Looking Back

I have been involved with dozens of storytelling projects, and once we start collecting stories its surprising how small the world seems. I have been looking at songs with the title Heartbreak Hill; Fats Domino, The Strawbs and Emmylou Harris have all recorded different tracks, the one below was co-written and is sung by Daisy Hicks an Australian who was born in England.
Mick Benson, a key member of the Iron Awe team, is director of the Ryedale Folk Museum and lives in East Cleveland, I regularly go with him to the museum and do volunteer work. The twenty mile journey includes going over Blakey Ridge a twelve mile stretch where the only building we pass is The Lion Inn.
In the early 1970s a three piece jazz band called Back Door started playing regular sessions at The Lion Inn, they quickly became popular and played at Ronnie Scott's Club in London, Colin Hodgkinson, the bass player, was a southerner, but Ron Aspery, the saxophonist, and Tony Hicks, the drummer, were both from Middlesbrough. The band split up in the late 1970,s and Tony Hicks took his family, including young Daisy, to Australia. Tony sadly died there in 2006.
When Back Door travelled from Middlesbrough to Blakey they would pass our Heartbeak Hill, they would also drive over holes in the earth where Cleveland miners had taken away the ironstone that became the Sydney Harbour Bridge, so although the links are tenuous, they are there - anyway its a nice song.


I am an unpaid storyteller, occasionally I get expenses for my work, but mostly I don’t. I want the world to know about the history of my part of the world and I always give credit to people for the work I use. This video was put on You Tube with buttons allowing it to be shared and before it was removed I was sharing it. John Lawson 03-08-2011


This is Back Door playing at The Lion Inn Blakey in 2003 - turning the clock back thirty years.


Middlesbrough born Chris Rea is closely related to Tony and Daisy Hicks.
This is Chris singing Steel River, a song about the river Tees.
(There would be no Steel River without the Cleveland ironstone miners.)

Heartbreak Hill

Tippett's Robin Hood is just one part of the Heartbreak Hill story, a fantastic story that deserves more recognition. Iron Awe will involve about 200 local people in the Heartbreak Hill/Robin Hood projects, many of these will be young people who will be trained in film making, scriptwriting, acting and music, for that we will need funding. The Iron Awe team are confident that the film Heartbreak Hill will be made, and a new version of Tippett's opera Robin Hood will be performed. Photographs from some of Iron Awe's projects in 2003.

I can only find one small piece of music from Iron Awes projects with children in 2003, the main music is played by university students who worked with us in 2003 on the award winning film The Accident.
(See Post "The Accident")

IRON AWE - The beginning

In 2003 a group of volunteers from East Cleveland, (ironstone mining country) took several bags of “old stuff” into old people's homes and collected stories, they then took the stories and “old stuff” into schools – Iron Awe was born.

Our community work atracted funding and we started using film and music to tell the stories, the award winning film The Accident, was followed by the epic film Demonstration Day; we have continued our community work and are now planning our biggest project yet.

A snippet of Tippett 2

Last night the Iron Awe team, together with people from Boosbeck and East Cleveland, spent a second evening in The Station Hotel, again singing songs from Michael Tippett's first opera Robin Hood, this time the event was recorded by BBC Radio 3*

We hope this will attract the support and funding necessary to make a new version of the Robin Hood opera, and make a film of the Heartbreak Hill story. *BBC Radio 3, 12-15pm Saturday November 28th, Reviving Robin

A snippet of Tippett 1

The Iron Awe team have started telling the story of Heartbreak Hill. Part of the story involves Sir Michael Tippett's first opera Robin Hood, with music that has not been heard for over seventy years.
God bless our valiant Robin Hood
And may he never swing,
Who fights the battles for the poor;
The outlaw shall be King.
Last night I sat in the Station Hotel Boosbeck with some of the Iron Awe team and local people, we were singing songs written in 1934 for the out of work ironstone miners of Boosbeck and their families, with the keyboard player reading music in Tippetts own hand, and playing it for the first time in seventy-five years.

Iron Masks

Skinningrove 2003. Saltburn artist Andy Broderick and local young people use driftwood and ocre (ironstone waste) to make masks.

Jez Lowe Fans (aren't we all?)

I thought I would write a story for all the Jez Lowe fans that have stumbled across this blog and found a song by Jez they haven’t heard before. The director of the film Demonstration Day, Neil Scarth, was friendly with Jez, and asked him to write the film’s theme song. Jez was not familiar with East Cleveland towns and had originally written, “In every town from Skelton to Brotton” I pointed out to Neil that Brotton was only about a mile from Skelton, and “Eston to Brotton” would sound better, so when I am being mischievous I tell people I am a co-writer of Cleveland Iron. One of my photographs shows one of the young stars being interviewed by Luke Casey, a reporter from the local news programme Look North. At that time the show's presenter Mike Neville and weatherman Bob Johnson used to do a bit of a double act, so at the end of Luke’s film Mike said to Bob “that’s the way to teach kids history” and as every Jez Lowe fan should know, "If Mike Neville said it then it must be true."

Jez Lowe & The Bad Pennies at the premiere of Demonstration Day. Middlesbrough Town Hall. 15th September 2004