Newscastle

With a population of 254 000, Newcastle cannot be said to be the largest education authority in the country or the largest city. However, it is the largest in the North East and as such has a very special importance to what is both an industrially historic and socially depressed region. Contrary to its geography book image it is a pleasant if not beautiful city — that owes much physically to its pre‐Industrial Revolution centre and the special nature of its people. It is also a casebook example of the mythical folk centre, with a name and a dialect that have spread much further than the city's size would normally warrant. At the same time its heroic industries, shipbuilding and mining, have left it with an unstable dependence on heavy engineering and the associated industries that grew up round them.