A history professor from De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) is taking part in a major new 10-part series on Radio 4 telling the story of the North of England.
Professor Rob Colls, of DMU’s International Centre for Sports History and Culture, was series consultant and guest presenter on The Matter of the North, which began last week.
Presented and written by Melvyn Bragg, the series focuses on the pivotal historical moments and cultural contributions from the end of Roman rule to today.
Prof Colls has worked with Lord Bragg and the producers several times before and was approached him to contribute. He will appear next week in three programmes, one on the Industrial Revolution, one on Northern Radicalism, and another on Brexit and current dilemmas for the region.
Radio Times said the series was “up there with the Ascent of Man” – a reference to the acclaimed Jacob Bronowski documentary series lauded as one of the best of all time.
Prof Colls, who was born and bred in South Shields, and has written widely and northern and English notions of identity, said: “If the North was an independent, distinct country it would be just as important as the South”.
“The South dominates our news, and is the centre of all political and economic power in this country, but the North is important in other ways and of course has been massively important in political and economic ways in the past. It has played just as much a role and I think in fact you could argue that it has done more in shaping modern Britain than London. The North showed England how to be modern and democratic and innovative and productive. I think in the series we have asserted that and, moreover, that this is exactly the right moment to do so”.
“It was a pleasure to work with Melvyn and Faith Lawrence the producer - their intelligence and imagination shines through when you are working with them, and allows you to do something original. So many history programmes are reduced to pat formulas and shallow generalizations. This one isn’t.”
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Prof Colls was in Newcastle to record at the George Stephenson Engine Works, the Stephenson Monument, and Newcastle’s Central Station, as well as in Durham at the old Durham Miners’ Association HQ at Red Hill.
The series visits Northumbria, Cumbria, Yorkshire, Liverpool and Manchester as it tells the stories of such figures from Bede and Wordsworth, to artist David Hockey and writer Jimmy McGovern and examines transformational events such as the Industrial Revolution and the Peterloo Massacre.
Lord Bragg, who was born in Carlisle, said: “It’s here in the North that the original culture of England was founded after the Romans, the dissent and non-conformism bred great inventions, and that a particular sense of humour was developed... I think it’s a wonderful part of the world and like most people who’ve been born and brought up in the North I feel this is as much a country as any more neatly geographically defined place on the planet... And it’s not a bad time to look at the roots of northernness in this referendum year when there’s been much talk of a North-South divide, there’s no doubt that being northern matters greatly to people in 2016.”
As he traces the ebb and flow of northern power and examines how this relatively small geographical area has had a profound effect on every part of the globe, Melvyn hears from a cast of northern voices including Dame Judi Dench, David Hockney, Lee Hall, Jimmy McGovern, Ian McMillan, Geoffrey Boycott, Maxine Peake, Frank Cottrell Boyce, Chris Bonnington and Joan Bakewell.
Gwyneth Williams, Controller, BBC Radio 4, says: “Driven by Melvyn's personal passion the Brunowskiese programmes explore identity and meaning as well as history, culture and ideas drawing on an extraordinary cast of characters to make up a living and unforgettable picture of the North.”
Posted on Monday 5 September 2016