By Diane Wailes
There was a time when everyone in North Shields knew the name ‘Tom Hadaway’. A blue plaque marks the house where he was born, on Howdon Road in 1923: ‘Tom Hadaway, Playwright …. Tom’s gift was to find music in the speech of the ‘common folk’ of North Shields, who were the inspiration for his work’.
Tom didn’t start writing until he was in his 40s. When he was asked what inspired his writing, he said, “I was born in the dockside area of Shields and adopted when a child. I went to school at ‘Ralphies’ and left at 14 to go to work on the Fish Quay. There I found a rich vein of life in the people who lived and worked in the streets around me – colliers, fishermen and seamen. ……. All the people I have ever met are in my plays”. Tom worked as a fish merchant on the Fish Quay all his life. But once he started writing, his natural gift for storytelling soon got him noticed. In parallel with his life on the Fish Quay, he become a writer for the Live Theatre Company in Newcastle, which included two young, upcoming actors called Tim Healy and Robson Green. Talking about one of Tom’s plays, Tim Healy said, “I was very new to the business, I’d only been acting for a year. I thought the script was excellent then, but assumed that was the norm. Little did I realise I was actually handling gold dust”. This new, raw writing talent was spotted by the BBC, who broadcast eight of Tom’s plays in the 1970s. I remember how exciting it was to see our area reflected so brilliantly on TV and to hear authentic north east dialect and accents.
In total, Tom wrote more than twenty plays and three screenplays – including an episode of ‘When the Boat Comes In’. One of his best known plays was ‘God Bless Thee Jacky Maddison’, which was shown on the BBC in 1974. It’s a story about a miner’s love for a local fisher girl; a Romeo and Juliet tale based on the true life story of someone Tom knew. Some viewers (presumably from ‘down south’) complained they found the accents hard to understand, but many North Shields people will still remember the beautifully written play, which describes the strength – and stubbornness – of northern women. When Tom Hadaway died in 2005, his death was the lead story on BBC Look North. And in 2018, on what would have been his 95th birthday, a blue plaque was unveiled at his birthplace by his old friend, Tim Healy, who described him as “the finest playwright of all time.” With the 800th Anniversary of North Shields just around the corner, perhaps it’s time to bring his plays to life again and revive the memory of Tom Hadaway, one of our town’s most talented sons.
Extract from ‘God Bless Thee, Jacky Maddison’ by Tom Hadaway
“And the women! Have you noticed the women? How they can take a man’s place? They’re very special are the women round here. Why, from childhood, trained in the mending of nets. The splitting and curing of fish. Collecting mussels for bait! Some can bait a thousand hooks between one tide and the next. And hawking! They walk for miles, and carrying a load as would cripple a donkey. Then the boats come in, they’re plunging into that water up to their middles to haul it ashore. Why! They even do the fighting! Just the other day, I heard these two lads having an argument, and you know what one said to the other? “Gan on! Fetch thee missus oot, an’ A’ll fight her an all.” That’s the way it is ’round here lad! You know, t’s said, if a fisherlad marries any other lass than one from the village, he might as well cut off his right hand.”
