SEASIDE arcades and betting shops warned today that plans for a £5m annual levy to treat gambling addiction were a big blow to family businesses hit by the economic slump. Trade bodies protested after the Government condemned the industry's very disappointing
Mark and Marie Huntrods are moving to pastures new. They are off to start a new life in Cyprus (Lucky buggers !). Anyway before they go, (wed 14th) they are having a bit of a leaving bash in the Middle House (Kings Head). Now you know Marks always
FA Cup third round day came and went. With it went the images of Ronnie Radford and a galaxy of parkas (or snorkels as we used to call them at Grange Junior School in Hartlepool) invading the pitch, the cardboard FA Cups wrapped in tin foil and
Our lead story tomorrow is about how thousands of trainspotters at North-East railway stations have been questioned by police as suspected terrorists. I'll admit to having always been a little bit baffled by trainspotting as a hobby. I can't for the
Right. We're back to the Headline Game good and proper. The story for tomorrow morning's battle on TFM radio is about a little boy in Kansas, called Judson King, who has fought a legal battle for the right to keep his pet hedgehog. Local
Further classes commencing this week are:- From Monday 5th:- Willington Youth Soccer (under 10s) 5-6pm. Soccer training (under 10s) with Rob Lee 6.15-7.15pm. Basketball (adults, 16 years+) 7-9pm. From Tuesday, 6th:- Willington Youth Soccer (under
A POLICE employee was bullied and intimidated at work, an employment tribunal has heard. In her job as a civilian in the Central Crimes Bureau (CCB) Susan Francis said that she was victimised by certain colleagues over a two year period from 2005 to
A COMPANY in the North-East which provides car parts for the motor industry has become the latest victim of the economic downturn - announcing it is cutting 300 jobs from its production line. Managers at the Wearside-based Unipres - which provides
A TEENAGER was behind bars last night for using a laser to dazzle the pilot of a passenger jet as it came in to land at a North-East airport. Following the attack on the KLM airliner, 19-year-old Ben Vout also targeted a Cleveland Police helicopter
A THIEF has stolen ten potentially dangerous warning detonators. The unusual theft took place on Sunday as a man visited relatives in Middlesbrough's Grove Hill estate. His Renault Megane Scenic was broken into between 6.45pm and 6.55pm and a
A LOCOMOTIVE made famous by 1968 television series The Railway Children will be repainted in Shildon. Work starts on Monday, January 12 at Locomotion: The National Railway Museum to transform the Great Northern Railways saddle tank engine back to its
TWO men escaped serious injury when their car and van collided on a County Durham road yesterday afternoon. Fire crews were called to the scene on Inkerman Road, near Tow Law, just after 2pm where one vehicle skidded on ice and collided with the other
SUPERMARKET giant Asda hope to create 40 jobs by enlarging and improving one of their North-East stores. The American-owned retailers are planning to update their six-year-old Bishop Auckland store where a new mezzanine floor would enlarge the shopping
VILLAGERS who will have their post office replaced with an outreach service are being asked to subsidise it, says their county councillor. Remote Rookhope, in Weardale, County Durham, was among the handful of branches to survive the axe when Post Office
A GROUP of students has returned to Darlington from France after five days living with local families. The thirty-four students on the A level French course at Darlington's Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College (QE) spent their time in and around the northern
POLICE are appealing for information after a man was attacked on New Year's Day. The victim was approached by four men while walking home after a night out in Darlington. One of the men punched him in the face and he fell to ground before passing out
NEW beginners karate classes are being held for children in Darlington. The classes are being held by Darlington Junior Karate Self Defence Club. They take place on Thursdays from 6pm to 7pm at Harrowgate Hill Church Hall on Lowson Street from Thursday
MORE than 1,000 homes were left without power after a fault on an underground cable. The blackout affected 1,217 homes in the Hurworth and Croft area near Darlington today(TUESDAY). The fault occurred on an 11kV underground cable at
JUDGES are set to discuss dozens of entries for an annual competition to find the cream of Darlington. Over the last few weeks, people in the town have nominated their unsung heroes for the Best of Darlington awards. The deadline for entries was at
