Robert Westall’s North East

Last month marked the 40th anniversary of the publication of The Machine Gunners and today would have been Robert Westall's 86th birthday.  To commemorate the occasion we thought we'd share a post from one of our volunteers.  Grace created a brilliant online resource for the Westall Collections which explores his connection to the North East. 

The first page of the first draft of Robert Westall's The Machine Gunners. Published 40 years ago, Westall won the 1975 Carnegie Prize for Machine Gunners.

I have been uncovering Robert Westall’s intriguing archive for a project with Newcastle University. This project’s aim was to highlight the archive and make it even more accessible through a digital platform. Each member of the project simply had to pick an archive to publish online. As a student at Newcastle University studying an MLitt specialising in children’s literature, as well as a volunteer at Seven Stories archives, I knew where I would look for material…

I chose to work with Robert Westall’s archive, the first archive to call Seven Stories home, not only because visually it is very aesthetic (gorgeous handwriting, entertaining notes and doodles…) but because I felt his unpublished personal writing was, quite frankly, stunning. He wrote in large sketchbooks about his home county, Northumberland, in such an honest and poetic manner that I felt it was a resource worth making more accessible to the public. His children’s books often feature the North East, The Machine Gunners (1975) is set in Garmouth (a fictional town based upon Tyneside) and The Kingdom by the Sea (1990) follows a young boy as he travels up the coast too. In his published works the North East is a solid setting, it creates the backdrop to his dramatic tales and it defines the dialects of the characters. However, in his unpublished works, we see the North East as Westall saw it, with pride of place as the focus of his writing.

Westall wrote;

‘If you attempt to drive up the coast of Northumberland, something goes wrong after Seaton Sluice; twist and turn as you will, you get caught in a maze of spoil heaps, and roads cracked and patched after mining subsidence’.

He takes you on a journey through the seaside towns and villages, discussing the fishing traditions, the tourism trade and the mining past. His love of the North East is at times at odds with his sadness over the changes that are taking over and changing his childhood landscape.

Selection of notes about the North East of England in the Robert Westall Collection

I photographed the sketchbooks and created a website to display each page separately. If you click on one of the items, scroll past the item information, you can click on the selected page and zoom in on each one individually, reading every word he has written. Whilst it is not quite as fun as trooping to Newcastle and digging into the Seven Stories Archive yourself, it is not a bad way of accessing a quietly, fascinating collection. Westall recalls his childhood home, a landscape which despite causing him grief through the inevitable changes happening to the traditions of the communities, was also given a significant presence in children’s literature due to his work.

Check out the website here

- Grace Owens

If you'd like to find out more about the Seven Stories Collection, then 

email: collections@sevenstories.org.uk or phone: 0191 495 2707 or comment on this blog.

Moving Stories in the archive: 'The Machine Gunners' and the BBC

In this special blog post to coincide with our current exhibition Moving Stories: Children's Books from Page to Screen, we look at another children's book featured in our collection that has been adapted for the screen, Robert Westall's The Machine Gunners.

First published in 1975, The Machine Gunners was Robert Westall’s very first novel. The story follows a group of north east school children during the Second World War who manage to take the machine gun from a crashed German aircraft. Originally written for Westall’s son, Christopher (who later died in a tragic motorcycle accident), the book draws heavily upon Westall's own childhood on the north east coast (the book is set in fictional 'Garmouth', largely based on Tynemouth where Westall spent the war as a boy). Upon its release, The Machine Gunners was critically acclaimed and brought Westall the first of his two Carnegie Awards. The novel is still a much-loved classic and in 2007 made the list of top ten all time Carnegie winners.

One of the notebooks in which Robert Westall wrote his manuscript for The Machine Gunners,
from the collection here at Seven Stories

In 1981, six years after the book's publication the production rights were bought by the BBC. Television drama made for children and young people was becoming increasingly popular at this time (Grange Hill had only just made its first appearance three years earlier in 1978) and television companies were eager for stories that had potential for serialisation. The much-loved and critically acclaimed, The Machine Gunners, presented an ideal opportunity for the BBC and they set out to secure the rights for a six part drama.

Letters from the BBC to Robert Westall about The Machine Gunners,
from the Robert Westall collection here at Seven Stories

The first episode aired on 23 February 1983. The script was written by another well-known writer originally from the north east, William Corlett - who, as well as being a script writer and playwright, produced a number of successful novels for children and adults. The series director was Colin Cant, a specialist in children's drama who, as well as serving for many years on Grange Hill, went on to direct other children's book adaptations including Moondial (by Helen Cresswell) and The Children of Green Knowe (by Lucy M. Boston).

The series was well received by audiences and is even now fondly remembered by many. Of the adaptation Robert Westall himself wrote:

"I quite approve of the TV serial made from 'The Machine Gunners'.   The script writer was William Corlett, who also writes children's novels.   He loved the book very much – perhaps too much, for he could not bear to leave many incidents out, and at times (as in the Mrs. Spalding incident with her knickers), things got a little rushed and blurred.   The fault lies with the BBC producers, who did not allow more than six episodes.   It takes about ten episodes to do justice even to a children's book, and they just don't seem to have the nerve to allow this many episodes."

('About 'The Machine Gunners'', http://www.robertwestall.com/the_machine_gunners_by_robert_westall.html)

Another of the notebooks in which Robert Westall wrote his manuscript for The Machine Gunners,
from the collection here at Seven Stories

In 2002, The Machine Gunners was again adapted by the BBC but this time for radio. The story has also appeared on stage - in 2011 a stage version was performed at Polka Theatre in London, commissioned by the Imperial War Museum.


The Robert Westall collection is available to consult by appointment at Seven Stories Collections Department. If you'd like to find out more about this collection or others that we hold you can
email: collections@sevenstories.org.uk or phone: 01914952707.

Material from the Seven Stories archive is currently on display at  an exhibition looking at the work of Robert Westall at the Friends of Weaver Hall Museum in Northwich, Cheshire: http://www.fowhm.org.uk/events/exhibition-robert-westall-a-writer-and-his-world/ 

If you'd like to find out more about other children's books adapted for the screen then why not visit our exhibition Moving Stories: Children's Books from Page to Screen at the Seven Stories visitor centre, Newcastle upon Tyne, until April 2015