Muhammad Ali’s Tyneside visit remembered as wedding invite goes to auction
Wedding invite recalls Ali's famous visit to Tyneside, which inspired North East play. Tony Henderson reports
Almost half a century on, a wedding invitation from Muhammad Ali and his wife Veronica is set to go under the hammer.
Three-times world heavyweight champion Ali and Veronica came to South Shields in the summer of 1977, attracting huge crowds.
The couple’s visit included having their recent marriage blessed on Sunday July 17 1977 at the Al Azhar Mosque on Laygate Lane in South Shields, which drew a crowd of 7,000 well-wishers.
Now the framed wedding invitation signed by Ali and Veronica is on offer at Northamptonshire-based Budds auction on December 2, with an estimate of £500-£800.
It is addressed to Mr. and Mrs. A. Pritchard and includes an address in Souter View in Whitburn, with guests informed that the reception would be held at S&N Breweries’ Brandling House in High Gosforth in Newcastle.
The visit was the inspiration for a play by Ishy Din – whose work spans stage, television, film, and radio – titled Champion, at the Live Theatre in Newcastle earlier this year.
The drama, described as a play with a knockout cast which hit hard, showed the effect that such a major event had on a mixed-race family in South Shields and asked questions about identity and community.
At the time Ishy Din said: “When Live Theatre approached me to write a play for its main stage my mind immediately went to Mohammed Ali’s 1977 visit to South Shields. It was the only place I could see this story being told and I hope I honour not only the great man himself, but the South Shields community that embraced him.”
Ishy, from Middlesbrough, was a youngster when Ali visited. He said: “The Ali fights are seared into my memory. I didn’t grasp his achievements or politics, I was simply swept up in the collective excitement in our house.
“My play seeks to capture the essence of Ali’s visit which underscored the inter-connectedness of people and places and showed how a global icon could touch lives in the most unexpected settings.”
Ali came to Tyneside to promote boys’ boxing clubs at the invitation of Johnny Walker, a painter and decorator from Whitburn.
He toured South Tyneside in an open-top bus, visited Gypsies Green Stadium in South Shields to meet the crowds, played darts with world champion Alan Evans and was presented with an illuminated scroll of honour from the Mayor of South Tyneside, Sep Robinson.
His four-day visit also took in Pendower Hall Special School and Grainger Park Boys Club and an event at the Mayfair Ballroom.