1974: PHOTOGRAPHING BYKER | Nationwide | Voice of the People | BBC Archive

“Blonde Finnish ladies are not a common sight in the streets of Byker.”
A young Finnish photographer named Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen spent years in Byker, taking striking photographs that document the changing face of the area.
She spoke to Bernard Falk about her work, on Nationwide.
Originally broadcast 15 January, 1974.
[This video has been re-uploaded due to a slight technical issue affecting some parts of the earlier upload]
You can browse Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen’s Byker collection on the website of the Amber Film and Photography Collective - www.amber-onli...
Her work in Byker is also covered in the 1983 film Byker (Amber Films) and the books Byker (Dewi Lewis Publishing) and Byker Revisited (Northumbria Press).
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[@BravoManUK]

All city planners should be made to watch this. Countless communities have been lost in the name of progress, such a shame.

[@peterfenton2750]

Well done liisa for capturing a life long gone👍🏻

[@hanifleylabi8071]

Who?

[@UncleJames95]

Sirkka still lives in Newcastle by the look of it and has a facebook page with her work in it

[@robertlamb1962]

I’m a Londoner. Shortly after this documentary,in 1980, I went to work and live in Newcastle, starting off in Jesmond, just the other side of Shields Road from Byker. There was a school tv ‘soap’ then called Byker Grove which spawned Ant & Dec. Things became much further modernised, by then but Newcastle still retained much of its old world charm. I lived and worked in Newcastle for five years and I was brokenhearted when I was transferred back to London (I nearly remained) but continued to work for Lloyd’s Register of Shipping for 25 years and I hardly ever went back to Newcastle, alas. By this time Newcastle was thriving and I still remember the fantastic nightlife of the Bigg Market and the Quayside and the music with bitter sweet fondness and the day trips to Whitley Bay and Tynemouth. By the time I left, ‘Supergran’ (TTTV) was superseding ‘Byker Grove’ for tv episodes some which I still sometimes nostalgically watch on KZbin. NEWCASTLE IS CANNY. HOWAY THE LADS. I wonder if anyone there still remembers me?

[@beefy8269]

I understand changes down there maybe a little unsettling Bob, ye can always come home bonny lad, cost of livings a lot less too

[@Dukes-nt1er]

ANT AND DEC......AS WELCOME AS CANCER.....

[@PlanetImo]

Loving the pub scenes! :)

[@TheHarrip]

Im glad its a reupload, i missed it the 1st and that time.😊

[@Decrepit_biker]

And she's still on the go aged 75 now, in 2024! She's had a remarkable life 😊 I think we discoved the answer to the question " is it too high a price rather quicker than 100 years though, when the places put up are already back down... mistakes were definitely made.

[@musicswede1]

She used a Nikon F2 camera. It was built as a tank. I use the same model even today. Works excellent even after all these years.

[@Emil-gn1wj]

It is a great history of a community in newcastle and it is very intresting to hear i am not get bored.

[@swaneknoctic9555]

Are you aware you uploaded this exact video 6 days ago? You want to tell your employees in the KZbin upload department to keep off the drink.

[@mattelectro78]

And it's been uploaded on at least one more occasion before that.

[@zaftra]

this is the first time I have seen it.

[@alanmckay7040]

The BBC should come back to Byker and see what a few decades of cultural enrichment have done for the place.

[@RyoHazuki1]

It's heartbreaking

[@kopynd1]

the bath house never had a better bath, the baths were extra deep the water ended up to your neck couldnt lay down you would drown, I it was mint, grannies park, doughies motor bike shop on raby street, the old st peters railway station, the locomotive pub, is the railway tunnel still there that runs under shields road, we used to walk through on our way to the cluney the railway bridge swing , climbing the arches, must of been mental, them old houses were riddled with damp, outside netty, a used to be ill in the winted with cold and flu, the carpets were damp , the new build was class, clean dry warm tidy until the rabble started living there, shields road was class, until the the shops were bought up by guess who, selling anything, its voted the worst shopping street in britain, now, the bath house reminds me of the scene shot in Quadrophenia, a could write a book about old byker

[@NeverStopRolling]

Deja vous all over again

[@bettyprice6316]

They were right, life for the working class is awful. At least they had a community before they bulldozed it. It's not redevelopment, it's social engineering to feed the greed of rich corporations.

[@jimmywhyte7181]

Demographics.

[@toniniemela1807]

Torille

[@poloistanina]

Sörkka-Liisa

[@kamandi1362]

More BBC repeats.