About the Audio

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Somewhere high up in the North Pennines, between everywhere and nowhere at all, is Weardale, a remote northern dale. It’s a place of old lead mines, deep worked out limestone quarries, and hill farming; the home of day-dreamers, explorers, incomers, artists, philosophers, sky-watchers, story tellers and travellers.

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Exploring 'England's last wilderness' Caroline goes on a journey underground and looks at how the North Pennines’ mines and quarries have proven a rich creative inspiration to writers.

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In the former mine at Killhope, she speaks to performers and audience members of Trapped, a physical theatre and film work performed by Experiential. The piece is inspired by the collapse of the San Jose Mine, Chile in 2010, when the world watched as 33 miners were trapped underground for 69 terrifying days.

With poet Sean O’Brien, Caroline also considers WH Auden, a poet known for his urban and urbane writing, but whose obsession with the North Pennines bordered on religious, and inspired many of his greatest poems.

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'Trapped'​ is the first is in a series of podcasts commissioned by New Writing North, narrated and recorded by CAROLINE BECK, and produced by Jay Sykes.

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Click on the links below to read about the other works in the Vinyl Outcry series.