North East History | Railway Heritage, Coal Mining, World Wars, Echo Memories | The Northern Echo

Boar blimey!

4:26pm Wednesday 21st March 2012

In the distant days when Durham was covered in dense forests, Etherley Dene was troubled by a terribly fierce wild boar. It was an enormous creature that liked to eat innocent people whenever it could.

Last relic of fire-hit church

4:11pm Wednesday 21st March 2012

ST Matthew’s Church in the Denes area of Darlington caught fire on Good Friday 1921. As it was made of wood and tin in 1911, there was very little of it left – not even a picture.

Club’s birthday brought memories swimming back

6:18pm Wednesday 25th January 2012

JULIE LEITHEISER learnt to swim in Durham baths in the Sixties and became a member of the swimming club which, as Memories 59 reported, celebrated its 150th anniversary last year.

Mining town’s golden age that will never be forgotten

6:09pm Wednesday 25th January 2012

Ian Guthrie now lives in Ottawa, in Canada, but he grew up in Ferryhill more than 60 years ago, Inspired by Memories 58, he recalls “a golden age”.

Headline brings memories flooding back for Elsie...

4:40pm Wednesday 11th January 2012

THE Page in History in Memories 61 took us back to December 14, 1936, when the Northern Despatch’s main headline was: “Floods follow storm in Darlington district.

The big question is – why was it called Jumbo Field?

4:44pm Wednesday 11th January 2012

JOHN BIGGS in Bishop Auckland was taken by the picture of Memories 64 of the 1910 Lanchester Landaulette vintage car appearing at the 1954 Etherley Dene steam rally – because John attended the rally.

Wheeling through history

4:30pm Wednesday 4th January 2012

MEMORIES 56 took on our long-running story about the vintage cars owned by Neilson Skilbeck, who had a car showroom in Langley Moor. We published a picture sent in by a reader showing his 1909 Wolseley-Siddeley 14hp tourer.

The short straw – followed by a bullet through the heart

4:02pm Wednesday 4th January 2012

JOHN WORSTENHOLME and Harold Easby were heroes of the air in the First World War. The stories of their sacrifices have been told in recent Echo Memories, and their names appear on the memorial board at their alma mater, Darlington Grammar School.

The last shift at Mainsforth Colliery

3:40pm Wednesday 7th December 2011

THE picture on the front cover of Memories 58 showed men starting the last shift at Mainsforth Colliery, Ferryhill Station, on December 6, 1968. But who were the men?

Focusing on a strange suicide – and stranger family business

3:30pm Wednesday 7th December 2011

"STRANGE case of suicide in Whitby," said a headline in The Northern Echo in 1880, but the story that unfolded after the inquest concluded was stranger still.