Line 18: Sky’s Nick Martin explains why he is proud to be Northern

I have always been extremely proud to say that I’m from the North.

I’m not one of those people who bang on about it, but I am proud of my roots.

I was born in Newcastle a year before Margaret Thatcher was elected as the first female British prime minister and embarked on 11 years of Conservative rule that, depending on who you talk to, was either an overwhelming success or complete disaster.

When I entered the world my dad worked in the shipyards on the Tyne, helping to design and build aircraft carriers and oil tankers. He had worked his way up from apprentice in the 1960s to draughtsman.

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The North East has a proud tradition of heavy industry, not just building ships, but mining coal to generate electricity and landing fresh fish to feed the nation.

I did not know it at the time, but I was born into a period of huge social and economic change – a period that would cause untold damage to the North, its industry, its people and especially its men.

By November 1979, oil prices and rising wages led interest rates to soar to an all-time high of 17%.

This crippled manufacturing and across the north of England businesses closed and national unemployment crept up to three million.

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By the time the 1990s came along, shipbuilding, mining, steel production and coal had been pretty much obliterated.

People like my father were either unemployed, working abroad or had managed to cling on to work locally.

This turbulent period in British history was captured rather well in the cult TV series Auf Wiedersein, Pet, a comedy-drama about a gang of seven British workers escaping the mile-long dole queues in England to take up cash-in-hand jobs in West Germany.

Men and their roles in society were changing in a way that would be depicted two decades later in The Full Monty, a film which told the story of a group of out-of-work steel workers stripping to make money and rebuild their self-esteem.

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When I say their roles in society were changing, I do not just mean they were at a loose end, I mean they were on a course to live shorter lives than men in the South.

My dad struggled to find regular work, accepting short term contracts and working six days a week.

By the mid-1990s, interest rates had reached 15% and a lot of families, mine included, were struggling to make ends meet.

In March 1995, at the age of 48, my dad collapsed and died in front of me. I was 16.

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I have spent the last few months working on a story about why, in 2018, men in the North are still living shorter lives than men in the South.

With the help of researchers at the University of Manchester, we have analysed rates of excess morbidity, which is the number of premature deaths in the North compared to the South.

It is nothing new to say that northern men live shorter lives than southern men, but we were staggered by new figures revealing the big killers – suicide, drugs, alcohol and accidents.

The vast majority of premature deaths can be put down to higher rates of social deprivation in the North, including a poor diet and increased levels of smoking and drinking.

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I have been trying to find out to what extent this shorter life can be blamed on deprivation alone or whether there is such a thing as “northern machismo” – or an attitude that prevents men from seeking help when they need it.

A doctor told me after my dad’s postmortem, he would have had symptoms to suggest things were not right. I have often wondered why did not he say anything and I will never know.

Almost all the indicators we use to measure deprivation are weighted towards the South, including life expectancy, heart disease, cancer rates, suicide, alcoholism, levels of tooth decay, literacy, road investment, wages and GCSE results.

You name it, the North fairs worse. But how can this be?

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Successive governments have either ignored the problem or deliberately diverted money to the South, where the perceived benefits to the national economy are greater.

The reality is that the North-South divide is a black mark on the whole of Britain. It perpetuates inequality of the worst kind, pits regions against each other and neglects those areas of greatest need.

Government policy has tried to direct funds through regional development initiatives, enterprise areas and grants, but there is very little evidence to suggest that these schemes have brought the economic prosperity intended.

And Brexit won’t help these areas either.

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According to regional forecasts, every area of the UK will suffer a decline in GDP, with the North East taking an 11% hit to economic growth under the government’s preferred outcome of a free trade deal with the EU.

Leaving with no deal will result in a 16% dip, and staying in the single market would cause a 3% decline.

These areas are as vulnerable today as they have ever been and things have to change.

Governments have to take this seriously, otherwise we run the risk of damaging not just one generation, or two, but leaving permanent scars on whole swaths of Britain that have been left to rot because they are out of sight and out of mind.

:: Line 18 is a journey through modern Britain in 2018. It runs the length of the UK from Northern Ireland into Scotland, passing through Lancashire, Manchester, the West Midlands, London and Essex.

It will examine the divides and fractures in society through the voices of those affected, and backed up by data which shines a new light on how Britain is changing.

(c) Sky News 2018: Line 18: Sky’s Nick Martin explains why he is proud to be Northern