of Durham is written by Ruth Robson and was commissioned as part of Durham Book Festival 2020

‘To me the Gala is the most joyous and emotional day it’s possible to have. I was taken to my first Gala when I was eight years old and I marched behind the band and the banner of Fishburn Colliery with my mother and Great-Uncle Wilf and Aunt Lizzie. It was always a wonderful day out, with three great emotional moments in it. First, there was the pride you felt at marching behind the lodge banner towards the racecourse, then there was the moment when we stopped outside the County Hotel and the band played their serenade to the big shots on the balcony, and finally there was the parade to the cathedral for the miners’ service.’

This description of the Miners’ Gala, which always takes place on the 2nd Saturday in July, is by Booker Prize-winning author DBC Pierre, whose mother is from Durham. He lived in Durham as a child in the 1960s.

A Literary Pilgrimage of Durham is written by Ruth Robson and was commissioned as part of Durham Book Festival 2020

The Magdalene Steps, named after a medieval hospice, lead onto Saddler Street which in turn is the route up to the centre of the Durham World Heritage Site. Elvet Bridge, to the east, is home to several independent shops and two branches of Oxfam, one specialising in vintage clothes and the other in second-hand books.

A Literary Pilgrimage of Durham is written by Ruth Robson and was commissioned as part of Durham Book Festival 2020

For the first episode of Writing Durham, Laura McKenzie is joined by two of Co. Durham’s leading literary figures, Pat Barker and Benjamin Myers. Booker Prize winner Pat Barker has lived in Durham for the past forty years, while Myers – who won the 2018 Walter Scott Prize – grew up in Belmont, a suburb of Durham City. Listen in as they discuss place, memory, and what calling Durham home means to them as writers.

Gillian Allnutt has authored nine major collections and was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2016. She was born in London but spent half of her childhood in Newcastle upon Tyne. Kayo Chingonyi is a poet and critic whose collection Kumukanda won the 2017 Dylan Thomas Prize. Like Gillian he spent some of his childhood in Newcastle, and in this episode the two poets discuss how their shared experience of leaving and then returning to the North East has shaped their work.

Welcome to our audio series which explores the work created for the New Narratives for the North East project through a series of four podcast episodes. This episode looks forwards, refiguring the North-East's heritage, opening new ideas and exploring potential future narratives for the region as we look to the future.

Hear from many of the writers involved in the project about the ideas that inspired their work and also their relationship with the region and regional identity. Through interview and extracts of their work as well as the varied sounds of the North East, many of the themes of the work come to the fore. Here we discuss what makes this part of England distinct and what its future might look like. The characters that emerge are not just those of the writers, but also that of the sea, or the Wall, or indeed the multi-faceted region itself.

New Narratives for the North East is a New Writing North commission with the North East Cultural Partnership supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. This series is produced for Durham Book Festival, a Durham County Council festival supported by Durham University and Arts Council England. The series was made in York by Sonderbug Productions with music specially composed and recorded in Newcastle by Jayne Dent.

"They tell us that we live on a tiny crowded island. They try to tell us that we are tiny within ourselves. Tell them to come up here with the skylark, to forget what they think they know, and to look down upon the vastness of the North." David Almond, from Sing the North.

Welcome to our audio series which explores the work created for the New Narratives for the North East project through a series of four podcast episodes. Join us in this episode to explore the North-East's distinctive urban spaces and explore how those on the inside read and think about our cities and towns

Hear from many of the writers involved in the project about the ideas that inspired their work and also their relationship with the region and regional identity. Through interview and extracts of their work as well as the varied sounds of the North East, many of the themes of the work come to the fore. Here we discuss what makes this part of England distinct and what its future might look like. The characters that emerge are not just those of the writers, but also that of the sea, or the Wall, or indeed the multi-faceted region itself.

New Narratives for the North East is a New Writing North commission with the North East Cultural Partnership supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. This series is produced for Durham Book Festival, a Durham County Council festival supported by Durham University and Arts Council England. The series was made in York by Sonderbug Productions with music specially composed and recorded in Newcastle by Jayne Dent.