Jimmy Carter, President of the United States
of America, visits Newcastle on 6th May 1977
On April 2nd 2010, I wrote the below on this thread . . .
Newcastle Historian; April 2nd 2010 said:
The President of the United States of America visits Newcastle.
At some point in the future, I will do a full and detailed post to cover this visit to Newcastle by Jimmy Carter in 1977. The bulk of his time was spent, and all of his speeches and presentations took place, on the 'open spaces' (as he called them that day) in front of the Civic Centre and St Thomas' Church. He then went to 'Washington Old Hall', the ancestral home of the first president of the United States, George Washington.
I have quite a bit of information about this visit, and at some point will do a proper post on it.
.
Well, I apologise that it has taken me so long to get around to doing so, but here is my 'story' of the Visit of Jimmy Carter to Newcastle on 6th May 1977.
AND . . . I was there :cheers:that day!
Actually, that morning both myself and 'Mrs H' originally decided that we were not going to bother going to see JC, even though a visiting president of the USA was a very rare thing in the UK, just as it is now.
I quickly changed my mind though (after we had split up to go off to our respective workplaces) and I headed off down to the Civic Centre, instead of going to work. I later got something of a telling off from my boss, for going 'awol' that morning!!
Unknown to me,
Mrs H had done the same thing, and she was somewhere else in the big crowd, though I never actually saw her there.
It was very interesting to see Jimmy Carter, the 'peanut farmer from Atlanta', and to listen to him in front of our own Civic Centre. "J C" (I remember) famously said that morning (as he was given the 'Freedom of the City') in his pronounced 'Southern American' drawl . . .
"Howay the Lads - I'm very grateful to be a Geordie now!!"
Of course his visit to Newcastle that day is why we became a 'twin city' of Atlanta, Georgia, and there is much more about
'The Friendship Force' (as it is called) with Atlanta, later in this post.
I wanted to record the historic occasion personally, but in In those days I only had my little 'Kodak Instamatic' camera, with no
zoom lense of any description. Anyway, the below photo, that I took, shows just how close I was to him (with no 'zoom lense') that morning . . .
Here is my full collection of six photos from that morning (from my own Photo Album from that year) and those "very little specks" in the distance are : Councillor Hugh White (Lord Mayor of Newcastle) James Callaghan (Prime Minister) and Jimmy Carter (US President) . . .
Here are two "slightly closer" (!) photos of those same events, taken from the folowing days
Journal . .
This photo was taken by the 'Official City Council Photographers', as Jimmy Carter arrived at Newcastle Airport . .
A later letter of thanks to the Lord Mayor from the President of the United States . .
The visit, as recorded in the May 1977 issue of
City News' . .
The visit, as recorded in the
Evening Chronicle of that same day, 6th May 1977 . .
Shortly afterward,
BBC Radio Newcastle issued an LP record of the day . .
This next item will be of particular interest to those of you who were not around in 1977, and so did not see the "endless" coverage of the speeches on the National News.
This is a short excerpt from Jimmy Carters speech, in a YouTube Video . . .
All the speeches that day took place in front of the Civic Centre, but after that the President then visited Washington New Town, as shown in this really excellent little book, published by the
Washington Development Corporation . .
I recently posted the complete story of the
Washington part of Jimmy Carter's 1977 visit, in four articles taken from the above ^^ book.
The articles are on the 'Sunderland & Durham' Forum, in their
History and Old Photos thread . . .
Part One - Introduction and Background.
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=77463231&postcount=359
Part Two - Waiting for the President . . and . . The President Arrives.
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=77527381&postcount=361
Part Three - Leaving the Old Hall . . and . . The famous Tree Planting . . and . . The President leaves Washington.
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=77927125&postcount=367
Part Four - Washington from Old to New.
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=78541640&postcount=373
Finally - The resultant "Friendship Force" with our Twin City of Atlanta.
Very soon after the visit, Newcastle was "twinned" with Jimmy Carter's home City of Atlanta, and
the Friendship Force was started . . .
So, all in all, a VERY memorable day
.