JAMES SLATER
9/04/2008
Journalists' Charity vice-president Jim Slater, believed to be the last surviving eye-witness of the terrifying Mill Dam race riot which erupted in South Shields in 1930, when Arab seamen battled with baton-wielding police, has died (November 30) at the age of 96.
The riot was a genuine "blood running in the gutter" scenario, with knives, chairs and even cobble stones ripped from the road used as weapons by the seamen. Jim saw one policeman stretchered off face down with a knife sticking in his back. "If they'd taken it out he would probably have died," said Jim, a teenage junior reporter at the time.
The Mill Dam riot had an unexpected re-examination more than 70 years after the event when North-based author Peter Mortimer became fascinated by the story. He decided to use it as the basis of both a book (Cool for Qat) and a stage play (Riot - South Shields 1930). To Mortimer's surprised delight NPF Council member David Leach was able to put him in touch with Jim Slater, who gave him an impressive amount of first-hand information.
"Jim was of enormous help to me in 2004 when I was researching the South Shields Yemeni seamen's riots," said Mortimer.
"I never expected to find an eyewitness, especially one such as Jim who had observed the riots as a junior reporter and could conjure them up in exact, vivid detail. He was wonderfully lucid, sharp and great company."
Jim, who enlisted in the Royal Tank Corps on the outbreak of war and served throughout the war as a sergeant with the Eighth Army, was renowned not only for his sheer professionalism but for his kindness and help to youngsters joining the profession.
He joined the NPF in 1951 and became deeply involved in working for the Fund, joining the Northern District Committee three years later. His dedicated service was recognised when he was appointed a vice-president of the NPF in 1983.
Jim Slater was one of the most respected journalists in the North of England and an active member of Cleadon Methodist Church.
Starting his career as a copyboy at the Shields Gazette when he was 14, he later moved to the Newcastle Evening Chronicle, heading the South Shields office and ultimately working as municipal editor for both the Chronicle and its sister paper, The Journal.
Poacher then turned gamekeeper as Jim was snapped up by Newcastle City Council to become one of the country's first local authority PR officers before retiring in 1976 although Jim kept working right to the end. Only last year the Shields Gazette, the paper on which he started his career, serialized his memoirs of his early days in journalism.
Jim, whose wife Nora died when they were both 90, leaves two sons. Peter is senior partner of quantity surveyors Slater Jackson Associates and Michael a former managing editor of HTV, is director of Quadrant Media Training Ltd.