THE man who occupied The Northern Echo editor’s chair in the 1960s, Sir Harry Evans, had many proud moments but none more so than when he and his newspaper forced the Government to make free smear tests for cervical cancer part of the NHS.

He’d read a few lines in the Sunday Times saying that Vancouver was trialling the tests and he thought “why Vancouver, why not Darlington or Newcastle?”

The editorial expenses account must have been a lot more generous then because Ken Cooper, a graduate trainee, was despatched to Vancouver for six weeks to find out more.

Cooper’s biggest discovery, having gone all that way, was that the foremost expert on the subject was a chap called Stanley Way, who lived back home in the North-East of England and worked at Gateshead Hospital.

With Way recruited to the Echo’s fight, Middlesbrough MP Jeremy Bray was enlisted to ask questions in the Commons. Health Minister Enoch Powell rejected the Echo’s call but the campaign continued and his successor Anthony Barber finally agreed that the trials should begin.

How many lives were saved by The Northern Echo’s intervention is anyone’s guess but it was in the spirit of that campaign half a century ago that our most moving front page of this week was published.

A beautiful young mum called Jade Pateman, from Shildon, County Durham, went public with the news that, at just 21, she is dying of cervical cancer. Clutching her twoyear- old son Oscar in her arms, she called for the minimum age for cervical screening to be reduced from 25 to 20. “If the screening age had been 20, I might have been diagnosed sooner,” she said.

There are medical arguments against the age limit being lowered. Cervical cancer in under-25s is extremely rare and researchers say childbearing could be affected if tests are carried out unnecessarily.

Nevertheless, it is a debate which needs to be kept in the public eye. I applaud Jade for her bravery in highlighting the issue and we will continue to tell her story.

  • For more information about cervical cancer, go to jostrust.org.uk 

YOU meet some lovely people on the speaking circuit - and sometimes you encounter heroes...

It was nice to be speaking in my home village last night, doing my best to entertain Hurworth Senior Citizens Club, still going strong after 45 years.

Ernie Farr, 90 years young and still on the committee, was in the audience. Ernie helps collect the money for the club trips but, as a 17-year-old in 1943, his journeys were a lot more arduous.

Ernie (right) was recently awarded a medal for serving in the Russian convoys aboard the destroyer HMS Obedience, delivering vital supplies to the Soviet Union in World War Two. It is thought up to 400 sailors survived the four-year campaign, described by Churchill as “the worst journey in the world”.

Ernie, of Hurworth-on-Tees, near Darlington, is one of them and, at long last, his courage has been recognised by his country. Ernie – thank you.

IT wasn’t my best piece of planning – agreeing to be after-dinner speaker at the Durham Soroptomists annual dinner the night after the general election.

There’s not much sleep to be had on election night so I turned up at Ramside Hall feeling like death warmed up.

Nevertheless, a promise is a promise and the engagement was duly fulfilled.

This week, I received an email from Vyvyenne Mack, confirming that the grand sum of £481.20 had been raised in lieu of my fee and the cheque has been sent to the Butterwick Children’s Hospice.

It seems a long time ago now, and the night’s a bit of a blur, but thank you to the Soroptomists for their generosity.

WHEN I heard that Methodists in Barnard Castle were staging a display of knitted Bible scenes, I made it the subject of the daily Headline Challenge in which BBC Tees listeners try to come up with a better headline than the one printed in the Echo.

Our headline was “The Father, The Son and The Woolly Ghost” but BBC Tees claimed the points with “Knitivity”.

I received an email from a reader saying the Echo “should be ashamed of itself ” for making light of the Bible.

Apologies if anyone else was offended but I’d be very disappointed if God didn’t have a sense of humour.