Soap award

FIRED UP BY THE success of the Angel of the North and the Baltic, council chiefs have decided to make Gateshead easier to find on the map by applying for city status.

Apparently it’s up to the Queen to decide which town becomes a city, which she does every few years by means of a ‘competition’. The traditional qualification of having a cathedral is no longer necessary - which is just as well, because Gateshead does not have one of these. Nor will it have a city centre, if the bid is successful.

Tesco have acquired much of what was the heart of the town and are busy demolishing it to make way for a superstore, surrounded by smaller shops and businesses that are ‘sympathetic’ to their masterplan. Gateshead will soon become Tesco upon Tyne and unless the Queen can be bribed with points on her loyalty card, the bid would appear to be doomed.

You can’t fault the council for their optimism, because aesthetic qualities clearly don’t matter. Sunderland was granted city status in 1992 after winning a competition to celebrate the Queen’s 40th year on the throne, so by that reckoning a builder’s skip by the side of the road would be in with a shout.

But Gateshead has had city status on Tyneside at least, since the outbreak of World War II. Many older locals still refer to the town as ‘Soap City’, thanks to the activities of the Luftwaffe during the early months of the conflict. 

This period was known as the ‘Phoney War’, because few shots were fired in anger and the Royal Air Force dropped leaflets rather than bombs on Germany, urging its citizens to give up before anyone got hurt.

The Germans responded by dropping their own leaflets on the UK, singling out Gateshead as the place that would benefit most from life under Nazi rule. They promised the locals free bars of soap so they could wash themselves properly - much to the amusement of the people of Newcastle.

Come to think of it, Tesco’s extensive range of toiletries could actually stand the town in good stead, with its bid for real city status.