AT first sight it looks more like a sweet shop, a magical sweet shop as invented by Willie Wonka perhaps. Rows and rows of jars glinting and glistening with all the colours of the rainbow.

Closer inspection reveals the jars contain not sweets, but beads - so enticing that even the most hopeless might be tempted into making something with them.

And there are not just the cheap and cheerful beads in the jars, but in display cases, there are also the very special, ancient and precious beads that have an entire history wrapped up in them _ 2,000- year-old Roman trade beads, Nigerian chief beads, Peruvian hand-painted beads, antique silver beads from Afghanistan...

As well as hundreds of necklaces and bracelets, again in all colours shapes and sizes, including some by top name Jackie Brazil, from subtle and traditional to bright, bold and unusual - even one that looks like a string of liquorice allsorts.

It's all the brainchild of mother and daughter team Jill and Kate Watkin.

As her children left home, Jill took to travelling and in New Zealand she came across the Bead Gallery. "She was just blown away," says Kate "and knew straight away what she wanted to do."

Back home she enlisted the help of Kate - a Durham graduate working in PR in London - "and only too glad to get out and come north again" - and together they flew back to New Zealand and then home again to set up Lebeado, in Old Elvet, Durham.

"What we wanted was the wow! factor," says Kate, 25. "I'd beaded since I was a child but it still has a bit of a hippy image and we wanted to make it much more fun, funky and stylish."

With a lot of help and advice from the experts in New Zealand, they finally opened the shop at the end of last year. A reader wrote to us to commend it for its originality and for the helpfulness of its staff.

"We want it to be for everyone," says Kate.

"We've got beads that cost £400 each, but we've got rings for a fiver, so that makes it fun for everyone.

Naturally, we get a lot of students coming in, but we get all sorts and ages of people."

Last month Jill and Kate launched the Lebeado website and hope soon to have more shops around the country. They seem unstoppable.

They are a dynamic family. Jill is a former property developer and interior designer, her husband Karl is a successful entrepreneur, and Kate fizzes with so much energy that she rarely pauses for breath and can hardly stand still, let alone sit down. Just watching her is exhausting. (Provided her injured knee recovers in time, she's off on a run soon in aid of the charity Facing Africa.

154km, or nearly 100 miles across the Sahara Desert. "I like to be on the go," she says, with some understatement.) The list of beads in the shop includes bone, ceramic, Chinese, Czech glass, Indian glass, stone, shell, Swarovski crystal, Venetian, wood and seeds. Many come from Africa, especially the "trade beads" - long used for currency .

"Africa has the most amazing beads. We try where we can to use Fairtrade suppliers. We'd like to be completely Fairtrade but that's not possible yet. We get a lot from Zimbabwe, but we daren't talk about that, given the political situation," says Kate.

"In Ghana we have a lovely lady called Aunt Jemima who sources beads for us. That's the other thing - we have got to know so many interesting people."

Jill has just returned from Hong Kong with new supplies of pearls and semi precious stones, and the New Zealand link continues to be strong, with New Zealanders working in Lebeado.

Lebeado is full of customers of all ages and all backgrounds, intrigued by this shop that is so new and different.

In the centre of the shop is a beautifully ornate Moroccan table and chairs. This is where people sit for the regular beading workshops. They usually cost around £15 per person and they've run them for men, for children and even for a 21st birthday party.

"Beads are not just jewellery," says Kate. "Every one of them has a story. That's what makes them so fascinating."

■ Lebeado, 89 Old Elvet, Durham. Open 10am- 5.30pm Mon-Sat; 10am-4pm Sun.

www.lebeado.co.uk

Bouquets of the Week

Gifts for our soldier boys

Dear Sharon, PLEASE would you consider the ladies of Chilton Post Office for our bouquet. Margaret, Pauline and Susan have been raising donations for gifts and parcels to send to the boys serving in Iraq and Afghanistan for a while now.

As the mother of one of these boys, I know it means a lot to them to know how much these selfless people are thinking of them.

Marion Alderson, Chilton.

■ A number of incidents lately have made us wonder if society as a whole really appreciates what members of the armed services do and achieve. Recently, residents objected to a rehabilitation centre for limbless servicemen, as it would lower the value of their houses, and members of the RAF have been insulted when wearing their uniforms in the streets.

Meanwhile servicemen and women do a difficult and dangerous job with precious little thanks or recognition. So how refreshing to hear of people such as the ladies in Chilton Post Office. Not only do soldiers get some useful presents in the middle of the desert, equally important is the fact that they know they are remembered and appreciated. And so, in turn, are Margaret, Pauline and Susan, who get this week's bouquet.

JOYCE Bennett asks us to thank the kind stranger who found her keys in the car park of Morrisons in Darlington and handed them in.

"I don't know who they were to thank them, but I would like them to know how grateful I am."

Gerald Stevenson of Sedgefield wonders if we should actually mention his thanks... "I have had to make a number of visits to Darlington recently on family business and have parked in the council car parks. On two occasions before I could buy a ticket, a driver leaving the car park offered me their ticket, so I was able to park for nothing.

I appreciate that this means the council coffers might be a little emptier than they would otherwise be, but I think it is such a friendly gesture that, in the long term it can only encourage more visitors to come to Darlington. I have visited other towns where such generosity is prevented by drivers having to enter their registration details into the ticket machine. This has always struck me as very grasping and I much prefer the approach in Darlington and would like to thank my anonymous benefactors."

■ If you want to say a public thank you for good service or to a helpful neighbour , kind stranger or efficient business, then just write with all the details to Sharon Griffiths, Bouquet of the Week, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF.

Or email sjgriff111@aol.com Each week the person nominated in our main letter gets a real bouquet of flowers or a box of posh chocs.