Thursday 16 July 2009

Shatila Social (Peter Morgan pictured)


Over £500 was raised at the Cumberland Arms on Monday 13th by performers for the Shatila Refugees Camp in Beirut. Peter Morgan had worked with the children at the camp school resulting in a 30 minute play of music, dance and physical theatre. 10 young actors and 4 of their teachers were brought by Peter to Tyneside to perform the play in the Autumn.

Poets, slammers, singers, comedians and spoken word artists performed to raise the money. Two ex members of Lindisfarne, Billy Mitchell and Ray Laidlaw with Billy`s son gave an electric performance,Annie Orwin, blues singer and actress astounded everyone with her gritty songs, I`ll certainly be going to see them in the region. Turns out Annie often plays at the same venues as a friend of ours Bob Barton from the band Old School, small world.

The funeral of Jimmy Forsyth today at the West Road crematorium, our group The West End Picture History Group were there to see him off. Kelly, his carer was there and going back to work afterwards. Met some good people, a fella who was in the squad who pulled down all the pubs along Scotswood Road, loved his stories of how Jimmy would position himself right in the thick of the demolition to get a good photo "You`d see the dust rising up and he`d be standing in among it all with that box brownie camera. Also people from the newly set up Westgate Past photo collection group who are archivists and photographers,we went to the Fox and Hounds afterwards.

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