Tuesday 8th April
So it has begun. I sit here alone in a well proportioned but barely furnished room in No.4 Noble Street, Easington in the North East of Sunderland.
The house is cold; I can’t keep the coke fire going and the room is now full of smoke. No fire seems to mean no hot water, although happily the shower is electric.
The journey was fine, no problems. I was filmed getting on and off two trains and in and out of two cabs. This followed a morning of filming at home, an interview with Stef and me packing and unpacking four times and then a hug goodbye (five times).
Who have I met? Dave, the tattooed taxi driver, told me I was heading to "crack head central"! I've been to the Co-op twice with my £10 – the only money allowed until I receive my full £67.50 wages later. I nd have enough food for two dinners and breakfast plus lunch!. I chatted with the ladies in the Co-op. On returning I realise I have 'lost my house'. Manage to find it after ten minutes of aimless wandering.
Diane is my neighbour and she explained the fire to me and lent me coke, wood, fire lighter, matches etc. All good but sadly I lack the skills to 'make fire'. Where's Ray Mears when you need him?
I went for a walk; the camera crew draws kids like a magnet. The area has lots of back-to-back houses in what must have been a vibrant, quite pretty coastal mining town but the mines shut down in '93. Has anything taken their place? Dave taxi said "light manufacturing". I see lots of empty shops, old schools and boarded up houses, is it a town on its knees?
