Our Friends in the North

Episode 1

1964

69 mins

Twenty-year-old Nicky Hutchinson returns to Newcastle in 1964 after several months working in the southern United States, where he participated in the emerging Civil Rights Movement in New Orleans. He first visits his girlfriend, Mary Soulsby, who is living with her parents and her disabled brother Patrick. He later has a small birthday gathering with Mary, his parents, Felix and Florrie, best friend George 'Geordie' Peacock and local councillor Eddie Wells, a friend of Felix's. After arguing with Felix about his past involving the Jarrow March, Nicky begins to campaign for the Labour Party in the upcoming election, much to the annoyance of Felix. Geordie introduces Mary to his friend Terry 'Tosker' Cox, who immediately begins to make romantic gestures towards her despite the presence of Nicky. Eventually, after feeling that Nicky is spending too much time with the Labour Party and no longer has time for her, Mary has sex with Tosker, which leads to her getting pregnant. Geordie, disheartened when Tosker and Nicky make it clear that they are no longer interested in forming a band, leaves Newcastle without warning and hitches down to London to get away from his forthcoming marriage to a girl he has made pregnant and from his drunken, abusive father. He quickly gets a job working in a café, where he encounters a former police constable, Berger, who claims to him that the Metropolitan Police is massively corrupt. He gives Geordie a letter to post to the Commissioner, outlining these allegations, before promptly being arrested. Following Labour's victory in the general election Nicky is offered a job by Austin Donohue, the Leader of Newcastle City Council, who outlines a series of large architectural reforms he wishes to bring in across the North of England. Despite protests from Felix that he should go to Manchester University, where he has been offered a place, Nicky accepts Donohue's offer.