Wallsend Town Hall is a handsome old building on High Street East, an extension of the main road that runs through the town. It used to be the seat of North Tyneside Council and it may still be as far as I know as it certainly contained the chamber in which the councillors would meet and lots of meeting rooms for the officers. It has a fine stone façade on the ground floor and a red brick first floor with a balcony above the main entrance, a balustraded roof line and a domed copper roofed clock tower. It even has a small layby directly in front to allow the civic cars to pull up to pick up their important charges.
But it is a building with four corners (no surprise there) and each corner presents a different perspective to the viewer. It is the Town Hall when viewed from the North West corner but is a public house from the North East corner (the Coach and Horses in case you fancy popping in some time). If you make your way down to the back of the building you will see that it has served other purposes as well and from the South East corner it is, or rather was, a swimming pool. Finally from the South West corner you can make out what was the old fire station for the town.
It is one building, four corners and four different faces presented to the world. It is a pastiche, a collage of four separate purposes amalgamated into one brick and stone edifice but it is so much more. It is a metaphor for the way that we interpret the world in which we live, its problems, opportunities, issues and solutions. Why? Because the way that we view things depends entirely upon our own perspective and depends often upon the way in which we have approached them or come across them. They are indeed as the saying goes our own points of view but our own view is unlikely to be the only view. What we see is not what others see and what we say is not what others will hear. With so many different perspectives on offer the Town Hall reminds us that it is time to take a walk right round the building to see the views that others have.
So next time you find yourself at loggerheads with someone, it may well be that while you are making your way to the Town Hall, they are already in the pub.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 