A HISTORIAN is hoping his six-year labour of love will finally put an end to the confusion surrounding the unusual name of a former pit village.

Bill Lees, 71, has written a comprehensive history of No Place, near Stanley, County Durham, charting the rise of the community from a tiny hamlet to a mining village.

The retired surveyor, who lives in Bournmoor, near Chester-le-Street, started the project to help put the village on the map.

He said: "When you tell people from outside the area where you are from, they often still think you are taking the mickey out of them.

"This book should help clear up some of the mystique about the village and prove once and for all to people that it does exist."

The book contains 820 photographs, many of which were donated or loaned by local residents.

It also includes a cautionary tale about the dangers of greed, involving the owners of the Beamish Mary pit at the end of the 1800s.

They built a school for village children at Pit Hill but it was abandoned several years later due, ironically, to subsidence caused by mining.

Mr Lees said: "They built this beautiful school, then opened a second pit and took all the coal out from under it.

"Then they wondered why it fell down."

The book also chronicles the No Place Nobblers, a jazz band formed during the General Strike of 1926.

Mr Lees said: "People had nothing to do, so they formed jazz bands and competed against each other.

"The Nobblers were widely regarded as the best. They kept going right up until the start of the Second World War."

His book, No Place, is out now in hardback, priced £15.

Mr Lees will be signing copies at Stanley Library on Wednesday, between 1pm and 3pm, and at South Moor Library, on Friday, between 5pm and 7pm.