Hutton Magna Village Hall is holding a Burns Night Supper on Friday 23rd January. The occasion will be celebrated with a traditional 3-course meal including haggis, neeps and tatties; the haggis being piped in. There will be a vegetarian
THE majority of Yorkshire people are happy with the local services offered by the NHS. According to a survey of local people and patients 73.2 per cent of them were content with the services provided. The survey, carried out by the NHS
NEWCASTLE United have reduced ticket prices for the FA Cup third-round replay against Hull City with juniors able to watch the match for just £5. The Magpies and Tigers must do battle again on Wednesday, January 14 (ko 7.45pm) after a goalless draw at
PUPILS can work, rest, or play after school at a new club in Bishop Auckland. St Anne’s Primary School and childcare centre Buddies teamed up to offer the sessions to four to 11-year-olds at the school on weekdays from final bell to 5.45pm. Youngsters
A WOMAN fell and broke her leg while she was walking at the White Horse carving in North Yorkshire. She fell on Tuesday, January 6 at 12.20pm as she walked with a group on the famous North Yorkshire landmark at Kilburn, near Thirsk. The 66-year-old
A SECONDARY school has completed a round of "successful" Ofsted reports since an educational development opened. Haughton Community School, part of Darlington's £37m Education Village, has received a satisfactory report from Ofsted inspectors. It follows
A POPULAR North Yorkshire youth centre has gained a reprieve after fears it would be forced to leave its premises. Thirsk Clock is based in the town’s Market Place and the lease on its building comes to an end in March this year. The building’s landlords
Format: PC Publisher: Electronic Arts Price: £34.99 FANS have had to wait an awful long time for this game. We’re all used to release dates slipping, but Spore’s gestation has taken an incredible eight years. Back then the idea of overseeing evolution
Hartlepool United's fourth round FA Cup tie with West Ham United will be televised live on ITV. The tie will kick-off at 12.40pm on Saturday, January 24. Pools earned their place in round four with Saturday's 2-0 win over Stoke City, a game which merited
A COUNCIL boss teamed up with one of the region’s big attractions to help make a charity worker’s life-long dream come true. Jack Parkinson, 27, is a train enthusiast who always wanted to ride on the footplate of a steam train. And Ryedale District
TWO big cats have been caught on thermal imaging cameras stalking deer in a British forest, a Government agency confirmed last night. Under a Freedom of Information Act request, the Forestry Commission confirmed that two ‘‘reliable’’ sightings
READERS who borrow library books are being offered the chance to win a bungee jump in a competition. North Yorkshire County Council’s library service is running the competition with prizes of up to £250 on offer. To take part readers must join a library
CAST out your mobile phones (but keep the SIM card, it’s quite important) and get ready for a new dawn in mobile technology. The sWap Watch has arrived. For too long the mobile phone has dominated the landscape of techno communications, while the
A LAW firm is offering a free new service to help people seeking advice about wills and probate issues. Gordon Brown Associates is holding free legal clinics at its offices in Chester-le-Street, Houghton-le-Spring and Sunderland. It will give free
FORGET the credit crunch - 2008 was the year of the figure crunch for strong-willed dieters Bill Hughes and Fiona Wild. And now the pair, both members of Hambleton leisure centre in Northallerton, are urging others to get over the festive excess by following
PEOPLE suffering from diabetes in Derwentside are being invited to participate in special guided supermarket tours. The aim of the tours is to help people manage their condition successfully and to highlight what to look for when choosing their weekly
IT IS the time of year again when Gareth Southgate, among others, criticises the month-long transfer window, Harry Redknapp goes mad on the recruitment front and, as usual, Stewart Downing attracts the interest of Tottenham. The difference
A COUNCIL has teamed up with Rotary Club members to offer to collect Christmas trees for recycling. Chester-le-Street District Council, in partnership with the town’s Rotarians, will pick up the trees from people's homes today (Tuesday) and
