ONE of my very first jobs as a trainee reporter in Darlington in January 1988 was to wander from The Northern Echo’s office in Priestgate over to the Town Hall for the launch of a boring book.

The office junior always got what were considered the worst jobs. I was sent to cover Darlington Dog Show that year, too, even though I am hideously allergic. It was a wet weekend of torture in a large tent in South Park surrounded by hundreds of dogs and Chris Amoo, a former pop star with the Real Thing who bred a prize-winner. Just thinking about him combing his Afghan’s long, flowing fur makes my nose fill up and my eyes swell… And so it was that the office junior covered the launch of The Book of Darlington. As I sauntered through St Cuthbert’s churchyard, I reckoned that such a tome would have been written by a small, dusty fellow who had an obsessional interest with the number of wheels on an old, clanky steam engine.

I arrived to find the book being presented to the Mayor, Beatrice Cuthbertson. She was not a conventional mayor. She was the proud owner of a distinctive and controversial beret, which had a bobble on top. She was rarely, perhaps never, parted from that hat.

And George Flynn, the author of the book, was not what I considered a conventional local historian. He had big ears, a big grin and was falling over himself to tell stories. With his long fingers, he seemed to delight in pointing out humour and fascination in everything. He vibrated enthusiasm.

Tales toppled out of him.

How the town’s Victorian Quaker hierarchy implored its employees not to buy tickets for the theatre because they considered it “ruinous, both to character and health” (I can hear his voice rising now with the eccentricity of it).

How it was only economical for farmers to collect the town’s nightsoil – they used it as fertiliser – by the wagon-load. Therefore the inhabitants piled up the contents of their earth closets for a week or more on their kerbsides (and we complain about our binbags and wheelie bins).

How, exactly 100 years ago, Timothy Ignatius Trebitsch Lincoln – adulterer, swindler, fraudster, double-agent politician-monk – was MP for Darlington and is still the greatest charlatan ever to sit in the House of Commons (and he has had some competition).

My next task as office junior was to start a “now and then” picture column. At first, it only required a few words, but it quickly grew. Even with George’s book to hand, I regularly blundered, but that would often lead to him gently putting me right, always with that grin, those ears, that infectious enthusiasm, that desire to pass on a story.

I always ended up knowing more, and wanting to know even more.

I was privileged in getting one-on-one tutorials.

Other people were infected by George in his classes, at his talks, on his walks. It was quite wonderful to see how, given an audience, he would light up with an enthusiastic joy at the material he’d discovered.

George died last Saturday, aged 81. I could go on about his encyclopaedic knowledge and his comprehensive understanding, about his listing and saving of buildings and stories of his chiding those in authority to take proper care of the past, of his seven books, of his 40 talks, of his guiding walks for 24 years.

But all that would overlook what to me was the most important aspect: his over-bubbling enthusiasm which was truly inspirational.

■ See Hear All Sides letter: Honour historian