1974: Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen photographs BYKER | Nationwide | Voice of the People

[@hilaryepstein6013]

Good for her. She could have photographed pop stars but she chose Byker and took it and its community to her heart.

[@greenvelvet]

Community is a rare and forgotten thing

[@harryshouse007]

Just tremendous to see this for me personally. I studied photography in Newcastle in 1980 and went out with a girl who lived in the recently built Byker Wall after her family was relocated there. I still have Sirkka's book on my shelf after all these years having bought it around 1980.

[@willowbrooke1215]

I am a Kiwi and I love this channel and enjoy the old footage of England and the people. Such an interesting history and so many different regional cultures and accents which I fear may be disappearing.

[@lukemitchell1975]

Yes the good old bbc, not the same tho today by far

[@petergivenbless900]

Fellow kiwi here; these old BBC clips remind me of my childhood in the '70s, when NZ modelled itself as a little antipodean Britain! Thankfully, we have grown up, rediscovered the neglected Māori culture, and developed a unique sense of what it means to be "kiwi", but I'll always remember how shows from the BBC dominated TV in the days of the NZBC, and presenters all used the classic BBC recieved pronunciation!

[@williamdavies1482]

Fascinating and wonderful broadcast. A short documentary of her work is available on the Tate Modern you tube channel in 2017.

[@jasonayres]

(2:50) She could see good reason to be there, and that is something beyond the harsh landscape. He made it clear that he couldn't. Perhaps his bigotry, or naivety, judging by his harsh statement, but it doesn't matter. She knew what she was doing there, and good on her for doing so. "What is seen is temporary. What is unseen is eternal."

[@JohnHonda101]

I worked at Elizabeth Street just off Byker Bridge beside Potts scrap metal and Transline in the mid 1980's.

[@kingwinter2024]

Greetings to UK! Been to London three times. Hello from Finland! 🇬🇧🇫🇮

[@Voyager...2]

Paha Maa

[@robharris8844U]

Well as this shows there is more to England than London.

[@KarmasAbutch]

“Well it’s strange only for people who have strong prejudices…” ❤😂

[@kingshearer2]

that's what struck a chord with me the southern reporter was astonished.

[@Zlervo]

Frank Graham summed it up nicely when he said at around 7:00 that London and Birmingham has no local feeling. It's still like that in London today. My neighbours do not speak to me.

[@_MrAvocado_]

English probably not their first language tho.

[@thomasreilly6362]

That's not quite true, London is a collection of villages joined together by houses people who grew up in those villages know their neighbours and went to school with them or worked together. Its broken down in the last few decades due the high cost of housing but it does exist. Secondly London has a ripple effect with people and communities moving out of the center towards the suburbs. Its a very different city to anything else in Britain

[@biffin62]

Instead of destroying it they should have niced it up; improved the buildings that were there wherever possible and replaced some that were too bad in a sympathetic style. That way they would have kept the character of the place and kept the community together. The town planners and architects of the 1960s have a lot to answer for.

[@BlackPrimeMinister]

The town planners were monsters, absolutely hateful people.

[@biffin62]

@@BlackPrimeMinister They didn't care about the people, the community or the built heritage; they only cared about inflicting their vision of the future on others. Mostly they just built stuff that they thought looked good but that turned out in a few years to be far worse than what they'd replaced. Which is a long way of saying that you're right!

[@BlackPrimeMinister]

@@biffin62 It makes my blood boil. Criminal.

[@phillipecook3227]

I don't have a romanticised view of sub standard housing but I still feel sad watching this. Of course I'm glad that Sirkka managed to record at least one solid working class English community which I suspect no longer exists ( someone can enlighten me if I'm wrong). What happened to Byker also happened to 000s of other long standing urban communities all over Britain in the 1960s and 70s in the name of " improvement". The planners intentions were well meant but they ripped the heart and soul out of communities which had taken decades and centuries to establish. In my home city of Glasgow planners were given the green light in the early 1960s to thrash a 6 lane motorway right through the heart of its Victorian city centre eviscerating the communities which lay in its path ( same thing was planned for Edinburgh but the citizens organised and resisted successfully). The results will be with us for at least another 100 years. Also nice to see Bernard Falk here managing to restrain his sarcasm.

[@cjl1434]

I'm reading Orwell's 'The Road to Wigan Pier' and he comes to the exact same conclusion with the miners. The council uproots them from the poor areas and puts them in new builds where the things that were part of the community's soul, are removed, pushing them further from the quality of life that they enjoyed.

[@markeyhendrix]

I was brought up 5 minutes away from where she photographed.

[@panchopuskas1]

Thank you Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen for preserving the last memories we have of what was once a terrible place to live but with some of the best people on the planet.....It's sad that they couldn't have just replaced the Tyneside flats with simple decent housing using the same street plans. I agree with what some of the people said of the new Byker : hideous....

[@johndillon6859]

She is stunningly beautiful ❤️❤️❤️

[@jdm65]

Excellent photography and Falk's journalism stands the test of time. Always thought that Knees Up Mother Brown was a cockney thing - live and learn.

[@Spectrescup]

I think we're a small enough country that few things are absolutely exclusive to one region. When this was filmed, almost every football crowd in the country still sang You'll Never Walk Alone.

[@LeoLoikkanen]

Finland mentioned.