LIBRARY bosses have announced it is business as usual. Durham County Council’s Peterlee Library, which shared the same site in Burnhope Way with East Durham and Houghall Community College, is operating as normal despite the college moving to a new site
A PENSIONER from the North went on trial today accused of harassing an actor who starred as Ray Doyle in television's The Professionals. Sandra Price, 66, who lived in Settle, North Yorkshire, sent a series of offensive and intrusive letters
A TOWN centre shopping centre has reopened following an explosion in one of its shops today. Firefighters were called to Queen Street Shopping Centre, in Darlington, at 8.14am after a fire broke out following an explosion in the centre’s Superdrug
A PIONEERING energy plant has continued to recruit from the North-East. TechConsult UK has supplied seven key personnel for CompactGTL’s new Teesside testing plant. They include operations manager Nathan James, five operators and one administrator
MORE than 100 jobs have been saved at a garage door firm that was under threat of closure before Christmas. PC Henderson was faced with having to close on March 15, leading to 150 possible redundancies if a solution to its problems were not found
THE Priory Group, famous for treating celebrity addicts, yesterday expressed its disappointment that healthcare group Four Seasons had not accepted its merger proposals. Four Seasons owns and operates 52 care homes in the region and also employs
A PIONEERING phone rage course delivered to call centre workers in Darlington has received international recognition. Student Loans Company (SLC) trainer Alexis Farndell fought off competition from 800 other entries to be named World Trainer
A NORTH Yorkshire cheesemaker expects to boost its turnover by £1m after securing a deal with a leading supermarket chain. The agreement will see The Wensleydale Creamery, in Hawes, supply cheeses to be sold under The Co-operative’s own brand
Mike Amos climbs Roseberry Topping to get rid of some Christmas excess, but comes down with a bit of a bump. AN emett, or emmet as more recently it has been spelt, was the original name for an ant. In Yorkshire, and similarly sainted places, it
It promotes itself as a ward where women can give birth without too much medical intervention – so why aren’t more people using it? Julia Breen visits the Bishop Auckland maternity unit... I WAS expecting a busy, bustling ward, the screams of women
I WELCOME the first Hear All Sides contributions of Rose Teasdale and Philip Gatenby (HAS, Jan 1). I look forward to reading their letters and considering their views on current topics. I find it a great pleasure to contribute to all discussions
I WAS astonished to see the archive photograph of the Darlington branch of Woolies (Echo, Dec 12 and 31). It was taken in the summer of 1963, not the Fifties as you suggested, and it accidentally showed myself and Class 1A of St Augustine’s Roman
I REFER to your story headlined, “Sex on the beach man: ‘Wrong place at wrong time’” (Echo, Dec 30). The story about the British businessman Vince Acors being convicted of public indecency on a beach in Dubai brought back memories of the soap
WHY is it that some people keep on complaining about Tom Chambers winning Strictly Come Dancing – when it was the people who voted him the winner? It’s like a football fan saying his team was best, but the other side got a lucky goal. Well, in
I SHALL not be joining Ken Livingstone, Tony Benn, Bianca Jagger and Annie Lennox in their protests about Israel’s incursion into Gaza. Israel is acting in self-defence after years of severe provocation. How would America react if it were bombarded
AS is always the case in times of war, it is the civilians who suffer most. And as the casualties continue to rise with every day that Israel presses on with its offensive against Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza strip, there is a mounting
IT does not take much to realise that all the Palestinians have to do is stop launching rocket attacks at Israel for them to stop bombing locations in the Gaza Strip. World leaders have tried in vain to find a solution to stop the violence between
Dr Christopher Davidson, a lecturer in Middle East politics at Durham University, explains what brought the region to war and why the invasion may be the prelude to an even greater conflict… A TRAGIC new year has begun in Gaza. Hundreds of lives
PREMIERSHIP footballer Obafemi Martins has escaped a driving ban after doing 106mph in his sports car. The Newcastle United striker was caught on the A696 Woolsington bypass as he made his way to Newcastle International Airport. Martins was catching
