It's 25 years since the Angel of the North was unveiled on a former pithead baths site overlooking the A1 at Eighton Lodge, Gateshead.
The whole operation would be completed over the weekend of February 14 and 15, 1998, with the world waking up to the completed structure on Monday, 16. Quarter of a century on, the Antony Gormley-designed Angel is an established, well-known symbol of our region - but what was the reaction at the time? Here are 12 things they said about it when it was newly unveiled in February, 1998.
1. “The statue’s a monumental clanger” - The Sun.
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2. “I was not a fan of the Angel of the North at first. I must admit that now I have heard the money is to be invested in local engineering companies, I think it’s great. Well done Gateshead Council for winning the lottery for local workers.” - Reader, Newcastle, Chronicle.
3. “If the damn thing must look like a warplane, at least let it look like a Spitfire” - Reader, Gateshead Post letter expressing the opinion that the Angel of the North resembled a German Messerschmitt 109, model E.
4. “Pretty soon the angel could replace the Tyne Bridge as the image of the entire Tyneside tribe. After all, they don’t have one of those in Sydney...” - The Observer.
5. “Maybe the Angel of the North will embrace travellers with those wings and tell them that, wherever they live, here is homecoming” - Beatrix Campbell (The Guardian).
6. “Flash Gordon with wings and the feet of the Beast from the Black Lagoon” - Reader, Newcastle Chronicle.
7. “The Angel is a continuation of a long line of outstanding monuments stretching back thousands of years. It will be a wonderful surprise for people visiting Tyneside.” - Reader, Newcastle Journal.
6. “It will become a new symbol for Tyneside and one of the most recognisable landmarks in England” - Newcastle Journal.
9. “The majority wanted to applaud the bravery and imagination behind a project which will come to be admired and respected” - Sir Bob Scott, The Times.
10. “Gormley’s figure is said to represent an angel, but it more closely represents an old clothes peg and a foot rule...” - art critic Brian Sewell in the Mail On Sunday.
11. “It will look absolutely perfect. For our company there’s a bit of pride in this. What we’ve made will be in the public eye for generations” - Bill Stalley, managing director of Hartlepool Steel Fabrications, quoted in The Guardian.
12. “It is important to me that the Angel is rooted in the ground - the complete antithesis of what an angel is, floating about in the ether. It has an air of mystery. You make things because they cannot be said.” - Angel creator, Antony Gormley, Daily Telegraph.
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