[@martintabony611]

I was 12 at the time. They destroyed Byker and moved us all over Newcastle. We ended up in Benwell on the other side of the city where I new no one.

[@garryleeks4848]

Must admit it looked a bit grim in 1974 , but I bet the people were Great working class

[@tjm3900]

It must have been like she came from another planet to the people of Baker. I wonder how the appartments/sound barrier worked out ? I wonder what future the people living there had ? Glad she did the work she did to record this piece of history, lest it be forgotten.

[@LuiWallentinGttler]

The eye and skill! Her photos are so vivid. Makes you almost believe in the old superstition that a photo can capture some of your soul away from you. And she's still active ... as far as I can see according to the great googlicious God.

[@BlackPrimeMinister]

The absolute disrespect the Establishment had for working class communities is disgraceful. It should never have been bulldozed.

[@Garethjames987]

Wow!

[@davedogge2280]

She skipped Ant and Dec from Byker Grove - thankfully !!

[@Zlervo]

😂😂😂

[@fidelcatsro6948]

She must be 75 now!

[@_MrAvocado_]

😮🤯

[@garypoulton7311]

I get the feelin that things were pretty grim back then, and getting drunk at least he weekend was the high point of a week

[@aeiouxs]

the reality for a lot of working class people in my humble experience.

[@lemonaid2216]

How would you compare it to the modern lifestyle? Is there even a high point to most people's week or a sense of community nowadays?

[@madzen112]

Are there a more 70s things to do than social realistic photography?

[@roguerover30k]

7:40! Spoons are in action!

[@tinkerpinkerton5449]

Old Olivander on the spoons there 😊

[@electronraygun6346]

Some idiots in the comments. There were plenty Asian, black, Chinese, German and a good few Irish in and around Newcastle for starters. Not even up for debate. My aunt was a keen photographer around the same time and I've seen many pictures of hers showing black and Asian people as part of similar communities in Newcastle. So yeah, the UK has always been a diverse place.

[@charlieballantry5971]

7:55 The guy on the left must have been related to Stan Laurel.

[@CalvinistBriton]

8:38 All the terraced houses you see here on Raby Way and the connecting streets are now gone replaced with ugly maisonettes built in the brutalist syle.

[@wearetheremnants1615]

Ethnic cleansing phase one

[@Me-ji2pn]

POV: u just realised that the tv show byker grove was named aged a place in Newcastle

[@hypercomms2001]

It would be revisiting the locations in this town to see how things have changed in 50 years. Now this woman would be 77-80 or so....

[@hypercomms2001]

Here is a view of the "Stags Head" pub today... compared to 1974... kzbin.info/www/bejne/iKHUeaePhqaEqdk

[@agamemnom]

she's 75 this year

[@tdoran616]

What camera did she use?

[@midnightteapot5633]

You want to see a" hideous vision", a nightmare designed by architects for people other than themselves to live in, check out "The Sails" in Scampia, Naples. Stuff of nightmares.

[@johnathandaviddunster38]

ARCHITECTS live in BEAUTIFUL homes scumbags......

[@KarmasAbutch]

6:23 Man caught the original Susan Boyle on the original Britains Got Talent and no one sez anything? 😂🎉

[@Jay_Pegg]

I dreamed a dream of Tyne gone by.

[@KarmasAbutch]

@@Jay_Pegg so good 🤣

[@wiggyflat]

She has a geordie lilt in her accent

[@bogeyman.]

Brilliant

[@itz2komplikayted207]

This is lovely! She, to me, looks like a blond-haired Ina Balin! ❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@Voyager...2]

Oscillate Wildly.

[@JulianOrchardfan]

Love The Smiths

[@LaughingMan44]

All gone and destroyed like its people soon will be

[@danielbell5487]

Am proud to be a Geordie we never hide from hard graft an well known for a good drink an a scrap hahaha

[@rjhtrucking5429]

Looks like 15 minute city's have been tried before then !

[@josephocallaghan3000]

''... when a beautiful 25 year old Finn came to Byker...'' If the commentator stated that today, Parliament, social media, the trans brigade, feminists...would be uproar. Bernard Falk would be fired

[@rabbiezekielgoldberg2497]

I'm confused. This doesn't seem very diverse to me. Where is all the diversity? I was led to believe that Britain was always diverse.

[@hughtierneytierney3585]

Having watched this you can consider yourself disabused.

[@rabbiezekielgoldberg2497]

@@Crackdennumber1 This has me wondering something. If they lied about the demographic history of the British Isles (especially including the 20th century), I have to wonder what else they lied about (including events in the 20th century).

[@Evemeister12]

Tyneside has had significant irish minorities over the centuries. And since the 19th century South shields had a presence of Arab sailors who settled down and married local women. There was diversity in the region historically.

[@rabbiezekielgoldberg2497]

​@@Evemeister12 That is at odds with the current understanding of British history. If Britain was always diverse, this diversity should be reflected in this video even without effort being made to reflect diversity.

[@johncrichton4341]

Why would the narrator need to say that SLK is beautiful?

[@grbbbc]

People spoke like that then.

[@johnbarrert3732]

It's called sexism, it was rife in society until recent years.

[@user-vz4hi4ef3v]

Torille

[@kathleenswift7979]

Now our country is ruined.

[@weerobot]

Nationwide reporter Showing his ignorance and prejudice

[@epilobia1]

All those people owned a bit of land . The developers threw them up in the air so they could steal the land off them .