TREKKERS handed out football strips and footballs to street children after they completed their climb of Mount Kilimanjaro, in June 2013.

Former Middlesbrough FC player and newly-appointed Hartlepool United manager Colin Cooper was among the 15 walkers who visited the Amani Children's Home in the town of Moshi, at the foot of the Tanzanian mountain.

The group, which also included Hartlepool-born Sky Sports presenter Jeff Stelling, left the UK on June 7, 2013.

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They were raising money for the Finlay Cooper Fund, which supports children's causes, mainly on Teesside. The fund was set up by Mr Cooper and his wife, Julie, in memory of their son, Finlay, who choked to death shortly before his second birthday 11 years previously.

Mr Cooper said: "There's much poverty in Tanzania, so it was really great news when the football club said they would like us to take something with us to give to the children's home."

A North East pitman who became part of an army of moles tunnelling under the trenches of theWestern Front inspired a sculpture taking shape in the region.

Nineteen-year-old Private Michael Duffy, of the Durham Light Infantry, was recruited as a clay-kicker, helping to lay explosives beneath the German lines.

He died in action in a German counter-attack following one of the biggest explosions of the First World War, when 19 mines were detonated on the Messines Ridge, on June 7, 1917.

Sculptor Ray Lonsdale, of Two Red Rubber Things, in South Hetton, County Durham, immortalised him in a 15ft-weathered steel statue called The Last Cigarette of Michael Duffy.

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Mr Lonsdale said: "He was one of millions of soldiers who became cannon fodder. I wanted to do something that was based on that sort of person. I wanted to capture the few minutes waiting by the fire step, waiting for the whistle to go over the top."

Market traders served their customers in traditional Victorian outfits, while a man in a top hat wound up a barrel piano, watched by a number of curious onlookers under the glorious Darlington sunshine, in June 2013.

People of all ages celebrated the historic 150th anniversary of Darlington's Covered Market, and sampled a taste of a massive sponge cake in the shape of the Covered Market, including year three students from The Rydal Academy, in Darlington.