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- The Regional Image Campaign
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- Television Advert
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- Colin Baldwin
- Arnab Basu
- Niel Bushnell
- Paul Callaghan
- Christopher Davy
- Amelia Dunn and Jacob Wylie
- Durham University Women's Rowing Team
- John Earl
- Wayne Edy
- Rhiannon Hiles
- Melvyn James
- Helen Kilner
- Simon Kujawa
- Terry Laybourne
- The Bowes Museum
- Tom Maxfield
- Jackie Maxwell
- Philip McDonagh
- Fiona Raglan
- Neil Robson
- Sharon Stephen
- Kathryn Tickell
- Colin Baldwin
- North East England eNewsletter
- Image Gallery
- Postcards from North East England
- Panoramic Views
- Spread The Word
Colin Baldwin
Colin Baldwin, kite surfer pictured with Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland
For Colin, like most true surfers, his sport is a way of life.
He first caught the surfing bug at the age of 12 heading off down to the beach at Tynemouth every day with his friends to catch waves and hang out. Four years later, he was entering competitions on the surfing circuit and had become really serious about his sport.
Colin took up kitesurfing eight years ago, and, as the fastest growing watersport in the world, it has given him access to an enviable lifestyle as a British Kite Surfing Association accredited instructor. Now kitesurfing takes Colin all over North East England and his working week is dictated by the direction of the wind and decisions about which beach will provide the best conditions.
Tynemouth remains a firm favourite but it is kitesurfing at Beadnell, in the shadow of Bamburgh Castle, which gives him the greatest sense of freedom and escape.
Bamburgh Castle
Standing on a rocky outcrop overlooking miles of beautiful, sandy beach, Bamburgh Castle has become an unmistakable symbol of the Northumbrian coast.
There has been a castle on the site since AD 547, a time when Bamburgh was the capital of Northumbria, a huge kingdom occupying almost a third of the British mainland and stretching from the Humber to the Firth of Forth.
The present castle began as a Saxon stronghold and was later developed by the Normans to become one of the most powerful castles in the North.
Bamburgh was taken by William Rufus in 1095 and it remained Crown property until 1610. A battle in 1464 reduced the castle to ruins with only the keep remaining intact and it was not until Victorian times that major restoration was carried out by William Lord Armstrong, the famous inventor and landscape genius.
Today the castle is still partly inhabited by Armstrong’s descendants and is open to the public who visit, what has become known as ‘the finest castle in England’, in their thousands every year.