A review of the DVD, We're Still Here: Portrait of a Steel Community

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• view video clips & purchase the DVD: We're Still Here: Portrait of a Steel Community
  

A review of the DVD set We're Still Here: Portrait of a Steel Community, by Dai Blatchford, Local Correspondent, Gwent Gazette.

Glyn Walters has assembled a film that goes to the heart of the communities of Blaenau Gwent, and in particular Ebbw Vale.

He has managed to create a potted history of Ebbw Vale Steelworks and the communities that supplied the brains and labour that made it once the envy of the industrial world.

By assembling footage, some of it dating from 1914, and taking a chronological approach, he gives a real picture of a community at work and at play. We meet real characters, witness exciting developments and enjoy the opportunity to wallow in nostalgic recognition of much loved landmarks sadly now no longer with us.

If the film has an overall message it is that the unique melting pot that produced the proud Valley people of Blaenau Gwent must somehow have been touched by Angel dust producing as it has people who are as hard as they are soft; as passionate as they are reserved; as humorous as they are dour, and always, always survivors. Industry will come and go, large and soulless corporations will continue to attempt to rip the heart out of communities for their profit but they will never extinguish the fire that burns in Valley souls.

The message from the film maker and the stars of this film is one of defiance that historically the Celts gave to successions of invading armies. Today the people of the Valleys give to all those who place profit above people this message: "WE'RE STILL HERE"!

'We're Still Here' is a 2 disc DVD set containing 31/2 hours of unashamed nostalgia than anyone connected to the valley town of Ebbw Vale or its giant industrial landmark, the steelworks, will treasure forever. Now digitally remastered the series faithfully records the optimism and camaraderie prevalent in the 50's and 60's under the paternalistic guidance of Richard Thomas and Baldwins, only to be followed by successive decades of nationalisation with all its inherent anxieties of relocation and job losses. They say that 'Time and Tide' waits for no man, but in this production Glyn Walters not only applies the brake on time but somehow also manages to bottle it.

• Disc 1 (2 hours approx.)
  

Originally reproduced from 16mm film footage from the popular company quarterly film magazine programme 'Ingot Pictorial', these black and white films were screened in all of Ebbw Vale's four existing cinemas. Commentary was added by such luminaries as Eammon Andrews, G V Wynne-Jones and John Snagge of Boat Race fame. The films formed an important part of the social fabric of the area at that time

• Disc 2 (1 1/2 hours approx.)
  

Again using some film material kindly supplied by Ebbw Vale Archival Society together with video material from the producers own extensive personal collection the Story is brought right up to date, to the point of the final ignominy, the final closure of the iconic Giant Steelworks.

• view video clips & purchase the DVD: We're Still Here: Portrait of a Steel Community