Friday 3 July 2009

My Nameless County



Thirty-five years ago I was one the few people to support the boundary changes to my region, the communities north and south of the Tees have far more in common together than they have with Durham or York. For over four hundred years the people of this region has provided Britain with many of its chemicals, and for nearly two hundred years its iron and steel. With a new name and using our important heritage we should have put our new county on the world map, but for thirty-five years the politicians and bureaucrats have made a mess of it. Cleveland is an old English name for steep, hilly terrain, because much of area around Redcar, Middlesbrough and Hartlepool is flat it certainly wasn't correct to call our new county Cleveland, why not a brand new name? In 1996 the name of ancient Cleveland was relegated to below that of a Victorian seaside town, Teesside was dropped in favour of the more upmarket Tees Valley, and now the people who should be trying to protect our industrial heritage are trying to grass over it.

No comments: