IN the old days, when money and time were no object, The Northern Echo used to present to each out-going mayor of Darlington a full collection of photographs that had been taken during his or her year in office.

Two large scrapbooks of cuttings, noting the mayor's every move, accompanied the photographs.

The books commemorating the year Richard Luck was in office, 1936 to 1937, are in the possession of David Chapman, of Merrybent.

The cuttings show how much times have changed.

In August 1937, the mayor went down to Feethams to wave off 300 children, 50 pensioners and 150 adults as they clambered aboard 13 motor coaches for a day out at Redcar organised by the Darlington Trades Council Unemployed Association.

Mr Luck was photographed presenting a packet of cigarettes to the oldest pensioner making the trip, 85-year-old Mr J Wright, and the Echo reported: "The pensioners gave three hearty cheers for the mayor after he had presented them with tobacco."

Then there is the Northern Despatch's preview of the celebrations surrounding the new king, George VI. It is headlined: "Darlington determined to go gay for the Coronation".

DAVID Chapman was given the albums by mayor Richard Luck's youngest son, also Richard, but apparently known throughout Darlington as Dickie. It seems as if he was very fondly regarded as some of the memories below testify.

Dickie was the last of the Lucks, and it was he who sold the family shop on High Row in 1965 to Dressers - another family firm which has recently announced it is to close, at the end of next month.

In David Chapman's archive is Dickie's copy of the speech he gave to the 70 staff members when he called them in and told them he was selling up.

A bachelor, he was painfully conscious that there was no one to follow him and he told his staff that he was worried lest he die in an accident and leave the business with no head.

He was also concerned that, on his death, his estate would be subject to swingeing death duties, and he said he had been pushed towards his decision by the introduction of Capital Gains Tax in the last Budget.

He told his staff: "The longer I delay in selling the business, the less of the proceeds will I receive and the more will go to the Government in taxation. I have no wish for that to happen."

And so he sold. He gradually cut back on his other public duties, retiring as a magistrate in 1977, saying he was off to live with friends in America.

However, he was back within months. He and his housekeeper, Mrs Wiper, lived in Linden Grove and then Briar Walk, before he moved into Ventress Hall nursing home in Trinity Road.

He died there aged 83, on November 10, 1995.

BEFORE going to America, Dickie Luck had lived in a house called Deepdale, which was No 30 Staindrop Road. It was a family home because his father, mayor Richard, had also lived there, and Dickie himself may well have been born there.

In 1980, Donald Callendar bought the house from the person who bought the house from Dickie. At the back of a top shelf high up in the kitchen, Donald found a dusty box which dated back to the Lucks' time in the property.

He returned an old family bible to Dickie, but the last Luck was not so interested in an extraordinary ledger which Donald has kept.

Dickie's great-grandfather, another Richard Luck, had been the first Luck in haberdashery on High Row when, in 1830, he joined an established business run by John and Christopher Watkin.

John had started the shop in about 1800, and his son Christopher, born in 1803, had joined him.

So the ledger in the box, dated 1815, must have been John's.

In flamboyant copperplate handwriting, which is quite painful to read and not always spelled accurately, it records his customers: William Burgess, of Fleetam, Jonathan Pratt, of Patric Brompton, William Lumley, of Bolton-on-Swale, F Pickersgill, of Rippon.

On July 1, 1815, John records that he sold to William Hardey, of Darlington three seal skins for £1 6s.

His 1826 stocklist is particularly interesting (if only because it is one of the most legible pages in the whole book). He had 843yds of woollen cloths, 164yds of ginghams, 341yds velvets, 1,203yds "calicaos", 13 doz and nine men's gloves, one doz and six straw bonnets, three doz and 11 men's stuffed hats, 261 doz and two buttons, and eight doz and three hatbands.

At the bottom of the page, scribbled in pencil, is: "I sold a lot of the above, 1831 and 32, R Luck." Which is probably why the business by then was known as Watkin and Luck.

The stock that the business carried in 1826 - when it was trading from the building that is today Dressers - was immense, and much of it without any conceivable use in the 21st Century: rivett horn buttons, cambrick buttons, waistcoat wire, gimp bands, best York bands, black velvet girdle, had buckles, vestiletts, swansdown, toilanet, fancy patterned cord, olive genoa cord, checked muslim, pallicate, coloured Japan handkerchiefs, checked muslim, Briganza shawls, Norwich shawls, and plaid available in - among many others - coburg diamand, checked green, fleck grey, fawn apple-green, olive and sage, bottle green, olive, copper, green, pale lilac and drab.

ALTHOUGH not quite of that vintage, Edna Reed of Newton Aycliffe still has a pair of lily of the valley curtains that Lucks made for her in 1961.

More importantly, as most people do, she still remembers their service. "Instead of having a cream background they were on a beige background, so they ordered me three yards," she recalls.

"A nice man came to my door with it beautifully packed in brown paper and string and the service really was very good."

TREVOR Collishaw, of Staindrop, remembers Lucks because there he met his wife, Iris, who worked in the office.

Fresh from school, he started on a six-year apprenticeship in 1959, learning all aspects of Lucks' business, which included making horse-hair mattresses.

He remembers Dickie Luck as a keen cyclist and traveller. Dickie visited India, Ceylon, China and the Arctic Circle, taking his own photographs which he used to illustrate his after dinner talks (he was twice president of the Darlington Lecture Association).

"He was a good man, a gentleman, and he did a lot of work for a lot of organisations," says Trevor. "Quite an English gentleman."

DORIS Leigh, of Hurworth Place, is another with memories of Lucks. She too arrived fresh from school - Stockton Secondary having won a scholarship there and taking the train every day from Croft station - in 1926, and worked in the millinery department.

"I met my husband, Lionel, on the bedding counter at the foot of the stairs," says Doris, now 90.

She too has kindly thoughts towards Dickie.

"Once I was dressing the window and I poked a millinery stand through a light fitting. I heard Mr Richard's footsteps and I thought I was going to be in trouble, but he said: 'Don't worry about the light - are you all right?'."

MRS B Hatfield, of Darlington, was also an apprentice at Lucks. She started in 1949, aged 15, to learn the dressmaking trade, and was based on the second floor of the shop.

She started on 18s 9d a week and finished her apprenticeship on £5.

"Miss Robinson was the head dressmaker, and there were 15 girls in the workroom," says Mrs Hatfield.

"We were not allowed to talk at all, only to request the use of one of the two treadle sewing machines. If you were caught whispering, a piece of tailor's chalk would whistle your way with a withering look over the top of Miss Robinson's glasses."

They made dresses for the country set and especially the daughters who were debutantes off to London for the "season".

FRANK Beadle, of Darlington, reports that Dickie Luck was also heavily involved in the Scout movement at the time of the war. He was in the Darlington Group in Hopetown Lane as a boy, and Lucks' shop also stocked the Scout uniform.

Dickie was also badge secretary.

"He had a huge chest of drawers upstairs in the shop full of badges," says Frank.

It has also been said that Dickie was personally presented with a badge by Baden Powell, the Scouts' founder.

SEVERAL callers to Echo Memories have identified one of the assistants in the 1965 picture of the interior of the shop. She was Hilda Coldwell, the haberdashery buyer from 1946 until Lucks closed.

She is no longer alive, but her daughter, Marjory Parry, has been in touch from South Croydon, in London, where she lives. She points out another Luck link - Dickie did his apprenticeship at Grants of Croydon.

"It is very much a bigger version of Lucks and many of the features of the two shops - leaders in their field and a cut above the competition in their towns - were very similar," she says.

If you have anything to add - could there possibly be anything? - to the Lucks' story, please write to Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF, or call (01325) 505062, or e-mail clloy