AND so, after 55 years as a journalist, The Northern Echo’s renowned former columnist Mike Amos has just published his autbiography.

It is called Unconsidered Trifles, and it begins with a quote from the Queen.

“And are you a journalist?” she graciously asked Mike when he pitched up at the palace in 2006 to receive his MBE for services to journalism in the North-East.

“In Geoff Hill’s third form English language class at Bishop Auckland Grammar School, you never started a sentence with the word ‘and’,” says Mike. “It was taboo. I’ve never started a sentence with ‘and’ or ‘but’ because we were told we couldn’t – but the Queen did!”

The Northern Echo: Reporter Mike Amos in 1969, when he was four years into his careerReporter Mike Amos in 1969, when he was four years into his career

It is the starting point from which Mike launches into a lifetime of stories, from Prince Harry secretly playing cricket under an assumed name at Spout House in Bilsdale to Ronnie “Rubberbones” Heslop using a teaspoon to escape from Durham jail, which feature a cornucopia of characters, from the Bishop of Durham to George Reynolds with everyone from the Demon Donkey Dropper of Eryholme to Madame Cyn, Paul Gascoigne and Tony Blair starring in between.

But the book is also about the North-East, about football and pubs, about schooldays and outside toilets.

“It tries to be a snapshot of ever-changing life in the North-East over the last 50 years,” he says.

Mike, who grew up in Shildon, has had a ringside seat to watch that life ever since, aged 18 in 1965, he started as an apprentice reporter on the Echo’s former sister paper, the Evening Despatch. He became news editor of the Echo, but it was a columnist out on the streets and leaning against the bars that he really made his name, unearthing the most fabulous stories of everyday life that went unnoticed by others.

The stories, euphoniously told, won him more than 40 national and regional awards, and an MBE, and now make up the backbone of the book.

“I was nagged into writing it by my wife, Sharon,” he says. “She thought I was not long for this life when I had angina last year.”

The nagging increased when, on holiday on Isla, he required the attention of an ambulance. “It pulled up outside with a Luciferian red light on it,” says Mike, revealing his ability to spin a word and also that his extreme short-sightedness is compounded by colour-blindness.

Although the book touches on all corners of life, and twists and turns through digressions and diversions, it has a joyful message at its core.

“Serendipity is the theme that runs throughout, being in the right place at the right time,” he says, using one of his favourite words. “It has been a lot of fun and I’ve been paid to have a good time – I’m the luckiest guy alive.”

Unconsidered Trifles: Memories of a Jobbing Journalist has been edited by former Echo chief sub-editor Jon Smith, and the softback is £10 (plus £3.20 postage) and a hardback is £22. It is available from Amazon or from Mike himself: email mikeamos81@aol.com or write to him at 8 Oakfields, Middleton Tyas, Richmond, North Yorks DL10 6SD.