Hundreds celebrate Flash@Hebburn riverbank artwork

Mar 9 2009 The Journal

IT was party time for the Mad Hatters at the weekend.

The walking group of 14 women and one man from Hebburn in South Tyneside were among hundreds who turned out on Saturday night to join the celebrations as the town’s £150,000 new riverbank artwork was launched.

Flash@Hebburn, at the town’s Riverside Park, consists of 14 eight-metre columns, which use solar power, radio technology and 10,000 blue and white LED lights to send out programmed flashing sequences.

Artist Charles Quick conceived the idea after listening to 300 locals talk about the town’s industrial heritage, including its shipyards , coke works, and the giant Reyrolle electrical switchgear factory, which once employed 10,000 people.

One of the groups Charles worked with was the Mad Hatters, who use the Riverside Park and whose footsteps were programmed into the Flash system to form the basis of the first lights sequence.

Hatters secretary Lisa McAtee, a 40-year-old mother of two, said: “The launch and switch-on of Flash was absolutely brilliant and quite emotional because we had been involved in what was a very exciting project for the town.” The walking group was formed eight years ago out of a community project by environmental organisation Groundwork South Tyneside in Hebburn.

Hebburn father and son David Swailes, 42, and Alistair, 10, met Charles as they cycled through the Riverside Park.

Charles took Alistair’s pulse and factored it into a lights sequence.

David, whose father worked in the town’s Hawthorn Leslie shipyard, said: “Every time we cycle along the quayside, Alistair asks when he’ll see his sequence come up in lights.”

Ron Tatum, who was skipper of the North Shields football team which won the FA Amateur Cup at Wembley 40 years ago and who now lives in Jarrow after 37 years as a shipyard plater, saw his suggestion of the light from welder’s torches included in the sequences.

Young people from a youth project in Hebburn also helped, using their DJ and MC skills.

Charles, who has worked on the project for seven years, said: “From the beginning, the people of Hebburn have been quick to understand what we were trying to achieve both from a heritage and creative point of view. It resulted in people of all ages, from teenagers to pensioners, taking the project under their collective wing.”