The day began in Ashington at the Premier Inn and my first stop was the Woodhorn Mining Museum and fitting and spectacular tribute to the mining heritage of Northumberland. The museum is next to the Queen Elizabeth Country Park and is the perfect location for an end of summer day out--both the park and the museum are free!
Then I walked along the A197 for the highlight of the day--meeting some of the current Tomorrow's People, people at Morpeth for an 8 mile bike ride around Morpeth. I haven't been on a bike for many years but within a couple of rotations of the pedals it all came back.
It was great to pedal around the quiet country lanes of Tranwell and Stannington and talk to the young people: Rob, Toni-Louise, Matt and Miller. What struck me was that they all had no or virtually no qualifications and yet they had incredibly sharp mines and an amazingly quick sense of humour. I struggled to think how the education systems could let such people slip out without even basic qualifications. Then I recalled that when I went through my schooling in Gateshead 35 years ago I got my O level results and found that they actually spelt F-U-D-G-E! There is hope and Tomorrow's People are brining it out.
We had lunch at the Ridley Arms with Paul Williams of EAGA who are a wonderful values-based employer in the north east and increasingly nationally with over 4500 employees. EAGA have agreed to take some of the young people from the current group in Newcastle on work placement--this is fantastic news as in the absence of qualifications the importance of credible work experience will be vital and having a blue chip employer like EAGA at the top of your CV will be a huge boost.
At the Ridley Arms we were joined by some of the young people who had completed the bike ride and we all tucked in to the most glorious fish & chips. We were delighted that Matt Ridley came to join us for lunch, Matt is passionate about the north east and always keen to support initiatives here. We had a great talk about his new book 'The Rational Optimist' which argues that actually things are a lot better than we think: we are healthier, wealthier and wiser than ever before. The optimistic message was a great one for the young people to hear as we are faced with gloomy news on employment. Matt gave us a generous donation to the Walk.
Reaching Newcastle we were invited to have a tour of St James Park by Newcastle United. We went out on the pitch which looked perfect, went into the dressing rooms and the press conference room--it was great to share this with the young people and we had a really good laugh at the end of the day--I tried to do my impression of Rowan Atkinson's sketch on the geordie football manager whenw e were all in the dressing room: " thirty seven -nil!" [pause] "Well don't worry we've still got everything to play for in the second half!" I was told to stick to walking!
Still time to sponsor: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=MichaelBates
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