'Slaggy island' at 150.

George Punshon has lived in South Bank for more than 40 years.

"And I'm still not accepted as a native," he chuckles.

That is ironic because no-one is a more proud battler for the one-time Teesside boom town than 76-year-old George. When times turned tough and the shipyard and ironworks closed, he founded the residents' association to fight back.

And he's still on more local fighting committees than a developer can shake a stick at ( even winning a volunteer award for it.

Daughter Karen McGarrity keeps up the family tradition as the area's community officer at the heart of South Bank's 150th birthday celebrations.

She grew up in the town and has stayed there for most of her 47 years.

She still lives in South Bank with quantity surveyor husband Joe, and their children, Paul, 19, at university in London, and McMillan College students, 17-year-old Becky and Adam, 15.

So when they achieve their dreams of being an archaeologist, an actress and a geneticist will they come back to live in South Bank?

"No, I don't think so," says Karen, shaking her head.

That is the dilemma for a once prosperous town so devastated by industry closures and unemployment, it hangs onto survival with a fingertip grip.

The young have left in their droves in search of jobs.

Even those who love every blade of grass, say South Bank has hit rock bottom and the only way is up.

But the boarded-up houses, absentee landlords and industrial dereliction don't tell the full story.

What you see is definitely not all you get with South Bank.

A century and a half after it was born to boom, you only have to scratch the surface slightly to turn up an enviable spirit of grassroots community. A town with a proud history and deep roots survives magnificently, despite everything.

South Bank is buzzing with the sort of caring, sharing, neighbourly life those in posher places can only dream about.

If you could bottle and sell South Bank spirit, a whole new mega-bucks industry would be born.

Pride in the place is what still stirs the soul and fires the fight.

It's exactly 150 years since South Bank was founded and the birthday celebrations kick off on Saturday with a carnival. Normanby Road will be closed for the parade of floats and everyone will end up on St Peter's School field for a fun-packed time.

"Are you videoing it?" e-mailed a pining exile in the US, one of a worldwide clan with fond memories of growing up in South Bank.

Once it had more shops than Middlesbrough, says George Punshon.

"All the big ones like Uptons, Hintons, Red Stamp Stores. It was a boom place with three cinemas, a dance hall, clubs and pubs. South Bank was where everyone came for their entertainment ( me included."

It was also a self-sufficient town in its own right. "Everything you could ever want was here," says George who has lived with wife Doreen in the same house since they arrived.

Karen remembers the family moved every couple of years until they settled in South Bank. "We never moved again, did we dad?" she says.

She and brother David went to Cromwell Road and then she went on to Eston Grammar before secretarial college in Middlesbrough and the jobs market.

"I was on the checkout at Asda for a while and loved it," she says. "It was brilliant. I didn't have to go out to meet my ex-schoolfriends, they used to come to me."

Outsiders took one look at the waste tips surrounding the iron and steel town in the boom years and dismissed it as Slaggy Island.

Now the name has been turned into a term of endearment on the Slaggy Island website, so interactive with the feedback of residents and far-flung exiles, it's like a night of banter at the pub.

Log on to discover scenes for the last TV series of Auf Weidersehen, Pet were filmed in derelict Aire Street in South Bank and then there's the history, the way it is now, the personal memories and much more.

It was set up about three years ago by Dick Fawcett, who lived in South Bank for 23 years before moving to Redcar, and has had getting on for an amazing 50,000 hits so far.

"From almost everywhere," says Dick. "Everyone who leaves has this nostalgia for South Bank.

"It's very sad the way things have gone down, but I do like to have a wander round the market still. These days I find though, I meet more people from South Bank in Redcar."

Graham Hubbard is chair of South Bank Tomorrow, which aims to promote the area through events and projects.

This year the birthday celebrations will look back over the area's amazing industrial and social heritage and the footballing history featuring Wilf Mannion ( with Golden Boy Green named after him ( and George Hardwick.

"I do not live in the community," says Graham; "but I've worked there for the past three years and have learned from the locals. I believe that despite the current state of the town, it has much to be proud of and has played a significant role in the development of the Tees Valley."

Ask him where the social centre of life is in South Bank and he says: "probably Asda".

And that is where ( among everything from fruit and veg to fridges ( there are plans to stage a nostalgic photographic exhibition.

There is huge support for the celebrations from the town's amazing number of thriving organisations, including the craft club, which is Jean Bassett's weekly social treat.

"I don't know how I'd manage without it," she says. "We meet to learn how to make all sorts of things, we're making snowflakes for Christmas now, and we go on trips away to craft fairs at Harrogate or Pickering and Helmsley."

When she married and came to live in South Bank from Guisborough, her parents were not best pleased.

"I expected this really horrible place, but when I got here I didn't know what people were complaining about. It has the market and you don't have to go anywhere else.

"It is sad, though, the way things have gone and I'm not sure what the future holds."

* South Bank Carnival is on Saturday, from midday, on St Peter's Senior School field. There will be a wild west show with an authentic native American in his teepee.

The parade ( which includes the last trolley bus and driver on Teesside - starts at 11.30am from South Bank Marketplace.

* South Bank Flower Festival in St John the Evangelist Church is on October 8-10.

* A photographic exhibition of old South Bank is planned for later in the year in Asda.