MICHAEL Chaplin, son of the much-missed writer Sid, is retracing his father’s steps – almost literally – for this year’s Durham Book Festival. Mark Tallentire reports

IT’S summer 1951. The end of rationing is still three years away.

But in an attempt to bolster a feeling of recovery following the horrors of the Second World War, the Atlee government stages the Festival of Britain, a national exhibition aimed at celebrating British contributions to science, technology, design, architecture and the arts.

In this region, Sid Chaplin, the Shildon-born author who for many defined County Durham culture with his tales of mining and mining villages, contributed ‘The Lakes to Tyneside’ a guide to the North-East and one of 13 such works covering the entire country.

The same year, he became a father – to Michael, now himself a distinguished writer whose credits include the highly popular drama Monarch of the Glen.

Fast forward 60 years and Chaplin Junior, at the invitation of New Writing North – organisers of the Durham Book Festival, has penned his own guide to the region, assessing how it has changed in the intervening decades.

“We were just chewing the fat about the North-East and this had attractions for me because of the link with my father. I thought it might offer an interesting perspective,” Michael, a visiting professor at Sunderland University, says.

Instead of surveying the whole region as his father did, Michael chose to focus on particular details – undertaking six walks, meeting and chatting with people as he went.

Two are through Northumberland: from Holy Island to Bamburgh and Whittingham to Holystone; one is around South Shields; another takes him from Penshaw to Seaburn; the fifth leads along the Tees from Stockton to Middlesbrough; and the last took him from Ferryhill, where he grew up, to Durham City on Miners’ Gala day back in July.

Michael says he was surprised by the changes he observed – particularly in employment, with not just the region’s old mining and shipbuilding industries gone but also much of its farming and fishing.

There has been some reinvention, he adds, particularly in Sunderland – where he walked with Paul Callaghan, the last chairman of the now-defunct regional development agency One North East, and John Mowbray, formerly president of the North East Chamber of Commerce.

He regrets the loss of a unified regional identity – from a time when mines covered the area and regional institutions (he points to Tyne Tees and Northern Arts) were much stronger; but is surprised by the “intense” feeling of community that remains.

The booklet has been quick work.

Michael undertook all six walks during July and wrote the near 20,000-word ‘There Is A Green Hill: Walking Around Northumbria, Walking Around My Father’ in August.

He will present his piece, part of this year’s Durham Book Festival Living Landscapes theme, in discussion with Professor Keith Shaw of Northumbria University, a notable social and economic historian who he says has been something of a mentor on the project.

The Festival, the biggest in the North-East, runs from October 6 to 18 at venues across County Durham, featuring star names such as Sheila Hancock, Kate Adie and Dennis Skinner.

“I think it’s a really engaging and interesting programme. It gets better and better each year,” Michael says.

He hopes to hear the Beast of Bolsover reflect on his long political career, plus Chris Mullin discuss his fellow former Labour MP Tony Benn and County Durham-born broadcaster and journalist Anne McElvoy share her experiences of revisiting Easington 30 years on from the Miners’ Strike.

Michael was last in the public eye paying tribute to Norman Cornish at the great pitman painter’s funeral in August. His father and Cornish were long-standing friends.

“It’s the end of an era in a way,” he says.

“He had quite an amazing career – 75 years painting the world around him.

“It’s hard to think of how anyone else is going to do that.

“We’re left with this incredible body of work that will always define the culture of coal in the 20th century.

“He was a great man and a very, very fine painter.”

Looking ahead, Michael is working on what he calls an “epic” project for the BBC telling the real events of the First World War through fictional characters. Tommies will be broadcast between October and 2018.

Michael Chaplin will present his booklet at Palace Green Library, Durham, on Saturday, October 18, from 11am to noon. Entry costs £6, or £4 for concessions.

For more information, visit durhambookfestival.com