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A LETTER FROM A DISTANT FRIEND.
This letter prompted the building of this website
The letter below was one that I recently received. It is from a good friend who once lived in Redcar, was educated in Redcar, socialised in Redcar and had many friends in this seaside town.
This friend emigrated to Australia 25 years ago and recently returned for a brief visit to Redcar to see old aqaintances.

IT SHOULD AT LEAST MAKE YOU WONDER - IS HE RIGHT OR IS HE WRONG? - MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND!

THE LETTER:

Redcar - Demise or New Beginning?

It was a long time ago that I left these shores, for the then appealing draw of a new life in Australia. In those days life seemed harder than it is today and the exciting challenges was an easy lure. However, upon my recent return visit to Redcar after more than 20 years away I was met with mixed feelings, happy memories, and had some very serious questions in my mind about what I had left behind. More importantly, what had happened to the town, since I departed?

My story.

It was a beautiful sunny April day in 1976 that I walked the short journey from Warwick Road and boarded the 8.30 train out of Redcar East station to carry me off on the beginning of my journey to shores afar. Redcar in those days was a modest yet smart town with reasonable services, having outgrown the dependence on income largely from fishing, it had become a support centre for the heavy industrialised ICI and British Steel works whose presence provided a living for many of the residents. I can recall having many a good night out with ex schoolmates and work colleagues prior to leaving and in so many ways I was sorry to say goodbye.

In the years I have been away from Redcar, I have travelled extensively, much of it in the third world and also in what has become known as the second world. These are third world countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore who have strenuously pulled themselves out of poverty and improved their surroundings and lifestyles with fresh investment drawn in by the climate of attractive possibilities.

It was a nostalgic build up therefore in May 2002 when I passed through the picturesque towns of Malton, Pickering and Whitby nestled in the still staggering beauty of the North Yorkshire Moors. Ultimately finding myself driving down Yearby bank where I had once toppled over the handlebars of my push-bike and ridden at 100mph as a teenager on a motor-cycle. Then rolling slowly along Redcar Lane into Warwick Road to check out the old house where I grew up. The new estates at the top of Redcar Lane looked grand in comparison to the somewhat standardised designs of the forties that much of the rest of the housing along Redcar Lane had been built around.

So far so good.

My old school, Ryehills (Redcar Lane Secondary Modern as it was once known) had just been demolished together with the old girls grammar school. A new impressive looking building had just sprung up and opened on the same property. A drive down my old road to number 38 where I lived for over 12 years was nostalgic and yet strange. Not a whole lot had changed.

I stayed with a close friend who had done much for his family's well being, especially given the collapse of his employer world-wide, the large power company Enron. He had managed OK, invested in other properties and improved that of his own residence, neatly and in character with the locale.

Meeting up with the best of those old mates on the Monday evening was terrific. Many had come to totally surprise me, as I was not told just who would be coming that night. Some, I embarrassingly had forgotten. The kinship and decency of these blokes however, was just the same. The only difference being was in their matured personas but they had the same wink in their eyes and still enjoyed a good joke or two. We downed plenty of the good ale found in the area and everything between us was just as it was when I left. Except that this time, it was better, we seemed more in tune with each other, deeper and less cynical. The blokes were all in gainful employment and were doing quite OK for themselves, they enjoyed their lives and we shared all our memories. A couple asked what changes I had noticed. Politely at the time I quipped that there was no longer 3p back on a returned beer or lemonade bottle and that the aerials on the roofs had been replaced or joined by satellite dishes. Burglar alarms were also noted in vast quantities so an increase in crime was obviously a latent change for the worse.

It was not until later when I was driven into the High Street that the full impact of what really had gone on (or not gone on) in Redcar since I had left became apparent.

