On Metro stations and platforms Hebburn is described a as place on earth and not to do with heaven I have very mixed feelings about this series now its second season and featuring the community in South Tyneside closest to Gateshead. The main industries of shipbuilding and Switch get manufacturer Reyrolle have gone with the largely Irish and Catholic origin a strong and dominating one with the equally strongly Labour party dominating with its posh club compared to the seedy Unionist club long the main room. The town largely made up of uniform council housing with gardens replacing the former terrace back to back streets, While the town had a modern civic centre which includes a modern swimming pool with facilities for all the family there was a lack of shopping facilities with families wanting to make major purchases of furniture, clothing and other goods having to go to Newcastle or South Shields within the centre of neighbouring Jarrow there was significant better. It only over the past two decades that there has been the growth of Supermarkets with three major and several smaller units in South Shields, one major an substantial in Jarrow, a huge superstore in Bolden but none until last few years in Hebburn where life revolved the working man’s club and entertainment pub.
Despite the involvement of the local established and highly regarded actress Gina Mckee I did not know what to make of he series or how townsfolk would react to the portrayal of its people especially its lasses as moron and sex crazed where social activities comprised shopping when the cash was available for cloths and make up and hairdressing into Newcastle for a club and otherwise the local social club pub. Having exploited the East End of London, Liverpool, Yorkshire and more recently Glasgow for situational comedies about the working, or non working underclass, it was probably to bring out all the clichés and stereotypes about somewhere in the North East It would be OK if it as funny especially as there was no audience with many scenes shot to show the ton as it is. It was amusing because of my knowledge often area and essential viewing because of this but in terms previous series in the same vein I was disappointed, disappointed that is until the second series which became funnier in kind way and culminating in a moving an authentic episode this week which I believe has talent the series onto a different level.
Gina Mckee plays the proud mum who wont let anyone use her best room unless the occasion demands who this season has tried her hand at selling housing although the establishment colleagues ensure that had was allocated only the worst properties to get rid off,, and where she has now branched out in making cup cakes He typical North husband with an enthusiasms for football, beer , fish and chips and pies has had a stroke and is in rebellion at the added control with his wife and mother now have over him. There at home daughter tried hard to ape Geordie Shore and the Essex girls with her friend who is significantly more of a slapper and her club singer whose school son by a previous relationship has become a skilled thief. The mother in law has organised her fellow residents of a home for the elderly but has returned home complete with stair lift after being left a house which she sold for coppers to the son and daughter in law to ensure she continues to get her full wacky of the social, especially as the main bread winner is now on the permanent disabled sick.
The series has revolved around the arrival back home of h on ho unknown to his family has married a girl from lower middle class home in a drunken moment in Las Vegas. who mother has pretensions and a retiring hen pecked husband. The young man has been working as a journalist, giving up his job to become a writer only for this to fall through. His wife had been a bright student and finds her temporary stay become permanent as her husband takes a low paid post as editor of the local free newspaper. Their predicament in a wafer thin wall bedroom, when his wife is the butt for his sister and her best mate who the son once dated becomes even greater when she becomes pregnant as does the girl friend of the club singer, but her relationship becomes challenged with the arrival of a former male friend while the sister takes a course at the former Hebburn Tec.
The day to day week by week storylines came to a head last night when the daughter in law gives birth several weeks prematurely coinciding with the publication in the magazine of a national newspaper of the diary her husband has kept and which the paper has edited out all the complimentary leading the picture a high emotional and unliveable wife in pregnancy. There are two episodes to go as the residents of six flats at renovated Westmorland Court were evacuated following a fire at one, the second incident at the Court within three months according to the local authority area Newspaper the Shields Gazette.
As I passed Newcastle Station yesterday on my way home I wondered on the progressed made to the outside and what I assume is to be the new ticket office and customer service centre, something was not mentioned to date in the excellent Sky Channel One series All Aboard East Coast Train and which later in the day featured Derby Day between Newcastle and visitors Sunderland and where the home side lost 3.0 always an event likely to cause trouble. Had the side lost then supporters would have been inclined to leave early and get away as quickly as possible while the Newcastle crowd remained in the ground celebrating to into town to do likewise. However with a lost there was an element, some of who would not have been in ground but in surrounding pubs and bars showing the game or would have waited for the news just to take the opportunity to have a punch up with the visiting supporters. Several staff cars were badly damaged as the scum attempted to get to the visiting supports by using the cars to get onto a roof giving access to thee station. The visiting fans were penned in a narrow yard ending the arrival of three special trains travelling from Sunderland to the station. Others would have come on the Metro route travelling incognito among the home supporters, by bus and by car.
The edition feature the female station manager and the organisation of the departure of several thousands students from Durham University as they made their way home with trains at half hourly intervals. Extra staff were n hand to put luggage at speed in the special luggage van so as to avoid the train being leaving the station in over the 90 second turn around time, after which the East Coast Train paid a penalty to rail track.
Previous editions have featured the team in the restaurant car travelling early and providing breakfasts especially to he first class passengers who now have a meal at their table provided as part of their ticket. Another episode feature the work of Trolley ladies and counter which has a target of making a certain amount each journey to balance the books. Newcastle has been a regular featured station which included those who see the trains depart and the weekend stag and her do’s both arriving in Newcastle or visiting the cities. Football was also the subject of trains arriving and departing from Kings Cross one Saturday and the insistence of no alcohol trains which result in any alcohol being confiscated and those who attempt to smuggle and drink when onboard at risk of prosecution. This applies to anyone travelling although alcohol packed away in luggage is not checked.
The training is centred at York where the HQ for the line with its 19 stations and 155 trains a day is located and a driver and the supervision as well as the retirement of someone leaving after a lifetime of service at York. The series mirrors a similar one covering the West Coast line from Euston to Liverpool and Glasgow on a different channel.
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