Produced by students of the North East Media Training Centre (NEMTC), a documentary about the heritage industry with Beamish: The Living Museum of the North being used as an example. Frank Atkinson, the founder of Beamish, as well as other senior figures at the museum talk about their work to create as a realistic a depiction of the regions past as possible. However, author Robert Hewitson is critical of places like Beamish for taking over the traditional heavy industries in the region and...

Produced by students of the North East Media Training Centre (NEMTC), a documentary about the heritage industry with Beamish: The Living Museum of the North being used as an example. Frank Atkinson, the founder of Beamish, as well as other senior figures at the museum talk about their work to create as a realistic a depiction of the regions past as possible. However, author Robert Hewitson is critical of places like Beamish for taking over the traditional heavy industries in the region and turning them it into a commodity to create a sanitised version of the past. Written on an old ‘for sale’ sign resting against a wall the film title. Title: History For Sale At Beamish: The Living Museum of the North the replica of Locomotion No. 1 pushing three coal wagons steams under the footbridge leading from Rowley Station to the 1900s Town. A montage of some of the attractions at Beamish including a woman in one of the colliery cottages making a Proggy mat or rag rug and an electric tram trundling past. As two men walk past The Sun Inn in the 1900s Town, the film freezes on one of them smiling at the camera. A large sign welcoming visitors to Beamish that features a photograph of its founder Frank Atkinson standing beside his colleagues. Sitting in an armchair, Frank talks about the aims of the museum and what he believes peoples get from visiting. At the Mahogany Drift Mine a guide describes to a group of school children about ‘old fashioned’ coal mining. Peter Lewis, Director of Beamish Museum explains that until about ten years previous most museums were what he called ‘from the top down’ museums. These, he explains, were places such as stately homes owned by the upper classes which survive more than the turf cottage of the working classes. In a room a gramophone record plays over a price list and cash register in a butcher’s shop. In one of the miners’ cottages a woman checks the fire in the range before working with a colleague to start the process of making bread. Peter Lewis explains that if it wasn’t for Beamish many of the buildings featured would have been demolished and lost forever. As a fire burns in the grate of another cottage range, Frank Atkinson explains that he never felt it was his mission to be nostalgic, rather to show visitors that this is how it was. To The Housemartins singing 'We're Not Going Back' a crowd on Rowley Station watches as Locomotion No. 1 pulls into the platform. Locomotion travels along a set of tracks pulling its coal wagons intercut over the following titles. Title: 1921. Miner owners cut wages. Miners strikes are defeated 1926 The General Strike Miners are out for seven months 1931 Dole is cut. Means test in introduced 1932 Almost Three Million are out of work Standing in the waiting area at Rowley Station John Gail, Keeper of Industry Beamish Museum explains that it would be hard for the museum to re-create some of the poor social conditions that happened in the past as it would put visitors off. He gives as an example of a house with damp or someone with tuberculosis (TB) which was common during the period the museum covers. Five children are asked if they’ve had a good day, they all say yes. One of them provides details of what they have all learned. Peter Lewis believes that it is important for modern people to understand their own roots in order to help them understand where they are and where they are going. Sitting on a bench Robert Hewitson, author of ‘The Heritage Industry’ explains the different between what is history, which he sees as something that is moving forward as it is always being made, and heritage which he is critical of as he sees it as something that is moving backwards. He sees heritage as a commodity, something that is hard to define but something somebody is eager to sell. As he talks a cabinet containing a collection of models of miners. In one of the miner’s cottages a woman sitting beside a range making a Proggy mat. She explains what it is and how it is made. Behind the counter at the Co-op store in the 1900s Town a young woman shows visitors how coffee was ground. As a woman sits in the dentist chair having her teeth examined by a guide dressed as a dentist, Robert Hewitson explains in voiceover that he sees it as strange that people in the Northeast would want to go out and look at people with jobs working as guides at Beamish. Still sitting in the bench, he goes onto explain that heritage was created to restore sense of history in the country and make up for the loss of real industries in the region. He believes it is a bogus industry. To Erasure singing 'The Circus’ a guide makes his way out of the Mahogany Drift Mine changing to a broken window in a building. John Gail sees himself and Beamish as like undertakers, gathering in the bits of the death of industry in the region. A phantom car ride away from Beamish passing a piece of derelict land and several modern coal wagons before travelling along a terraced street with many properties boarded up. Peter Lewis explains that if you closed the steel works you can’t create heavy industrial works again through tourism. A large sign for ‘Land Reclamation of Consett Steelworks’ and a blank space of ground where once stood the Consett Steel Works. In voiceover Robert Hewitson explains that no monument exists for the steel works at Consett, yet at the same time as the works were going into decline, Beamish was growing to create a ‘clean picturesque’ view of the Northeast in the 19th century. The ‘for sale’ sign seen at the start of the film, now with a ‘SOLD’ sticker over it. Credit: Production Crew Sharon Chahal, Julie Garvin, Helen Gray, Gerry McCulloch, Paul Moody, John Morris, Karin Young Title: Special Thanks to… Mike Eaton, Colin Bone, Robert Hewitson, The director and staff of Beamish, Frank Atkinson, Close and Weston Estate Agents, Fiona Duckworth, all the staff at NEMTC End title: © NEMTC 1987