Mission Impossible: The Search for the Lost Dudes
By Geoff Holland
By the 1980s the area around the Albert Edward Dock at North Shields had largely become disused and derelict and the now-defunct Tyne & Wear Development Corporation was given the task of reclaiming and redeveloping the area. This was a major, multi-million pound project of a 200 acre site, carried out in partnership with the local council and the private sector, which, when officially opened in 1998, had created the Royal Quays area of the town.
Simultaneously, as part of the ‘Art on the Riverside’ project, a number of artworks by local, national and international artists were commissioned for the area with the object of enhancing the public open spaces and fostering community involvement. In the event, artworks such as ‘Tyne Anew’, ‘Lightning Clock’, ‘Prophecy Monolith’, Sea Dreamer’s Rest’ and the ‘Dudes’, along with a few other works, were installed at various visible locations around the well-designed open spaces.
In 2005, inspired by the quality of the overall development and the delightful and thought-provoking artworks, I devised a 2.5 mile Royal Quays Art Walk for publication by the local council as a free, full-colour fold-out leaflet. It proved to be extremely popular and was soon out of print. As I had fully enjoyed my wanderings around this spanking new development when I was preparing my walk, I continued over the following few years to occasionally visit the slowly-maturing Redburn and Chirton Denes.
Sadly, as time passed by, I noticed that a number of the metal-based features which added to the interest of the area had disappeared, stolen I believe so that they could be melted down for scrap metal. A particular loss was the rather lovely ‘Pointing Child’, stolen not for the sculpture itself, which remained on the ground where it had been unceremoniously dumped, but for the extremely long metal pole on which it had stood.
In time, as yet another year slipped away and a new spring had well and truly sprung, I had a sudden hankering to revisit one particular artwork that I hadn’t seen for some considerable time. Located close to the entrance to the Port of Tyne Authority’s International Ferry Terminal, it is easy to forget about the ‘Dudes’ installation, an intriguing and colourful work by Nottingham-born Permindar Kaur.
‘Dudes in 2004‘
Consisting of thirteen bright blue and red, powder-coated figures, with their shiny helmets and boots marching over a small grass-covered hill towards the terminal, they seem to have a story for us to interpret. Are they warriors retreating or attacking, or are they more playful, like toys searching for new playmates, from another country or continent? Where have they come from, why are they here and where are they going? Undoubtedly we will all have our own interpretation, as I did at the height of all the Brexit malarkey back in 2019 when I was inspired to write this poem:
DUDES: ARE WE COMING OR GOING?
(WITH A NOD TO THE BREXIT PROCESS)
Are we coming or going
which way should we turn,
confused by the landscape
with energy to burn?
Are we leaving this country
with the wind at our backs
or should we say simply
it’s best we should stay?
Should we just set our compass
and book a posh berth
on the DFDS ferry
to the ends of the earth?
Should we set down our roots
by the banks of the Tyne
and put our feet up
with a glass of fine wine?
Are we coming or going
which way should we turn,
if we’re thinking of leaving-
will we ever return?
And so it was, on a bright and breezy June morning, that I set off from the Fish Quay car park, coffee cup in hand, on a four mile riverside walk with the firm intention of finding out how the ‘Dudes’ were getting along some quarter of a century after their installation.
How time flies, I thought as I wandered along quiet Union Quay, the cafes and restaurants yet to burst into life, the ‘Herring Girl’ sculpture by Ray Lonsdale a timely reminder of an industry that once dominated this part of the town, the last vestiges of which were due to soon disappear with the demolition of the former Tyne Brand factory. Disembarking ferry passengers spilling onto the New Quay added a brief flash of movement and colour before I passed beneath a waterfall of red valerian tumbling over the Plateau’s near-vertical wall and on past the derelict Wolsington House.
I was taking the most direct route I could think of so, after little more than ten minutes, I was standing outside the main entrance to the International Ferry Terminal, not a passenger in sight. As I stepped inside the large open gates I fully expected to find thirteen figures in all their blue and red glory striding out across the open grass-carpeted hill, coming and going as they must have done these past twenty five years. I had no reason to think otherwise, but, as I looked around, there was absolutely nothing to see but a hill heavily clothed in trees.
I was stopped in my tracks, totally baffled by the complete lack of any powder-coated figures and I began to wonder whether my navigational skills, honed over a lifetime of roaming the lonely ups and downs of Northumberland, had finally failed me. Perhaps I had come to the wrong entrance, confused by a fading memory. I even considered the unthinkable, whether the ‘Dudes’ had all disappeared, gone forever like some of the other metal-based features, stolen over the years for their meagre scrap value? I began to contemplate turning back and aborting my mission.
But I am made of sterner stuff and strongly believe in that local colloquial expression, “shy bairns get nowt”. So away I went across the grass verge heading towards a small gap between two groups of fairly substantial-looking trees. The ground was as springy as a trampoline as I picked my way cautiously uphill. On reaching the top, I spied the vague semblance of a path through the tangle of trunks and branches and, after little more than a few metres walking I spotted a figure, half-hidden by a mass of foliage, red in colour and sporting a natty gold crown.
Eureka! I had reached my goal, a single ‘Dude’ trapped in the trees, seemingly a prisoner of nature struggling to be free. But what, I mused, had become of the remaining twelve figures, where were they hiding, were they doomed to spend the rest of their lives in this suffocating green mass? I was determined to find out. So, with the bit between my teeth, I continued on towards the edge of the trees and soon spotted another red, crown-sporting figure struggling through the undergrowth towards open ground.
Struggling through the undergrowth in 2025
And then, once beyond the figure, I was out of the trees and there, in front of me, were six more purposeful figures, arms swinging in unison, marching downhill towards another clump of trees. I had now finally found what I had been looking for, alive and well in this shrouded green oasis and as ‘happy as the larks ‘ They had, I believed, discovered their place in the world, somewhere they could co-exist with nature whilst remaining untroubled by the crazy world outside. It seemed to me that there would be no more “coming or going” for this once restless group. This was their Camelot.
WHO REMEMBERS THE DUDES?
Do you remember The Dudes at Royal Quays — or any of the other public artworks that appeared around North Shields during the redevelopment of the riverside?
Maybe you have old photographs tucked away in a drawer. Perhaps you remember when they were installed, know something about the people involved, or have a story about one of the artworks that has since disappeared.
We want to hear from you.
Send us your photographs, memories, stories and anything else you think should be recorded. We’re building a growing archive of North Shields — not just the official history, but the things local people actually remember.
What do you remember?
