I became involved in the campaign to save Linskill…..which took nearly 4 years out of me life
I was born here and until adult life never lived anywhere else but North Shields it was just home. The back lanes and the streets are so quiet now and I have the memory where the streets are just full of kids.
After I left school, I got a job at Tyne Brand in the office, and I met people there from different areas. There was about 6 of us all decided we would go to London. It must have been about 1969. My mother and father thought I would be sold into white slavery, they never thought they’d see me again. I must have been about 17, I have been back in Shields since apart from my sojourns in Italy.
Sheila Clark at the Linskill Centre © Hazel Plater
I suppose in a way, my favourite place is here at Linskill. I would have been 11-12 years old, and I spent four years here at school and then went off to live me life I suppose. But I became involved in the campaign to save Linskill from being demolished which took nearly 4 years out of me life.
There was a public meeting, and I said I’m going to see what’s going to happen over the road because the whole area around here really has played a major part in my life and from that meeting there was a committee formed for the campaign to save it from demolition. That was FLAG, Friends of Linskill and something else, I can’t remember now.
It was quite a structured campaign which nobody was taking any notice of, but as the Mayoral election grew closer and closer it did become very political and really we were in the right place at the right time and we had spent a lot of time engaging with the local community as well I think and nobody wanted to see it demolished. There was lots of little charities kicked out and had nowhere to go, were meeting in Wilkinson’s cafe and things like that. John Harrison said that if he won the election, he would stop the demolition and he did and he was very true to his word. Part of the boy’s school was demolished but that was because he wanted to provide housing for older people and that’s what happened on that site.
I became a member of the board of trustees but decided when Simeon came, he knew what he was doing much better than we did and I resigned but I didn’t leave Linskill I rented a room and that’s when I set up my aromatherapy practice and to this day I’m still here.
I really am rooting for North Shields to become the vibrant cultural hub that the council have said it will be and you can see signs. There are still places that need to be improved and we need some proper shops, not places where you can buy ten different types of cappuccino. But I see the signs, and I’m really quite encouraged by it.
I think it went through a very dark time when even I didn’t go into North Shields, even to the Post Office. But now I really feel uplifted when I go in because the signs are there that you know it could become, what it could become, but it’s up to the council and it’s up to the general public I think as well isn’t it to make it a nice place again.
Sheila was interviewed as part of the North Shields 800 Voice Project.