Chemical firm mementos show a 'toe in the water'
Friends of St Cuthbert'sAn exhibition showcasing the legacy of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) is a "toe in the water" for future events, organisers said.
Residents have been invited to share memories and memorabilia at the weekend-long event at St Cuthbert's Church in Billingham.
It is part of a town council project celebrating the area's industrial past and promoting its potential as a national centre for ICI heritage.
Organisers Friends of St Cuthbert's - a community group currently in the process of taking over the running of the 1,000-year-old church - said they were testing the response in an effort to make it a long-term and sustainable asset.
Charles Wellington, from the group, said: "We are following in the footsteps of others who have organised exhibitions like this.
"What is new is that this will not be a single exhibition, I think this is a toe in the water.
"We want to test what the response is. Are people still positive about the ICI connection?"
The memorabilia includes a railway poster of the Billingham factory by celebrated artist Terence Cuneo, ICI overalls and personal items.
Wellington said: "There's this husband and wife whose fathers were at ICI and left quite a few records and both were completely different.
"One of them had masses of business correspondence and materials, projects he'd been involved in, and with the other it was social stuff, all the long service awards he'd been to, photos of him and his wife.
"That was just because one was a very sociable sort of guy and the other one was a very work-orientated sort of guy.
"So they're quite interesting just in terms of what they say about the people as well as about the times when they were working."
He said the exhibition was "just the start".
"At the back end of the year I think we're going to have a more formal exhibition trying to tell the story of ICI and our Anglo-Saxon past at the same time.
"But we felt that if we had this one first, it would give us a stepping stone that we could build up to telling the bigger story."
Wellington also said taking over the running costs of the church meant the group also had to run commercial events to "put money in the bank", as well as concerts and craft fairs.