Columnists
The last election in the dark days of December
12:48pm Thursday 5th December 2019
THE last December election was in 1923, and The Northern Echo’s polling day forecast predicted a “moderate northerly wind, becoming light and backing to west”.
Who can we trust in this election?
5:00am Thursday 5th December 2019
FROM Labour claims about the ‘runaway privatisation’ of the NHS to the now-notorious Conservative promise of 50,000 ‘extra’ nurses. Never before has an election campaign been so full of half-truths and plain old-fashioned lies.
Winds of change as Mike Amos bids farewell
2:16pm Tuesday 3rd December 2019
WIND Mill Methodist church, that great redoubt of the old religion, marked its 150th anniversary – what clever folk call a sesquicentennial – two Sundays back. Not many came.
The boy with Down’s Syndrome who’s become a qualified football coach
6:00am Monday 2nd December 2019
ASKED what comes next and Harry Brown doesn’t hesitate: “Who knows? I might be manager of Newcastle United –then they might win the Premier League and Champions’ League,” he grins.
In the eye of the storm…
8:16am Friday 29th November 2019
WHETHER you happen to be a dad or a grandad, it makes no difference – you’ve got to be prepared to get into character.
'Spiderboy' defies the odds and a painful disease to become a British champion Thai boxer
8:24am Monday 25th November 2019
IT’S hard to believe how far Theo Spinks has come since doctors told his family that he was suffering from a rare disease that meant he couldn’t take part in any form of contact sport.
Headline Challenge - 2019 so far in quirky headlines
8:10am Monday 25th November 2019
The Headline Challenge is played every weekday morning on the BBC Tees breakfast show (95fm). Peter Barron, and occasionally Chris Lloyd, bat for The Northern Echo, coming up with a funny story from around the world and challenging listeners to produce a better headline than theirs. Points are awarded for the best headline each day and it's double-points for a song title, film, play or book.
Boris Johnson's backing for local media is welcome – but we need more than warm words
10:04am Friday 22nd November 2019
IT’S not every day the Prime Minister calls into your offices for a cup of tea and a chat, and we can only apologise for the rush-hour disruption his motorcade must have caused as he travelled to and from Echo Towers on Darlington’s Priestgate at tea time on Wednesday.
Mike Amos catches up with a folk band celebrating 50 years
5:00am Wednesday 20th November 2019
REPRISING all that’s said about new tune and old fiddle, one of the North-East’s best loved folk bands is celebrating 50 years of music-making.
A master to call our own
8:26am Monday 18th November 2019
TODAY would have been the 100th birthday of a North-East treasure who famously left the pit with chronic back pain and blossomed into the County Durham Rembrandt.
A master to call our own
8:16am Monday 18th November 2019
TODAY would have been the 100th birthday of a North-East treasure who famously left the pit with chronic back pain and blossomed into the County Durham Rembrandt.
Running for her life
7:10am Saturday 16th November 2019
THREE years into grandad-hood and there’s little doubt that I’m slowing down considerably.
Julia Breen: The Boris bubble has definitely burst
5:15am Thursday 14th November 2019
YESTERDAY was a defining day on the General Election campaign trail.
Worthy of high praise...
12:58pm Monday 11th November 2019
IT is the longest-running religious television programme in the world, first broadcast by the BBC in the far-off black and white days of October 1961.
Fighting for the focus to stay northern
5:00am Saturday 9th November 2019
IT has certainly been an interesting week to work for a newspaper in the north of England, with the forthcoming General Election seeing politicians from most parties campaigning on our patch, and titles across the region coming together to demand candidates sign up to a “manifesto for the north”.
Paying tribute to one of Yorkshire’s greatest all-round sportsmen
5:00am Wednesday 6th November 2019
KEITH SCHELLENBERG, who has died aged 90, was one of Yorkshire’s greatest all-round sportsmen – most notably at the Winter Olympics – but may perhaps best be remembered as laird of the remote Scottish island of Eigg, a fiefdom in which he was unkindly compared to Toad of Toad Hall.
From Prime Minister's bodyguard to performance poet with bouncer and podium dancer along the way
8:43am Monday 4th November 2019
WHEN Tony Gadd reflects on his life, there’s no need to resort to poetic licence – the truth is extraordinary enough.
Last on the guest list
8:17am Thursday 31st October 2019
IN the blink of an eye, Chloe, our first grandchild, has reached her third birthday.
In memory of a former hotelier, and celebrating all things Halloween
5:00am Wednesday 30th October 2019
THE death on October 12 of former estate agent and hotelier Chris Close recalled some incorrigible teasing by the Eating Owt column in the 1990s.
Out for 103 - but what an innings
8:37am Monday 28th October 2019
BACK in 1953, as a swashbuckling, fresh-faced opening batsman, Geoffrey Gillow made his mark on history at Darlington Cricket Club.
Hannah Chapman
Opinion on the issues of the week by The Northern Echo's editor.
Mike Amos
Characterful people and colourful places of the North-East.
Chris Lloyd
Chris Lloyd on a quest to understand today’s world.
Peter Barron
Weekly columns from The Northern Echo's former editor.
Chris Moncrieff
Weekly political comment from Chris Moncrieff.
Julia Breen
Anti-injustice, pro-equality, sometimes ragey.
Ben Houchen
Monthly column from Tees Valley Mayor, Ben Houchen.
Mike McGrother
Encouraging people to talk about mental health.
Mike Barton
Durham Police chief Mike Barton's monthly column on policing.
