Angel at 10

After working on The Angel of the North, Mike Wood said it was difficult not to find everything else an anticlimax.

The civil and structural engineer worked at Hartlepool Steel Fabrications and was project manager for the Angel.

He said: "It's a chance in a lifetime to work on something like that. It's never ever going to come again.

"For me personally after that pretty much every straightforward job was an anticlimax and it was probably the reason I didn't stay at Hartlepool Steel Fabrications for an extended period of time.

The Angel was transported on low loaders

"Going back to constructing factories, oil rig components, that sort of thing was very, very mundane and shortly thereafter I began to look for pastures new."

Difficult challenge

He said working on the Angel was a unique project. Instead of a conventional set of drawings, the firm received a tailor's dummy and a timber model with wings on.

The dummy was in the shape of sculptor Antony Gormley's body and the firm had to scan it, produce computer co-ordinates and then magnify it 10 times to produce the Angel.

He said the project kept 22 men in work for about a year.

Mike described it as a "very difficult challenge" technically. The initial plan from Antony Gormley and advising structural engineers Ove Arup was that it would be made from cast steel.

But Mike said they realised that it would be too heavy and they came up with an alternative structural method to enable it to come in on budget and on time.

The Angel arrived on 14 February 1998

He said that working with Antony Gormley was "surprisingly easy" but recalled a critical point which came shortly before the Angel was due to be installed.

Mammoth task

He said: "I remember a last-minute change to the Angel probably two weeks before it went to site at Gateshead and it was quite monumental.

"Until two weeks before, the construction drawings showed both wings at 180 degrees so it was a perfect line through the body and Gormley wanted the Angel to be embracing people as they travelled towards Gateshead.

"And there was therefore a need to bring the wings forward three-and-a-half degrees on both sides just to give this embracing feature.

"Now when you have got a body that weighs 100 tonnes and each wing weighing 50 tonnes with a precise connection detail which had already been constructed it was a mammoth task to change that last minute."

He said they agreed to do it and Antony Gormley footed the bill for the cost of the change, which was about £20,000.

He said: "When I got there I was amazed to see the number of people that were milling around that had actually travelled up with the Angel, that were climbing on top of it, that were inscribing notes in chalk on the body of the Angel.

"And then the day began. It was a magnificent day. We were very, very lucky with the weather and on the day everything went to plan."

He said at the start of the contract some of those who were working on it were not wholly for it, but by the end the mindset had changed and there was a real sense of pride.

Time capsules

He said: "You'll find that if you were able to go inside the body, which of course is hollow, I daresay that every man that worked on it will have welded his name on it and the date that he worked on it.

"You will probably find if you were to go inside that there would be a number of unauthorised time capsules that exist.

Hartlepool Steel Fabrications' sign on the wings

"I remember when it was being lifted from the horizontal into the vertical there was all sorts of light clattering noises and it must have been canisters that guys had put inside.

"And I remember people saying 'what's that?' and at the time it was stated that that was probably just the stresses and strains of the structure just moving as it was placed into the vertical.

"So I think every guy that was associated with it in whatever shape or form at the finish was very proud of it."

Mike believes the Angel has improved with age. He said he always suggests people stop and take a look rather than just driving past.

He said: "I suggest to people that they don't only just pass it because within four or five seconds you just can't appreciate it.

"You need to stand at the foot of the Angel and look up and see the curves and fabulous workmanship that exists there."