A speech by HRH The Prince of Wales at The Redcar & Cleveland Leisure and Community Heart

I remember coming here six years ago now, at another difficult time. But, despite all the horrors and difficulties you face, in this remarkable part of the world you have these extraordinary reserves of resilience and, above all, a most marvellous sense of humour! How you keep it, I don't know! It's absolutely infectious and very special. 

I remember I had an aunt who told me that the great thing was to "accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative" … I still feel with your extraordinary reserves of ingenuity and skills going back so many years you've been at the forefront of so much of this country's industrial manufacturing success. 

I feel very strongly about this, for what it's worth, and we were talking about this just now in the meeting of the task force, that there seem to be huge opportunities for this area to be in due course the centre of excellence for engineering and manufacturing. After all, that is what made this country so great. 

All I can tell you is that I have nothing but the greatest admiration for the way in which you can put your skills to use and apply such ingenuity and determination and indeed humour to what you do. 

So despite the current difficulties, there are huge opportunities for you to build on. So nothing could give me greater pleasure than to be with you today and just to wish you every possible success in the future and I look forward to coming back on many other occasions.