Like Father (2001)

Like Father portrays a family in crisis, focusing on the dislocations of grandfather, father and son. Pigeon man Arthur Elliott, a 70 year-old whose working life in the pit gave him a strong sense of identity and pride, is losing his allotment to the local authority's coastal redevelopment scheme. Working as a trumpet player, a teacher and a club singer, as well as running an agency for club acts, 40 year old, ex-miner, Joe Elliott can just about scrape a living out of his music, but he is losing his wife. 10 year old Michael Elliott, who is living with the pit village folklore and the wreckage of the coal industry, is left to grapple with his own realities. Each of the three generations is struggling to come to terms with the past and find the ties that bind them. The three separate, but essentially integrated worlds, unfold against the rich and extraordinary backdrop of East Durham's landscapes and locations. It is the second film in Amber's coalfield trilogy. The Scar (1997) explored the lives of women in the aftermath of the failed Miners' Strike of 1984, and the closure of Durham's last pit in 1993. The third film, Shooting Magpies (2005) looks at the post-industrial generation, and the impacts of heroin in the colliery villages of East Durham. Development of Like Father began in 1998. Its dramatic content originated from actual lives and the unfolding of real events. Incorporating documentary situations, the film features strong performances from both professional and non-professional actors alike. Strongly committed to nurturing latent natural talent, Amber took the bold step of casting local people with no previous acting experience in each of the three main roles: Ned Kelly as Arthur; Jonathon Dent as Michael; and Joe Armstrong, who himself an ex-miner, plays Joe, and wrote the brass band suite which features in the film as a commission for his character.