Tyneside - Alistair Moffat

Tyneside bursts with pride - not a swaggering conceit but the most obvious, warm and pungent sense of civic pride in Britain. Tynesiders know who they are and everybody else does too. And yet there exists no comprehensive history of the place. Not since the middle of the nineteenth century has there been a detailed treatment of the remarkable story of how Tyneside was made and how it came to look, sound and behave the way it does.

Tyneside: A History of Newcastle and Gateshead from Earliest Times tells that glittering tale, from the retreat of the icefields 10,000 years ago, through the coming of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, the glories of Northumbria, the stunning achievement of Bede of Jarrow, the building of the New Castle in 1080 and the dangerous beginnings of the coal trade to the dizzying growth of the Industrial Revolution, the trials of the football team and its heroes, and the renewals of the twenty-first century. All this and a welter of supporting detail, colour, anecdote, tradition and good, solid, scholarly popular history can be found in this substantial history of Tyneside, Gateshead and the River Towns.

This is the intriguing tale of a unique, magical and dynamic place, and the remarkable people who made it.