My friend, who drove me through the town, had warned me not to expect improvement, but what I saw in front of me was mortifying. Ram-shackle dilapidated, old character-less buildings cobbled together unevenly with tacky plastic signs emblazoned on tired featureless and dated shopfronts. This reminded me of those aforementioned countries in the third world (some of the worst of them!) that had failed to make the improvements needed to bring them into the New World. The place reeked of decay, neglect and reckless abandon. It lacked a soul, an inner pride and heart and the promise of uplift seemed further off than the ships on the horizon.

There was no pride or character in what I could see in front of me.
It was like no one cared.

A short drive around the back streets opened up a Pandoras box of filthy shopfronts and the boarded up windows of abandoned houses. Even the boardings were shabby and some partly unfinished or broken down.

Of those that appeared occupied, many begged a lick of paint and a tidy-up. A club had bricked up some windows (for an improvement!) and had not even the pride to match the new bricks with the existing bricks. The result was a gaudy half-baked and totally inappropriate frontage. That club was not out of place, however. It seemed every second building fell into this same category of tacky.

We then bumped around the sea front. The extensive road-humps jarred my back as we sailed through at only 20 MPH, reminding me to get my Osteoporosis check done before Christmas. These awful road-humps, reminiscent of the kinds of military paraphernalia found around Gaza Strip checkpoints could be one of the things driving tourists away from Redcar.

I can remember the fun days as kids, (with this same gang of now older kids, my mates), when we'd get into all kinds of mischief in the many places of entertainment in Redcar and then we'd go and eat the yummy seafood. The entertainment has waned and the seafood is no longer edible, a possible victim of many years of industrial effluent pouring down the Tees?

The townsfolk, many trudging around the High Street with long faces seemed bereft of a challenge or goal. Perhaps something had seriously gone wrong here and I was seeing the result of that. All this in a town that houses the worlds oldest lifeboat and close to the smallest church in England.

Redcar town centre however, is sick. Its people, capable and kind, caring and friendly have somehow come to accept as normal, their dilapidated surroundings. Isolated in the cradle of the north-east Tees coastline and surrounded by the smoke-stack industry on one side, a hostile North Sea on the other and hemmed in by Saltburn cliffs along the coast and the imposing Cleveland hills to the south, perhaps Redcar has been cut off and forgotten, its people isolated and cut-off from the outside world. Long ago, Redcar was an 'everybody class' holiday resort. A day at the races, followed by the bucket and spade brigade to the expansive (and by the way, decent) beaches, down to the rocks from where we looked for fish and crabs. They came from far and wide in droves on a good summers day. Today I would think it gets by-passed. There are too many more attractive places for people to go and visit now. Redcar needs renewal and an infusion of refreshed spirit. Old ways and old practices must give way to new and purposeful insight, which will be enduring, to build a Redcar of the future for our children and their children.

Do Redcar folk want their children to leave home and return to a similar story 20 more years hence? I don't think so. That this could in fact happen, beggars belief.

I have told you what I feel is wrong with Redcar, now let me outline some ideas which could help to put it right.



TO PUT REDCAR BACK ON THE RIGHT TRACK AGAIN:

For a start, the High Street from where the Red Lion Inn once stood (now the site of Kwik-Save), out to the Park Hotel needs a thorough bulldozing (or at least a major facelift) from end to end. No patch-ups this time.

Do it right Redcar, build classy Malls and kitsch precincts, use careful planning and style in the town plan. Regulate and enforce a unified scheme; a true character-style and not on a rigid or tight-fisted budget. Entice tourists to travel the whole length of the coastal strip from Scarborough to Coatham. Redcar has a sound basis, now it needs the vision and the courage to see it through. The place needs an entertainment centre - the racecourse has expansive and vastly underused areas which could accommodate such a facility.

Spending money wisely in this way will attract more investment. What's going to happen when competition from India and China sees the end of the British Steel plant at Redcar and Lackenby? Aside from MASSIVE job losses, there will be a raft of land that will become available. Plan NOW as to what it could be used for and set out the design concepts for public comment.
Lee Kwan Yew (one of Asia's elder statesmen)in Singapore would be planning what he would do with the space in even 20 years time!

