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Dispatches from the North: BBC Question Time is coming to Hartlepool!

July 21, 2010 By Lisa Leave a Comment

BBC One’s Question Time is visiting Hartlepool this week, and even better- I’m going to be in the audience!!!

Following last week’s Question Time they mentioned the next stop was going to be Hartlepool so I went online and applied to be part of the audience. I got the call yesterday that I was selected! I had to submit one question in advance and then tomorrow when I go I have to bring another question. Both questions have to relate to the week’s news. I am really excited to be a part of this, it is one of those once in a lifetime things. I love watching the show so I’m so excited to be a part of it.

Be sure to watch on BBC One at 10:35 PM tomorrow night! I’ll write a full follow up post next week and tell you all about the experience.

Filed Under: BBC, Dispatches from the North, Hartlepool Tagged With:

Dispatches from the North: North East England Music Roundup

June 30, 2010 By Lisa Leave a Comment

Through my involvement with Hartlepool’s local radio station Radio Hartlepool I’ve also become connected to a local charity called Red Dreams that supports young musicians in the town. I volunteer for Red Dreams as a vocal coach and also have the privilege of being exposed to the music and creativity this newest generation of muscians from the North East have to offer. I’m so impressed by the talent of the young people of this town, there must be something in the water.

With this summer’s biggest music festival Glastonbury now passed, Hartlepool and Red Dreams are looking forward to our own home-grown music festival, Pitch Invasion, on the 21st and 22nd August at Seaton Carew Cricket Club. Pitch Invasion features a few tribute headliners and dozens of local bands and acoustic acts.

Here are just a few of the top bands and singer/songwriters and other musical acts that I’ve heard through my involvment with Red Dreams. You can check out more songs at Red Dreams’ MySpace Music Page and check out some great performance videos on their YouTube Channel.

Rayne

Rayne is one of the North East’s biggest up-and-coming bands, having made it to the final of Live and Unsigned at the O2 Arena on July 10th. I saw Rayne perform at a recent awards show for Red Dreams, and I was really impressed with them. They played a couple covers, but their original song “Against the Natural Order” was my favorite of their set. Check out their music at their MySpace page.

Up!Down!Strange!

Up!Down!Strange! made the town’s headlines a few months ago when they beat out thousands of bands nationwide and made it to the finals to compete for a spot at Glastonbury. These young lads also made it to the semi-finals of this year’s UK Songwriter Contest for their original song Cliffs of Fiction. Check out their music at their MySpace page.

Chloe Gibson

Chloe Gibson is by far the most talented teenager I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing perform. Chloe is only 13 and writes and performs her own music. I see very big things in Chloe’s future. She has already been awarded a semi-final ranking in the UK Songwriter Contest (again, at 13!) for her original song “Breathing and Beating” and also won the solo artist Rising Star award at the Red Dreams Music Awards which was an award chosen by a leading UK record label. She is definitely the one act to watch coming out of Hartlepool. Check out her music at her MySpace page.

Samantha Durnan Band

Samantha Durnan is a very talented and versatile female artist from Teesside. Samantha does acoustic gigs on her own, but also performs with a band of very talented musicians. The Samantha Durnan Band has a very sophisticated and deep sound, with Samantha’s vocals and acoustic guitar at the forefront. Check out Samantha’s MySpace page to hear their music.

Lost State of Dance

Lost State of Dance (or LSD for short) is an innovative indie/techno group. They’ve got a very creative and versatile style and a great mix of male and female vocals as well as a range of both live instruments and electronic sounds without slipping too far into the pop or electronic genre. Check out their music here on their Myspace Page.

I could go on and on, this really only scratched the surface of the great young bands coming out of the North East! I’ll be sure to do another North East Music Round Up again and feature some more great local artists.

Filed Under: British Music, Dispatches from the North, Hartlepool Tagged With: , , ,

Dispatches from the North: Hartlepool Fights its Way to London 2012

March 31, 2010 By Lisa 2 Comments

From time to time I like to share a bit of local news from up here. Might seem insignificant when stacked up next to big stories coming out from the major national newspapers, but the point of this site is to help Anglophiles feel a bit more connected to life in Britain, so I hope my “small town” news updates are a welcome addition.

Back in August the IOC finally voted to open up the sport of boxing to women for the summer games (see the BBC article here), with the inaugural matches to take place at the London 2012 Olympic Summer Games. I can’t believe it has taken this long for this sport to become recognized as an Olympic Event, but I’m thrilled the door has finally opened to bring the sport of women’s boxing to the Olympic arena.

Since the announcement was made in August, the area has been abuzz with rumors about Hartlepudlians representing Team GB at that first event in the London games. This is a boxing town, and the local female boxers have a great following. Two local girls were named in the top twelve back in January and this week the national team has been whittled down from those twelve to the “magnificent seven” with both female boxers from Hartlepool making the cut. Savannah Marshall, age 18, is a contender for the middleweight under 75kg class and Amanda Coulson, age 27, is vying for a spot in the lightweight under 60kg class. No, the last name is no coincidence, Amanda is my husband’s cousin so we are very excited and thanks to Jonathan’s link last week I have already put in my interest for tickets to London 2012.

Hartlepool's own Amanda Coulson

Since the announcement was made last year, the local boxers have both set their sights on making the team. It would be so special for the town if two of our girls represented Team GB in the first ever women’s boxing event, and it is made even more special that they could be involved in marking this historic event on home turf here in Britain. In the coming months both girls will train hard and fight for their spots on the final national team roster. I wish both of them luck and hope they make the final team in 2012 and do this town proud. Watch this space for updates!

