Our Hospitals Charity: is at James Cook NHS Hospital, Middlesbrough.

We would like to say a huge thank you to Philip Meadows a local artist who designed a calendar for us, raising an amazing £6,225.00 for the new children’s A&E department at James Cook NHS Hospital.

We would also like to say a big thank you to Mark Bennett and Dave Spencer from The Art House in Middlesbrough for selling the calendars for us, and a special thank you to Huntcliffe Lodge and Hazel Grove Lodge of Saltburn Freemasons who covered the cost of the print run meaning every penny went to Our Hospitals Charity.

Philip said: “I do like to volunteer, as an artist you do have a following and can use this to do good works. With that in mind, I got in touch with the charity to see how I could get involved and the idea of the calendar came out from there.”

“I have painted all my adult life but in the last five years or so I paint from my memories. My work has increasingly focused on the Teesside of my childhood. The time frame I suppose is 1960s to late 70s. My father worked at Dorman Long, dying when I was six. My elder brother took me to the match from about the age of eight.

“I think of Ayresome Park as the heart of Middlesbrough. If the Boro were doing well people seemed to walk taller. I loved a night match best, the dark streets and the brilliant lighting when you got inside. it was like black and white TV outside and colour when you got in. I loved the hum and crackle of the floodlights.”