After years in the darkness, Newcastle is emerging as one of Britain's most vibrant cities. But, writes the poet Julia Darling, despite the beautiful new buildings, it is its community spirit that makes it special
When I first came to Newcastle as a young aspiring writer, nearly 25 years ago, it seemed to be lit by dim light bulbs. It was an overwhelming place, with its soaring bridges, its black, oily river and train lines that ran through ancient castles - the new and the old entangled with one another. The moment I got here I knew I would never leave. It sounds sentimental, but for many of us who live here the city of Newcastle is like a person about whom we feel very emotional. When I arrived as a young woman, it was like falling in love.
There is a feeling here, that was powerful then, that anything is possible. For artists and writers there is a sense that you can let your imagination take flight. There is support here for ideas, however strange. As a writer, I have worked in so many places, gathering stories, helping people write poems that have been put on buses, on place mats, on postcards. I have had my work sung by choirs, recited at office annual general meetings, sent to twin cities in Germany and the Netherlands, en-graved on glass on public benches. I have worked with photographers, visual artists, musicians, dancers, actors, engineers, architects, teachers; the list goes on and on. And it's not just because I am sociable. If you talk to most writers and artists who live here, you discover they have had contact with all kinds of different people, and found all sorts of unusual outlets for their work. Sometimes in Newcastle I am afraid to have an idea, as it will invariably happen.
When I first came here I worked with youth theatres, writing plays on political subjects. It was a time of loss. Everything was disappearing - the mines, shipbuilding, political structures. Artists and writers banded together. I was in a group called Red Umbrella that wrote material to support the miners' strike and the unions. Quayside was a dark, poisonous place with a few interesting pubs, Live Theatre, Amber Films, and a smelly river. Newcastle seemed as far from London as Africa. I remember those times as one long campaign.
The city is small enough for people to be familiar with one another, and there was always a strong will to create change. However, there was also the feeling that we were an island, largely ignored by the rest of the country. There was despair, and as communities collapsed alongside the mines, a real sense of loss.
Writers and poets explored this in their work. Playwrights such as Tom Hadaway and Alan Plater wrote cathartically and emotionally about the pain felt by such communities. Plays like these toured all over the region. Amber Films worked over years, making film after film, within the communities. Because of the work of such organisations, those days are well documented. Somehow, the role of the arts in Newcastle has always been intertwined with the people. The theatres were small, and much of the work was toured. Because for a long time there wasn't a large gallery space, artists created their own, smaller spaces within communities.
All this pays off when it comes to Newcastle's bid for Capital of Culture. Beneath the more obvious cultural victories of the area - Baltic, the Sage building, the Angel of the North - there is a really vibrant network of people who know how to share and interact. Sometimes these people are incomers, like me, who found themselves carried along by the sheer current of the place, and who have placed their hearts here. Sometimes they are the inspiring forces within the community who have always been here - women like Huffty Rae, a stand-up comedienne and presenter of Channel 4's The Word in the late 1980s, who returned to Newcastle to run the Elswick Girls' Project and has a great stake in the Capital of Culture bid, with plans to run all kinds of projects. Recently I met a woman called Alma Wheeler who lives in Scotswood, and who has been awarded an MBE for her tireless work to try to retain the spirit of the community that she loves.
I asked her what the bid for Capital of Culture would mean to Scotswood, much of which is on the verge of demolition. Alma wants the river back. She wants regattas, she wants crowds of people streaming down to the banks of the Tyne as they did in Scotswood's heyday. Now the salmon have returned, she wants the world of her childhood reinvented. And it is all completely possible. Alma and her large family love the new Quayside, but they want a better transport system. It takes one hour to reach the airport by public transport, when it's only a six-minute drive. The Wheelers want river taxis, and they want art up in Scotswood, for Alma knows that culture brings money and jobs.
The quayside amazes us all. I love the new bridge that is like a great shining mouth, the glittering river, the new Sage building, the millions of cafes and bars and the sense of party that there is down there. But Quayside belongs to all of us, not just the entrepreneurs and visitors. I love the informality of Live Theatre, where you might meet Robson Green, or a man of 90 in a wheelchair, and find that both are equally important. It is this feeling that makes Newcastle feel unique. Buildings such as the Baltic and the Sage are beautiful, but they are only buildings. I believe that if they were suddenly demolished the spirit of the work would remain. There would still be folk choirs in Walker, and old ladies in Throckley creating art.
For years before the Angel of the North appeared, Gateshead Libraries and Arts was working with communities to run poetry workshops, family sculpture days in the park and paper lantern processions, bringing national work to Gateshead and involving the people in culture.
Newcastle, unlike the dark city I first encountered, is now a place full of light. Travelling by train, I start feeling excited when we cross the bridge. Once on a crowded train as we crossed the Tyne, a teenage girl shouted, "Everyone lift your feet and have a wish!" - and we all did.
The buildings have turned from grey to washed cream, and Grey Street now knows how beautiful it is as it curves down towards the river. This is a region that has magic in its soul, with flights of stairs called Dog Leap Steps and narrow streets with names like Pudding Chare. You feel the presence of saints in its churches, and the spirit of Holy Island, Durham Cathedral and the Venerable Bede is never far away. It's small enough to feel that you belong, and big enough to disappear in. It's sophisticated, but it's also friendly. It embraces its past along with the future: at the Literary and Philosophical Society (Graham Greene's favourite library), you can read a book while drinking hot chocolate and there is not a computer in sight, while at the nearby Centre for Life, ad-vanced scientific work is developed.
Yesterday, I was walking through the university. There was a football match on, and the whole city was surging with roars and sighs, like waves crashing and swelling. Every council flower bed was bursting with bright flowers.
I thought about Alma, talking about the salmon returning to the Tyne, leaping up in the air, pushing forwards and upwards.
Julia Darling is a novelist, poet and playwright. She is the current recipient of the Northern Rock Foundation Writer's Award
As part of an occasional series, writers will be making the case for their home cities to become the European Capital of Culture 2008. For more information, visit www.culture2008.com
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