Can't Beat It Alone
Amber Films (Current Affairs Unit) 1985
Made by Amber’s Current Affairs Unit, the video grew out of the engagement with the campaign against pit closures, the anti-nuclear and the peace movement. The context was the Miners’ Strike of 1984/5 and the enquiry into the plans for the Sizewell B Pressurised Water Reactor ran from 1983 to 1985. Druridge Bay in Northumberland was identified as a site for one of the planned, subsequent PWRs. Work on building Sizewell B began in 1987, but no further nuclear reactors have been constructed in the UK. More recently the UK government has encouraged renewed speculation on the nuclear energy option.
Can’t Beat It Alone draws on the involvement of Greenham Common Women, Easington Miners, Tyneside CND Groups, Whittle Women’s Support Group, the Save Druridge Bay Campaign and Billingham Against Nuclear Dumping. It explores the growing awareness that the coalfields were directly threatened by nuclear power and the suspicion that it was not economics or environmental considerations that sustained the British nuclear industry, but a political desire to reduce the influence of the mineworkers and to establish a secure source of plutonium for the weapons industry. It looks at how the different groups organised to turn the tide against the threat. Can’t Beat It Alone was broadcast as part of Channel 4’s Eleventh Hour series.
Location
Newcastle upon Tyne, Easington and other locations in Co Durham, Druridge Bay & Whittle in Northumberland, Billingham, Greenham Common
Credits
Amber Current Affairs Unit: Elaine Drainville, Richard Grassick
Amber Production Team: Elaine Drainville, Richard Grassick, Ellin Hare, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, David Eadington, Murrray Martin, Peter Roberts, Ray Stubbs, Steve Traffor.
Production Trainee: Yvonne Dawson
Additional Crewing: Brian McEvoy, Peter Woodhouse
Music: 'Beat It' by The Ground
Additional Material: Side Gallery, NEPCO
VT Editor: Sally Yeadon
Thanks to:
Warehouse, Byker
Concert Bar, Newcastle
Grey Arms, Red Row
Easington Miners Welfare
Billingham Ice Rink
Made under the auspices of the ACTT Workshop Declaration
Financial assistance from Northern Arts and Channel Four Television
Cast
Newcastle pub:
Helen Preston
Heather Pickering
Raf Mulla
Trevor Fox
Steven Taylor
Tom Ray
Derek Walmsley
Mark Scott
Vittorio Miotto
Greenham Common:
Trigger
Newcastle Demo Speaker: Bill Smith
Easington Speakers:
Alan Cummings
Brian Parker
Billy Stobbs
Heather Wood
Whittle Women:
Pat Ross
Ann Lilburn
Sylvia Stanton
Margaret Callaghan
Pat Dunn
Joyce Rumney
Druridge Bay Campaign:
Jack Thompson MP
Bridget Huggins
Hilda Felling
Billingham Campaign:
John Johnston
Maurice Eddy
Barabara & Fred Jones
Clare Coward
Michael Bell
Julie Hodgson
Adrian Liddell
Keywords
Easington, Miners' Strike, Northumberland, Women, Anti-nuclear, Nuclear Waste, Nuclear Power, PWR, Greenham Common, Whittle, Druridge Bay, Billingham, Peace, Peace Camp, NIREX
Associated Work
For a monthly changing selection of films and videos by Amber and its friends, visit www.sidetv.net.
For more information about Amber and its film and photographic work, visit www.amber-online.com