SSI: "A way of life with steel at its core" says steelworker's son Peter Barron
Steelworkers and their families gather on Redcar seafront for a
Steelworkers and their families gather on Redcar
seafront for a torch-lit vigil after the
announcement that SSI was to "pause" production at its Redcar plant
<http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/13788514.Peter_Barron___A_way_of_life_with_steel_at_its_core_/http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/author/profile/1813/>Peter
Barron / Monday 28 September 2015 /
<http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/13788514.Peter_Barron___A_way_of_life_with_steel_at_its_core_/http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/>News
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/13788514.Peter_Barron___A_way_of_life_with_steel_at_its_core_/
The Northern Echo editor, PETER BARRON, grew up
on Teesside as the son of a South Bank
steelworker. He reflects on a way of life which is in danger of being lost
AS a boy, growing up in the suburbs of
Middlesbrough in the 1960s, the "mountains of South Bank" were our playground.
They were vast, rocky wastes – cowboy country
where we rode our imaginary horses and hunted for
grasshoppers in the coarse grass that grew
against the odds of the harsh terrain. The
Virginian, Trampas, Big John and Buck Cannon,
Shane, and The Man With No Name all rode across those bleak outcrops.
*
<http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/13788514.Peter_Barron___A_way_of_life_with_steel_at_its_core_/http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/13788027.Devastation_as_1_700_jobs_go_at_SSI_Redcar_as_plant_mothballed/>Devastation
as 1,700 jobs go at SSI Redcar as plant mothballed
*
<http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/13788514.Peter_Barron___A_way_of_life_with_steel_at_its_core_/http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/13788107.Reaction__Light_goes_out_on_Teesside_steelmaking_as_SSI_mothball_Redcar_plant/>Live
reaction to the news that SSI's Redcar plant will be mothballed
*
<http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/13788514.Peter_Barron___A_way_of_life_with_steel_at_its_core_/http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/13788313.From_the_Cleveland_Hills_to_India___the_story_of_165_years_of_iron_and_steelmaking_on_Teesside/>Cleveland
Hills to India - the story of 165 years of iron and steelmaking on Teesside
*
<http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/13788514.Peter_Barron___A_way_of_life_with_steel_at_its_core_/http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/photos/newsandevents/teesside_steel_highs_and_lows>Photos:
Highs and lows of steelmaking on Teesside
Except, of course, once we passed into grown-up
land, we came to understand that our mountains
were actually slag-heaps, formed from the waste
produced by the steel-making process upon which
proud communities such as South Bank were forged.
It's why outsiders called our home Slaggy Island,
a nick-name which has hung around for generations.
Promoted stories
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You see, steel was all we knew in South Bank. It
was where our dads worked, their dads before
them, and their dads before them. Our bread and
butter. The smoky, noisy, backdrop of our lives.
The reason for shops like Kenny Greenup's
grocers, Maloney's butchers, Birkbeck's, where we
rented our first colour telly, and Smollans,
where we used to buy our school shoes and
snake-belts. The foundation of happy childhood memories.
Through the night, the skyline would be lit up by
a reassuring, pulsing sunset created by the non-stop blast furnaces.
As a boy, I'd sit on top of the "mountains of
South Bank", waiting for the figure of my dad –
head bowed, in his grey, flat cap, and with his
bait-bag over his shoulder – as he walked home
from another long shift as an electrician's mate at the Dorman Long plant.
He'd gone there straight from St Peter's School
and never did anything else, apart from when he
went off to Anzio fight the Germans as a mere
17-year-old. It was what was expected of a South
Bank lad – a life with British Steel, as long as the war didn't get in the way.
For a century and a half, with the support of the
long-lost Smith's Dock Company, steel has
provided a way of life for communities like South
Bank, Normanby, Eston, Grangetown and, of course,
Redcar. Indeed, South Bank owes its very
existence to the establishment of the steelworks
by Messrs. Bolckow, Vaughan & Company Ltd and the
associated Clay Lane Iron Company.
But this morning, at 10.30am, our newsdesk
received the telephone call the whole
of<http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/13788514.Peter_Barron___A_way_of_life_with_steel_at_its_core_/http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/search/?search=Teesside&topic_id=2536>Teesside,
and many in the wider North-East region, had been
dreading. It confirmed that the steelworks were
being mothballed, with 1,700 people being made
redundant. In all honesty, we knew the statement
was coming but still the words were chilling.
We have been here before. Teesside's steelworks
were mothballed four years ago, only for
Thailand's Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI) to
ride to the rescue, like heroic cowboys on the
slag-heaps, and switch the blast furnaces back on a year down the line.
But what now for Teesside's steel communities?
What now for all those families who rely on those
jobs? What now for the shopkeepers whose income
will dry up? What now that SSI, for all the
effort and all the investment which has gone into
re-establishing the Redcar steelworks, could not
overcome the slump in global steel prices?
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The fight will go on, of course, because the
people of Teesside are as resilient as they come.
They are used to fighting for their lives – but help is needed.
The Government must appreciate how much is at
stake because this is a way of life that surely
can't be allowed to die and be consigned to history.
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Please consider seriously the reason why these elite institutions are not discussed in the mainstream press despite the immense financial and political power they wield?
There are sick and evil occultists running the Western World. They are power mad lunatics like something from a kids cartoon with their fingers on the nuclear button! Armageddon is closer than you thought. Only God can save our souls from their clutches, at least that's my considered opinion - Tony
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