LOOKING back to the week that was March 4 to March 10, five years ago...

A MAN rendered unable to speak due to throat cancer thanked the quick-thinking call handler who saved his life when he dialled 999, in March 2019.

Stephen McLaren, from Stockton, could not speak down the phone after having his vocal cords removed just weeks previously and resorted to tapping so emergency services would realise something was wrong.

Read more: ECHO MEMORIES: Searching for the cloaked spook of the Snout

Police call handler Kathryn Longstaff, who worked for Sopra Steria in Cleveland Police control room, said the call was passed through to her – and instinct kicked in.

She realised that the 63-year-old was tapping out a message and managed to get medics to the house to treat him.

On March 6, 2019, Mr McLaren met Ms Longstaff for the first time – and told her, by writing on the whiteboard he uses to communicate: “I owe her my life. Thank you Kathryn.”

Mr McLaren had developed an infection in a blood vessel following his operation and when he began coughing blood everywhere he realised something was seriously wrong.

He called 999 but initially call handler staff put him through to police because they could not hear anyone speaking at the end of the line.

Ms Longstaff said: “Instinct just kicked in. I felt that the tapping was an SOS signal.”

She asked him questions and managed to establish the answers from the ferocity of Mr McLaren’s tapping.

Ms Longstaff said she quickly established he wasn’t in danger from anyone else but was suffering a medical emergency.

A mysterious treasure trove of historic police artefacts was uncovered from the muddy waters of a North-East river, in March 2019.

Underwater archaeologist Gary Bankhead discovered buttons, badges, a whistle and collar number submerged in the riverbed under two metres of water near Elvet Bridge, in Durham City.

Little was known about the material, other than it included a whistle which still worked despite years on the riverbed and a collar number which appeared to belong to Constable 145.

For more nostalgia direct to your inbox, subscribe to The Northern Echo. Click here

It was unclear how old they were, but they were in remarkably good condition and were marked the County Constabulary, the name adopted by Durham’s police force between 1839 and 1974.

Mr Bankhead, a station manager with County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service, found the items in the River Wear, downstream from Elvet Bridge, as he was recovering other objects which form part of the Durham River Wear Assemblage.

Mr Bankhead said: “It’s so special to me to find objects that can be traced to an organisation like Durham Constabulary. Being able to uncover and hand over a piece of local history to them gives me great satisfaction.”

Finally, councillors backed controversial plans for a new £50m civic building in March 2019.

Read next:

Protestors against the plans to move Durham County Council’s headquarters gathered ahead of the meeting to show their opposition by staging a demonstration outside the County Hall in Aykley Heads.

More than 1,000 residents had sent objections to the authority but councillors voted narrowly in favour of the plans by an 8-6 margin.

Objections to the scheme, which is set to see a new office built on the Sands car park, had focused on traffic and air pollution, the flood risk and the impact on tourism and traders in the city centre.