News: The real Byker Grove: Inside the youth clubs that inspired Ant and Dec's childhood TV classic

When any child of the 90s finished school, chances are they’d stick the telly on and watch Ant and Dec living life at the fictitious Byker Grove youth club. Nearly two decades on, the show is coming back, but the lads sitting in a very real Byker youth centre at 4pm on a weekday have never heard of it.

The Chevron is a place to play a game of Fifa, beat a journalist at pool and perhaps even find a job. “It’s not the best space in the world, but we’ve tried to make the most of it,” says Jennie Maughan, a youth worker at the centre.

Those who come to the centre face obstacles rarely portrayed on mainstream TV shows: high levels of poverty, persistent school exclusions and gang violence on their doorsteps.

“It’s one of the nicest communities ever, like. Everyone knows their neighbours, everyone can call on their neighbours if they need help, someone to look after their child, or some food or something,” says Maughan, who is the director of youth and community engagement for local charity Foundation Futures.

But struggles with youth violence can start as young as 11. “There are issues as well with postcode wars. Some young people can’t go to school, because it’s in the next area, which is literally a 10 minute walk down the street,” Maughan says. “They’re very aware of it, because the issue of youth violence happens on the streets, on their doorstep. So they can’t get away from it.”

Along with launching Ant and Dec’s careers with Byker Grove, Byker is famous for the Byker Wall, a grade two listed continuous block made up of 1,800 homes. Statistics tell their own story: unemployment sits at 6.3%, compared to 3.4% nationally. 43.1% of people 16 or over are economically inactive, compared to 39.4% nationally. As a region, the North East faces severe child poverty. One in four children live in poverty, with the number of those coming from working households on the rise. Do grassroots solutions, like those on display in this tiny youth club, hold the answer?

Children in poverty are the most likely to be excluded from school, a study found this year. Schools, says Maughan, are failing to fix the cycle. “What we tend to see now is that a lot of the exclusions are low level disruption, but just over a long period of time. When we take the young people out they’re not challenging, they’re just wanting to be heard and listened to, and sort of given a chance,” she says.

Employment is a solution, but for a young person with little or no qualifications, getting a job is “near impossible”, says Maughan. Foundation Futures works with employers to convince them to take a chance.

One of those helped into a job through the Chevron is Raf, who has just lost a penalty shootout on the PlayStation in brutal fashion. Now 20, he keeps coming back to the centre – after all, he says, “it’s where the boys hang out.”

“Didn’t enjoy school. Didn’t learn nowt from it,” he says. “I was in isolation, mate, stuck in a room every single day. I was smoking loads of tabs”. But Raf has just finished a two-year scaffolding apprenticeship. “It got us a job, and that’s obviously just been the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he says.

Still, he thinks Byker might just be unfixable, a place the rest of Newcastle looks down on. A lack of money holds everything back.

But while some services have been pulling back, big investment is on the horizon for Byker. St Michael’s Church, which sits at Newcastle’s highest point, is being transformed into a hub with a £4.2m government grant. When it opens in January 2025, those behind the Lighthouse Project hope it will provide services for around 1,500 young people a year.

Leo Pearlman, the producer bringing Byker Grove back, says the community has been “crying out” for it and hopes the show can play a part. “The far more meaningful impact we would love to achieve would be through helping the Lighthouse Project team to improve the lives and prospects of the local youth of the North East. We’re right behind this project and will provide whatever support we can,” Pearlman says.

Nick Hartley, a Green councillor in Byker, hopes the show can reflect the realities of life on his patch – the impact of a broken economy, but also a celebration of resilience. Unlike many dead WhatsApp chats, the Byker mutual aid group set up during the pandemic is still going strong.

And, of course, there is the litter, he says: “The first problem has to be the litter, because when people see that around the place, they think actually it’s going to change.

“Getting people out together, picking up litter together, is a way of helping form connections between those pockets of the community that are close, and those groups of people that feel quite disconnected and isolated.”

At the end of Byker Grove, the young people on-screen learned they were characters in a made-up TV show. They are allowed to write their own endings. Maughan’s emotionally draining work tries to put that power back in the hands of Byker’s young. “We’re very much, don’t give up on people,” she says.

“People make mistakes all the time, but everyone should have a chance to redeem themselves, and have the support that they need to get back on their feet, regardless of the circumstance.”

Source: Big Issue Online, article by Greg Barradale