New film captures working life on Dunston Staiths in the 1970s

Dunston Staiths today is a peaceful place - a proud symbol of Gateshead's industrial heritage, and a sanctuary for birds. It was very different in 1973, when Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen was there to photograph the Staiths, both here and at Whitehill Point.

In her new short film with Peter Roberts, Sirkka-Liisa recalls what it was like on the Staiths when it was still operating. With stunning footage of the Staiths today alongside her original photographs from 1973, the film brings the Staiths back to life, capturing the incredible scale of this huge wooden structure, the cranes, the ships and the river.

"It was still a totally working staiths on all levels... incredibly busy, incredibly noisy," says Siirka-Liisa. "I could be almost like a fly on the wall and just see what it was all about. There were teams of men working... teemers on the top and trimmers on the bottom; the ships being loaded with coal; chutes of coal just shooting down; and all these coal holes that were not protected in any way. If I had not kept one eye on the ground and the other eye on the camera, I could have been down a coal hole into the clay bed below. And these things did happen."

Sirkka-Liisa's photography on the Staiths was part of the Amber Film and Photography Collective's multi-artist project on the River Tyne in 1973.  

This new film, Coal Staiths of the River Tyne, was commissioned by the Tyne Derwent Way, with thanks to our funders: UK Government, North East Combined Authority and Historic England.