Filed Under: Dispatches from the North, Hartlepool, London 2012 Tagged With: ,

Dispatches from the North: A Journey from Hartlepool to America

March 3, 2010 By Lisa 3 Comments

I was reading the local paper the Hartlepool Mail last week and came across this fascinating story. Anyone who has seen Titanic (which is just about everyone in the world, right?) knows that Liverpool and Southamptom were major shipping and transport hubs in the late 19th and early 20th century. What many people don’t know is that Hartlepool also used to be one of Britain’s biggest shipping ports. This story from the Hartlepool Mail reports the discovery of a century-old diary detailing a journey from Hartlepool to New York in 1881:

The journal was written in 1881 by a William Shirley Day who was setting out on a journey on the Elpis ship from West Hartlepool to New York in the USA.

The iron steam ship was built at the town’s William Gray and Co shipyard in 1878 for Ropner and Company.

It was launched in 1879, but reported missing at sea in 1903. Chris, a 56-year-old teacher and keen historian who lives in Reading, said the diary covers a journey from Hartlepool to New York and then overland to Texas.

Photo of the discovered diary from the Hartlepool Mail

To read the full story “From Pools to New York in 1881″ in the Hartlepool Mail, click here

It reminded me of a story I heard from a friend of mine, Fred. Fred is soon approaching his 85th birthday and has lived in Hartlepool his whole life. Before I passed my driving test in October Fred used to give me rides to choir practice and during these rides he would always tell me the most fascinating stories from his life. One that sticks in my mind was a story he told me about when he was working for one of Hartlepool’s shipping companies. As a young man he worked in the records office of the shipping company and his job was to run from ship to ship collecting fees.

He told me an interesting tale about going through some old record books from the late 20s and early 30s while at work one day and he discovered that during prohibition in the United States that this Hartlepool-based shipping company had a fleet of ships in the Great Lakes, all which had been aprehended and seized in the act of bootlegging and bringing alcohol illegally from Canada to locations all over the Great Lakes. It is amazing that he remembered this one detail from perusing record books so long ago and that at the time it was interesting enough for him to remember it, not knowing that one day he would meet a young lady from the very place those ships were operating in. Being from the Great Lakes region I grew up hearing tales of bootlegging all throughout the region and the unique role that Metro Detroit and Chicago played in the prohibition era and Fred’s story really brought those local legends full circle for me.

I would love to do some research and find out more about the transport routes between Hartlepool and America and also about other links between the Hartlepool shipping industry and the US. Sadly, I think much like this story many of the details were probably written down in old ledgers that are long since lost and these stories may only live on in the oral tradition of Fred’s generation.

Filed Under: Dispatches from the North, Hartlepool, History Tagged With: ,

Dispatches from the North: The Tall Ships are coming to Hartlepool!

January 20, 2010 By Lisa Leave a Comment

Hartlepool was chosen to be the final port for the 2010 Tall Ships Races this summer from August 7-10. The town has been organizing the event for the past two years and now that we are finally in 2010, preparations have shifted into high gear.

From the Official Hartlepool Tall Ships 2010 Website:

The Tall Ships’ Races are an internationally acclaimed annual competition organised by Sail Training International and held every summer in European waters. Each year between 70 and 100 vessels from 15-20 countries, crewed by some 5-6,000 young people from over 30 countries worldwide take part in this unique event that combines four days of activities in each port with racing or cruising-in-company between ports. The main aim of the event is to provide an opportunity for young people to develop their personal skills in a challenging and memorable sail-training environment and hence at least 50% of a Tall Ship’s crew must be aged 15-25.

This is a coup for Hartlepool as traditionally the final port for the race is a higher profile coastal European city. It is a great honor for Hartlepool to be chosen to host final ceremonies for this event, for a town this size it is like getting the Olympics. The four day festival is set to be the largest event the town has ever staged and I am really excited as all the ships will parade right in front of my flat and I will have the best front row seat to see them all coming in. I will be sure to give a full report here on Anglotopia as the race unfolds this summer.

The festivities couldn’t come at a better time for Hartlepool which has been hit very hard by the recession and was identified as a “hot spot” for unemployment. Hartlepool is expected to have around a million visitors throughout the four-day festival. Every hotel in the town and surrounding area is booked solid and it should be a great economic boost for all of the local businesses. Hopefully the influx of visitors will pump some much needed cashflow into the local economy.

The event should also attract visitors from all over the UK and it will be a great chance for Hartlepool to demonstrate how much the town has changed in the past decade. The hub of activity will be at the Hartlepool Marina, which until quite recently was the location of the docks. The formerly industrial area underwent a £60 million renovation and now houses the town’s best restaurants, shops and luxury flats all surrounding the lovely marina with amazing views out to sea. My little village of Seaton Carew is connected to the Hartlepool Marina via a wide promenade that runs along the seaside, so it is an ideal place for a stroll along the sea and to watch the ships come in. In the past Hartlepool has had a reputation around the UK as being a bit scruffy, so it will be a great chance to show off how the town has developed and attract some domestic tourism and alter attitudes many other Brits have toward our town.

As the event approaches I will be sure to post more updates here on Anglotopia about festivities and entertainment that are being organized for this exciting event.

Filed Under: Dispatches from the North, Hartlepool, Older Travel News Tagged With:
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