The Incredible Life of Wilf Franks

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Middlesbrough lad Dan Gilgan has put together a short video about his grandfather - the remarkable Wilf Franks. Tales that were told to Dan in the Linny Hotel and he has built on extensive research to write a biography of a man that trained at the famous Bauhaus in Germany but his training was interrupted by the Nazis taking over. Franks went to Boosbeck to help the miners, where unemployment was 90% - he worked with Michael Tippett on musical and stage productions including the very first opera of the great composer Tippett's career. In Boosbeck!
Franks was also a skilled dancer and set designer on the first BBC broadcasts at Ally Pally. But he was a political radical arrested on the front line facing the fascist of Oswald Mosley.
Artists, dancer, designer, teacher, activist Franks lived many of his later years in Stokesley and Linthorpe - sometimes talking to students at the nearby art college. There is much, much more besides, including a lost daughter and a bisexual love affair with one of the greatest composers in 20th century Britain. Please enjoy this short video talk for Local History Month on Discover Middlesbrough facebook.
WILF FRANKS
 
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