Griffiths, Bill: - Before his untimely death in 2007, Bill Griffiths was an unlikely champion of the North East, its people and heritage. Born in Middlesex, he read history at UCL before graduating in 1969. A former Hell's Angel, Bill was at the center of the British poetry revival. He published out of his own small press, writing political pamphlets and essays on the arts in society, poetry and translating Gilgamesh, Romany, Welsh and Anglo-Saxon works. After gaining a PhD in Old English he fled 'Thatcherite London' and settled in Seaham where he embraced the northern way of life.