Phoenix keeps rising

And, as the final explosion of red dust shot up into the sky 20 years ago today, there's no doubt those thoughts were echoed by just about everyone else in the small, north-west Durham town.

Thoughts about their own futures and families first and foremost - but also about what was to become of their tight-knit community facing the loss of another 4,000 jobs.

On that afternoon of September 12, 1980, Consett became the first one-industry town to lose the very source of what had brought it to life; the very first of a grim cull of major industrial closures that would throw millions on the dole.

And there were plenty of prophesies of doom at the time, summed up by the protestors who carried a coffin with a flag bearing the legendary 'Don't Bury Consett'. Famously a graffiti artist had spray-painted another slogan on a wall in the town shortly after the closure of the 140-year-old works - 'Will The Last Man To Leave Consett Turn The Lights Out.'

But the more immediate effect noticed by Tommy, who had himself been photographed at the last ever 'heat' at Consett steelworks for posterity, and for thousands of others in the town, was the end of the red dust.

"It was incredible looking back," says Tommy, now the 60-year-old chairman of the Derwentdale History Society. "It hung over the whole town and had been part of what life was here for generations."

Fellow steelman Billy Robson also remembers the dust: "You couldn't wash it off yourself after work. If the wind changed your mum's washing would have to come in and go straight back in the wash. Cars would be ruined and what it did to peoples' lungs doesn't bear thinking about."

And yet both Billy and Tommy remember life in the steelworks with great affection. "The craic was unreal," says Billy, now a YMCA senior worker, who was just 25 when he lost his job. "The laughs were something else. Everyone knew each other and got on together. I still dream about it. I can still picture where everyone sat. A lot of the old gaffers there died straight after it shut.

"Everyone had been talking about the works closing for years but it was like what kept those old guys going had been taken from them.

"I was one of those who panicked and sold my house straight away. I had a young family and didn't know what to do and wanted the money. There was a lot like me then. Every last family was connected to the works. Consett Iron Company was Consett as far as I'm concerned."

Billy's panic attack was felt by many across the region as the economic situation went from bad to worse. Further blows for Consett and the surrounding area made some feel like a higher force had it in for the town.

About 3,000 jobs had already gone from the works in the years preceding the closure and a further 700 were lost at Hownsgill Plate Mill.

Shortly afterwards 1,500 were to go at the nearby bearing factory at Annfield Plain and coal mines continued to close for the next 13 years until none were left. All that, and then the decision came to close down the town's railway station.

With 28 per cent unemployment in the district - 40 per cent in some parts - a rapidly declining population and rising suicide rate, it seemed that the doom merchants who had carried that coffin on the march had got it right. Consett was about to die.

And yet that hasn't happened. If you listen to leading members of Derwentside District Council, the future has never looked so bright.

Leader of the council Alex Watson points to the fact that the unemployment rate is under eight per cent - not much higher than the national average. He also notes that the population, which dropped from about 105,000 in 1980 to under 85,000, has begun to rise again.

The social make-up of the area is also changing. About 3,800 new homes, many for commuters from Tyne and Wear, will have been built in the area by April next year.

'It was a desperate situation at the time all right," Mr Watson concedes, "but we refused to die. We got tens of millions of pounds of investment and have attracted jobs here. We have turned the place around and there's a much cleaner environment."

But one North-East academic, Ray Hudson, a geography professor from Durham University, isn't so sure that all is well in Consett. Mr Hudson, who conducted an in-depth economic survey of the town in the early 1990s, says Consett was an extreme example of severe economic changes that happened throughout the country. "The truth is we don't know exactly how the people have survived or how the town is doing. For a start the statistics should be challenged. Even if there are more jobs most of them won't offer full time work for men.

"What is for sure is that the cataclysmic collapse, the total social breakdown, predicted at the time has not happened. People are more resilient than that. Despite all the trauma the community still reproduces itself."

Mr Hudson describes what he believes the town needs to improve economically. "Unlike similar areas on the continent, Consett has been left by the Government to survive alone. The local politicians, who have lost huge business rates, have had their revenue from council taxes capped from the Government and have faced a huge population loss, can only do so much. It needs national investment.

"At least the Thatcher Government showed an interest. They knew if Consett turned itself around they could claim a propaganda victory. But neither they nor the current Government will invest in places like Consett in the way they will in something like the Dome.

"But still the place survives - and there is always hope."

For ex-steelmen Billy and Tommy there is more than mere hope for the town. For them Consett is a living, breathing place with a future - even if it is not the booming area hinted at by Alex Watson. For them it is a place to take great pride in.

"The people here have coped extremely well," says Tommy. "You still find that community spirit that was there when they closed down the works. They'll never take that.

"All we need is something for the younger ones, something that pays a decent wage, something that will keep them in this beautiful place of Derwentside."

l Consett, A Commemoration of The Works, by Tommy Moore, The People's History Ltd, Suite 1, Byron House Seaham Grange Business Park, Seaham, County Durham, SR7 0PY (£9.99)