The Angel of the North

Amazingly, this is the first time I've been to visit the Angel. It is pretty impressive close up. Whenever we've been past it in the car, I've been driving and not got a proper look.

The steel is weathering interestingly, and there are nice shiny bits at the bottom where people have touched and climbed on it.

I've been interested in it since I was a student at Newcastle; just after I finished my finals in 1996 I did some work experience at the Tyne and Wear Archive conservation department, based in the Discovery Museum of science and technology. One of the things I got to do was visit the setting-up of an exhibition at the old Swan Hunters shipyard, of engineering innovation in the area. One of the exhibits was a maquette for the Angel, about 18 inches high. I think it was a wooden one, not the one owned by Gateshead Council, valued at £1 million on the Antiques Roadshow, but it might have been, I can't remember... Anyway, the Angel itself wasn't set on site until 1998, so I must have been one of the earlier members of the public to see what it was going to look like in reality.

Then I moved away and although my sister has lived in the area ever since, I've only ever whipped past in the car.

There's a kids' football pitch next to it, which I thought was rather nice.