A MAN has been cleared of killing a bookmakers’ manager during a row over a £60 bet. Trevor Hall, 38, had denied the manslaughter of Jeffrey Hilland, 52, who died of a heart attack during a row at his shop on June 2. Hall was due to be tried by
HARD-UP councils may have to foot the bill to get rid of a mountain of wastepaper rendered almost worthless as a result of the slump. The company given the task of collecting paper from dedicated households across the region has been forced to
A VICAR was arrested after a row with his neighbour over the height of a hedge. Residents living next to the vicarage in Castleside, Consett, County Durham, were shocked to discover that their vicar, Stuart Bennett, and his neighbour Brian Stokoe
ENGLISH cricket’s potentially- damaging rift at the top is unlikely to be resolved until Thursday at the earliest. That is when captain Kevin Pietersen, whose working relationship with coach Peter Moores appears to have broken down just five months
PARISH councillors fighting plans for at least three wind farms near their homes will meet with their MP tonight. Sadberge Parish Council is opposing plans for the countryside around their village to be used for more than 30 turbines. The parish council
ENGLAND kicking coach Jon Callard believes Danny Cipriani needs to look towards American Football in a bid to eradicate the charge-downs which are blighting his game. Cipriani, 21, had two attempted clearances blocked against Harlequins yesterday
PEOPLE keen to learn Spanish have a choice of three classes starting next week. The Workers' Educational Association is launching a class for beginners at The Hermitage School, Chester-le-Street, on Tuesday January 13, an intermediate class on Wednesday
HULL hero Dean Windass remains fully committed to the Tigers despite interest from other clubs, according to his representative. The veteran striker appears to be out of favour again at the KC Stadium, after being left out of the squad for the
FEARS are growing for Marks & Spencer jobs amid claims the high street giant is preparing for a wave of redundancies. According to a report in The Times, bosses will announce more than 1,000 job are to go as part of a company shake-up.
Blyth Spartans 0 Blackburn Rovers 1 CHILEAN midfielder Carlos Villanueva spared Blackburn boss Sam Allardyce further misery in the North-East as Blyth’s latest FA Cup fairytale very nearly lived on. Villanueva curled home a superb 59th-minute
RESIDENTS are being invited to nominate a local grot spot to be spruced up in an annual clean-up campaign. Easington District Council’s annual Pride In Easington New Year Big Clean is to be launched on Monday, January 12. The four-week campaign will
A SERIES of new courses is to get underway later this month for anyone wanting to try belly dancing, shape up their vocal chords or tune up a guitar Clayport Library, in Durham City, has organised the courses in conjunction with New College, Durham
NORTH news readers from past and present came faceto- face yesterday, to mark 50 years since the launch of BBC bulletins in the region. George House was the first face to be seen by viewers of a ten-minute black-and-white bulletin, known in those
MIDDLESBROUGH chief executive Keith Lamb last night confirmed that the club has received and rejected a transfer request from England winger Stewart Downing. The 24-year-old submitted a written request yesterday, in the wake of an improved offer
MORRIS dancing could be "extinct" within 20 years because young people are too embarrassed to take part, a UK Morris association spokesman said yesterday. The numbers of people participating in the traditional British folk dance are dwindling
A POLICE airman hoped the sentence handed to a teenager who turned a laser pen on his helicopter after targeting an airliner would act as a deterrent to others. Ben Philip Vout was sentenced to four months in a young offenders' institution after
A TEENAGER was behind bars last night for using a laser to dazzle the pilot of a passenger jet as it came in to land at a North-East airport. Following the attack on the KLM airliner, 19-year-old Ben Vout also targeted a Cleveland Police helicopter
FIREFIGHTERS were called to a town-centre shopping arcade this morning after a blaze broke out in one of the shops. Four appliances from Darlington and Newton Aycliffe attended the incident in Darlington town centre after being called to a
A jury was played a chilling 999 phone call to police made by a hysterical teenager just minutes after she was allegedly raped in her own home. Jurors at Teesside Crown Court were told the call was made after a man climbed into the girl’s room.
