THIS was the front page headline in The Northern Echo exactly 80 years ago today announcing the Royal birth.

The paper was very pleased with itself. The "strong wee babe" had been born at 2.40am the previous morning; the news had been announced officially at 3.40am and the Echo had squeezed a sentence into its Stop Press column for half of its 100,000 print run.

No other paper could match such a feat.

But pride comes before a fall.

The gossip column said: "Queen Mary has never made any secret of the fact that she ardently hoped that the newest Royal baby would be a girl, and by her desire it is understood that the first of the many names it is presently to receive will be Mary."

The baby was, of course, called Elizabeth Alexandra Mary.

The paper of April 22, 1926, recorded Britain on the brink of the Great Strike. Another front page article told of the latest negotiations between the mineowners and the miners; Hear All Sides contained a letter from "One of the Slaves" who worked in Leeholme pit for 37s 6d a week, less deductions.

"I wonder how your correspondent would live, let alone get a little enjoyment out of life, with that," he writes bitterly. His wages today would be worth little more than £70.

Other people, though, were planning their holidays. Best part of a page was devoted to advertisements for boarding houses, hotels and apartments. Scarborough was the most popular destination with 58 adverts offering "liberal table...electric throughout...piano...lavatory basin each bedroom".

Redcar (28 adverts), Whitley Bay (16), Whitby (14) and Saltburn (seven) were attractive to the close-to-home holidaymaker, whereas the daring could go to Blackpool (29), Llandudno (11) or even Bournemouth (18).

The Queen was born into a sunny April. The first cuckoo was reported in Howden-le-Wear on the day she arrived. Tyneside farmers were said to be a month ahead, but "the meadows were avid for moisture".

"Pear, apple and plum bloom have been torn from the trees in drifts," said the Out Of Doors Diary. "It is as if there has been a miniature snowstorm in the orchard." Despite global warming, 2006 does not appear to be in advance of 1926. Our apple tree is not even thinking of flowering yet.

The sports pages led, as they do 80 years on, with "Sunderland in trouble". The Queen was born before substitutes, and when Oakley went off injured before half-time, Manchester United had walloped them 5-1.

On the news pages was a dreadful story from Dawdon. When George Burnett's wife refused to move their family of five children to Coxhoe for his new agricultural labouring, he became determined "to put them all down".

His wife saw him shooting at the children. "I seized his hand but could not get the revolver from him, and he fired six shots at the children while I was clinging to his hand," she said.

"Her husband had always been fond of the children and was a good husband."

One son, Frank, was murdered and Mr Burnett then fatally turned the gun on himself.

Finally, David Cameron was in the news. Not a Tory leader but a pony driver at Backworth Colliery on Tyneside. At 6.20 on the morning of the Queen's birth, as he rode underground in a train of tubs pulled by his pony, his "head came in contact with the roof and his neck was broken".

He died instantly. He was just 15.

The world has, thankfully, moved a long way in 80 years.

Published: 22/04/2006