Valley View

England’s Lane, Belsize Park, London 1974, at the home of Conroy Maddox England’s leading Surrealist: Vince Rea and I had motored down here from Jarrow. Vince was in his forties: I was 17. Vince Rea was looking for exhibitions material for his gallery, The Bede Gallery, Jarrow.

Vincent Rea was(is) a very handsome man, like a Caravaggio model, looks distilling from both Irish and Italian male beauty. Although more heterosexual than a Bison bull, Vincent Rea could talk freely about homo eroticism and often did. Tall, with a square Roman face, his wavy hair at once pewter and brown at the same time.

Perhaps these good looks helped him infiltrate the The Cultural Scene, like, of 1950's Newcastle.

“You look like you’ve been sculptured by Michelangelo”,
A trainer says to Arnold Schwarzenegger in Pumping Iron. And after all Arnold Schwarzenegger spent a short time in North Shields.

I first met Vincent Rea in 1973, when having played tennis with my two pals John Boak and John Richardson in Jarrow’s Valley View Park I walked into The Bede Gallery, Butchers’ Bridge Road, Jarrow. Pivotal to this first encounter was that Vince Rea’s father, a rough diamond, grew up with my father, a local union man and politician: Perhaps I could help him get planning permission from Labour led Jarrow Council.

Vince Rea’s ‘tischreden’ lasted two hours which consisted of fabulous stories of his life as a merchant seaman, the Remington typewriter office on Newcastle Quayside, and illuminating insights into Adult and Artistic life. His conversation was studded with axioms and astute observations, which stamped themselves indelibly on me.

Vincent Rea belongs to an Exclusive Club of Two: Jarra Lads whose fame was hosted in Newcastle. (Under Newcastle Culture strangers and strangeness begins at the city walls). The other Jarra Lad was Patrick Woods, the Jarra Lad and team-mate of ‘Wor’ Jackie Milburn.

Vincent Rea was unusual for a Jarra Lad in knowing Sid Chaplin, Sirkka-Lisa Konttinen and the founders of Amber Films and The Side Gallery. Vincent Rea was really like an English version of Richard DiMarco or Cyril Gerber. These were often opportunistic entrepreneur artists and writers accessing Arts Council Grants.

Vincent Rea’s achievements may at last be appreciated when his Bequest is built in to Jarrow School. Vince told me once, if England was towed out into the Atlantic Ocean they’d be sending divers down to find it. Now that sort of thing he may have overheard at the University Theatre interval.

But when he himself expires, perhaps only then will his legacy be understood.

The Wasteland of Jarrow Slake*, where Vincent Rea seems un-pretentiously tortured by a spirit, was the execution place of William Jopling.

*The nearby pylon is the tallest in Northeast England.