The townsfolk need to stand up to a seemingly uncaring and lazy council. Having seen the fruits of their labour, the Council has earned its place on the scrap heap. Fire the lot of them and start with a clean slate. Nominate only self-less men and women with a sound track record in commerce, urban/social development and business - but only those who can show they have contributed extensively to the community. Those who will serve the people graciously, effectively and without fear or favour. Usually this means by-passing the door-knockers that SEEK to be nominated but also empowering those who do not want the position such as Xanana Gusmao the new President of East Timor. (NB: If they can do it in Dili it can certainly be done in Redcar!)

This council has twice rejected a resident's suggestion to improve the ambience and safety of Redcar Stray area at night; by lighting the footpath on the seaward side between Zetland roundabout and Green Lane. The council has seen fit however, to install a pointless monument for about the same cost opposite the Stray, adjacent to Zetland roundabout. Sex attacks, mindless vandalism and gatherings of youths in dark places along the stray are more likely to continue because of this inaction.

The monument, presumably a testament to Redcar, is representative partly of what is wrong with the place. The placard on the monument should say:

"Redcar, the discarded town, it's plight ignored and forgotten, a child lost in the woods, dragged through the bushes and left to rot by a negligent council, voted in by a people who wanted change but were badly let down."

I say shame on this self-serving and arrogant council who have seemingly forgotten their mandate to the people.

A walk along the Stray told me its name was given by someone with vision. It is like a stray dog; it has an inner beauty but has been sadly neglected and left to fend for itself. Park benches, with concrete ends, had seen their rails smashed out and burned on the spot by vandals, were reminiscent of the bones sticking out from the rib cages of hungry goats in Africa's hinterlands. Broken glass and litter added to the mess of one bench I viewed. When we were kids we played up and got into some right trouble, but there was always a healthy respect for personal and public property. In Redcar the current trend in lack of respect for property has gone too far. When damage has been done, beef up the security and for goodness sake, clean up the damned mess.

The Stray Cafe, which I knew as Pacittos Ice Cream Parlour, is also dilapidated and forlorn. The place is calling out for someone to come in, do it up and make a killing in doing so. Make it a place to be seen, perhaps a restaurant or at least a smart welcoming cafe that greets you as you enter the towns interior. Yes, you cynics, this is all possible in a town like Redcar.

Along the Stray to the children's paddling pool and playground was a startling puddle of more carnage at the hands of vandals. It bore no resemblance to what I remembered. The Kids Park was stripped of play equipment and roundabouts that had once been there. There are now only 2 play objects left standing in the whole of the playground - a swing and a slide. Total abandon was the keyword. Again, all that is needed is COMMITTMENT from the people who make the decisions on the town's spending.

Redcar's people can change all this. It needs an urgent action group. Funds from national and local government will no doubt be needed. Before anything is done, the right management infrastructure needs to be put in place to ensure the problems are not perpetuated.

So, in anticipation of my next visits - yes it's a plural - I have planned to come back more often.

Within the next 20 years, there can and should be a new Redcar. I say to all my good friends back there:

"Get on your soap-boxes and shout, every last one of you, demand more for your town to make it more enjoyable to live there and to pave the way for the future. It may need to rely more on tourism than on chemical and steel processing for a living. You owe it to yourself and to your families.

When I come back we will deepen those friendships that have survived the years, we will laugh and we will joke about times past and when you ask me next time what changes I've seen I hope it will be more than satellite dishes and threepence back on a bottle!

Long live Redcar; it's great people and those who visit her."

END



I feel that the letter I received from my friend has highlighted some of the things that those of us who live here have missed due to our over-familiarity with the town.

When seen through the eyes of someone who has not been part of the local community for many years, I feel that we should heed some of the warnings within this letter and act now to make a difference.

In a further 25 years time our children may be writing a similar letter - let's just hope that it is not in the same vein as this one.


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