I WAS very interested in Chris Lloyd’s Echo Memories article about Sockburn, near Neasham, County Durham (Echo, May 27).

Perhaps he should have mentioned that, until fairly recently, there was a bit of County Durham on the south side of the Tees; this survived after local government reorganisation in 1974.

All Saints’ Church, Girsby, is still part of the Diocese of Durham. About 60 years ago, the Darlington and Stockton Times carried an item about a dispute between two councils as to which should empty a dustbin at a house in Girsby.

The boundary between Durham and the North Riding ran through the middle of the house – the back door in one county and the front in the other.

Perhaps an apocryphal tale.

Peter Elliott, Eaglescliffe, near Stockton.