If you are looking for a readable stocking-filler this Christmas, history could prove that your search ended on these pages.

Haunted Darlington by Robert Woodhouse (The History Press, £9.99)

EVEN if ghosts don’t exist, this is still an entertaining collection of spooky tales with local history and old pictures thrown into the mix.

All the ghosts you would expect are in there – it is amazing how many of the stately homes around Darlington which have been converted into hotels have ghost stories to tell when seeking a bit of free publicity – and there are loads of tales of the unexpected: shorthorn breeder Robert Colling who can still be shaving in a window of Barmpton Hall even though he died in 1820; the strange soldier who walks through the town centre and mysteriously throws himself into the Skerne when approached; a ghostly horsedrawn carriage which careers through the puddles at Piercebridge, and Albert the Butler who helps guests with their bags on the fourth floor of the King’s Head Hotel before vanishing – do you think he’s ever been spotted playing with matches?

Memories 256 told of the new history of Melsonby that has been produced on DVD, but the compilers have missed the village’s greatest claim to fame.

“Melsonby has the only recorded mention of a ghost-goose, a pure white bird that was said to haunt Berry Well and nearby churchyard as well as the local neighbourhood,” says Mr Woodhouse, a retired teacher who has written more than 30 local books.

The white ghost-goose apparently likes waddle alongside your trap, or car, going at exactly the same speed until it disappears effortlessly through a closed gate into the churchyard.

The incontrovertible proof of the existence of the ghost-goose comes from two well-known local poachers, who spotted a white, plump goose going about its business in the gloaming beneath the trees in that dark, dingly dell on the eastern approach to Melsonby. They crept inaudibly up on the goose and suddenly dived upon it – only to find themselves grasping thin, gooseless air.

All fascinating stuff, and available in a bookshop near you.

North Eastern Railway Branch Lines: North Yorkshire & Cleveland Railway by Peter J Maynard (North Eastern Railway Association, £12.95)

THIS branchline veered off the Northallerton to Yarm railway at the village of Picton – or Pickton as it was in the 1850s when the line opened – and it ran along the foot of the Cleveland Hills, calling at the stations of Trenholme Bar, Potto, Sexhow, Stokesley, Ingleby and Battersby before heading down the Esk Valley through Kildale, Commondale, Castleton, Danby, Lealholm, Glaisdale, Egton and Grosmont where it picked up a line into Whitby. It was very much a minerals railway, and the book also covers the Ayton and Rosedale branches that ran off it.

The Northern Echo: ALL ABOARD: Stationmaster Henry Orton at Battersby Junction on the North Yorkshire and Cleveland Railway. The station was originally called Ingleby, but changed to Battersby Junction on September 30, 1878, and then shorted to Battersby on May 1, 1893
ALL ABOARD: Stationmaster Henry Orton at Battersby Junction on the North Yorkshire and Cleveland Railway. The station was originally called Ingleby, but changed to Battersby Junction on September 30, 1878, and then shorted to Battersby on May 1, 1893

Although this is very much a railway book – unsurprising, as it is published by the North Eastern Railway Association – there is loads that will appeal to a wider audience.

It is superbly illustrated, the 100 or so photographs and postcards brought to life by the high quality paper, and there are plenty of fascinating stories.

The Northern Echo: MOVING BUILDING: On June 6, 1902, the signalbox at Glaisdale, on the North Yorkshire and Cleveland Railway, was moved backwards so the platform could be extended in front of it. This picture shows how the box was simply slid to its new position
MOVING BUILDING: On June 6, 1902, the signalbox at Glaisdale, on the North Yorkshire and Cleveland Railway, was moved backwards so the platform could be extended in front of it. This picture shows how the box was simply slid to its new position

For example, in 1902, the Hull Daily Mail reported: “The stationmaster at Sexhow was crossing the line when he was caught by the locomotive and train of the 2.10pm from Picton and literally cut to pieces. Deceased’s name was Henry Eyles. He was rather deaf.”

It is available from the Guisborough Book Shop, the Grosmont Bookshop or by emailing sales@ner.org.uk, and it is post-free from NERA, 31, Moreton Avenue, Stretford, Manchester M32 8BP.

