This was in no way my project, and all done by the volunteers of Community Champions Middlesbrough
The photos are mine, unless specified, or clearly not mine, because they’re from 1979
I did help out with some painting, because the dinosaurs are near my studio. I even got to paint a small triceratops, which has long been a dream of mine
This project (undertaken during lockdown) was to rejuvenate the Tees Dinosaur Park, on the riverside by cleaning and painting the dinosaurs (which we’re looking tatty and graffitied) – with the aim of making it a bit more family-friendly and attractive to visitors
The dinosaur sculptures were erected in the late seventies ~ early eighties. In the (once) Heart of Teesside’s ironmasters district – as a Tribute to the local steel/iron construction industry – metal sculpture park makes sense. Not sure why they’re dinosaurs though, that doesn’t make sense. Probably because they’re cool af .
Some scale for this, the dinosaurs are life sized and volunteers weren’t allowed to use ladders (health and safety) so Dippy took the volunteers quite a while with roller sticks
The paint used was donated by local decorating businesses – so the dinosaurs were painted with whatever colours were on hand. The triceratops and babies were painted last by Jaqui and I – They were the only ones with custom mixed colours to make them more exciting for the kids to play on.
The dinosaurs were unofficially named by the volunteers, including Dippy, Florence the stegosaurus, And Dennis (named by the volunteer Dennis, who repeatedly suggested the name ‘Dennis’ for all the dinosaurs)
The project was an outstanding success, for which the community volunteers won a Civic Community award (2020) for making physical improvements to the neighbourhood and increased the popularity of the park with local people and visitors – afterwards the council added block seating to the park to accommodate families having picnics here
Aimee Charlotte 