Good Old World by VP Hall (New Generation Publishing, £7.99)

AN evocative book about a County Durham childhood in the 1930s and 1940s. “I grew up in a village in a county of coalmines with huge heaps of coal slag in green fields next to farms,” says the author in his introduction. “Dour beaches and moorland lay at its east and west extremes, and a beautiful cathedral city at its heart.” The names of the people and places have been changed, and part of the fun of the book is guessing which village is which, but it is unmistakeably a coalfield childhood.

The central character is Harry Blackberry, whose family have the Three Horse Shoes pub. This is his description of the preparations for the annual leek show: “The prizes are set out in the smoke room and a trestle table has been erected for the giant vegetables to be laid on for the judge to measure. The prizes include a carpet, a kitchen cabinet, a canteen of cutlery, a standing lamp, a set of darts and a frying pan…and so on down to the booby prize, an alarm clock with timpani on top for the pair of smallest leeks in the show.”

And then there’s the lovely story of his appendectomy where Harry came round to find “sticking out of my wound was a piece of orange-coloured rubber pipe with a giant safety pin through it. This same pipe I later recognised in science lessons attached to Bunsen burners”. The pipe was to drain his insides, and the safety pin was to stop the end of the pipe slipping inside and getting lost.

“I have the most abominable scar,” says Harry. “It looks as if someone had hacked me with a sharp metal beach spade. However, I am grateful to the doctors and staff at the RVI. They must have pulled out a few stops to save my life. Then there was the other stuff they pulled out. Apparently I hadn’t gone to the toilet for weeks.”

This lovely stroll down memory lane is available on Amazon.

The Wolviston Fallen by Jim and Edna Fox (£8.95)

The Northern Echo: The Wolviston Fallen by Jim and Edna Fox (£8.95)

THE story of each of the 32 First World War men named on the memorial in Wolviston, to the north of Stockton, has been exhaustively tracked by the authors. No stone has been unturned and so we gain deep insights into their lives.

For example, Shoesmith Corporal Harry Addison Parnaby, who was born in Sadberge in 1887, the son of a tanner. He moved from the village when he turned 14 and became an apprentice blacksmith in Wolviston. There, in 1912, he married Anastasia and they quickly had two boys before, on August 31, 1914, he enlisted – one of the first to heed the call of king and country.

He joined the Royal Artillery and the skills learned during his five year apprenticeship were put to good use as he acquired the rank of Shoeing Smith Corporal.

Harry survived a surprisingly long time, fighting through 1915 and 1916 in northern France until, inevitably, his number was up, and he was killed during the Battle of Arras on April 11, 1917. He was 29.

Such stories provide fascinating reading, and it is vital for their village that they are kept alive.

The book is available from 25 Coal Lane, Wolviston TS22 5 LW, 01740-644802, or by emailing foxhealthsafety@hotmail.co.uk

The Carved Angel by John Hutchins (United Writers Publications, £16.95)

A FICTIONAL treatment of the First World War from a journalist on the Tavistock Times Gazette in Devon. He has set his story, though, in the coalfield of North Yorkshire, and tells well of the beginnings of Tommy Wagstaff, who starts down below at the age of 14 and survives a pit explosion before joining up with his best friend, Bert.

But, they find their arch rival from the pit is now their corporal, and a sadistic one, too. Most such books concentrate on the horrors and sacrifice of trench warfare, but Hutchins adds in elements of rivalry and bullying to carry his story through the war, through the death of his best friend, and into the peace.

It is a peace, though, in which Tommy, back in County Durham and the North Riding, struggles in his search for a new role after what he has been through. Yet a final miracle involving the carved angel helps him through.

The book is available in bookshops or through unitedwriters.co.uk.

Darlington in 100 Dates by Chris Lloyd (The History Press, £7.99)

AND finally, from the writer of Memories comes one hundred of the most funny, murderous, criminal, deadly, philandering, spooky stories connected to the town. A greatest hits of this supplement, if you like, and available in Waterstone’s in the Cornmill Centre – can there possibly be a more perfect gift this Christmas?

The Northern Echo: Chris Lloyd book cover