Mike Amos
Litter louts appear to prefer Fosters
5:00am Wednesday 20th February 2019
ON St Valentine’s Day – don’t you just love it – the column joined a litter picking patrol. The collective effort was commendable, the revelation loathsome. In short, we are verminous.
Toby or not Toby – an important question over breakfast
1:00pm Wednesday 6th February 2019
THAT is the question, and one that is much debated in this family. Which is better, the bairns endlessly argue, the Wetherspoons breakfast in all its preternatural permutations or the Toby Carvery’s “eat as much as you like” offer, choices including “breakfast” Yorkshire puddings and “breakfast” gravy.
Remembering Liverpool legend Bob Paisley - born in a pit terrace in Hetton-le-Hole 100 years ago
5:00am Sunday 3rd February 2019
BOB PAISLEY was born in a pit terrace in Hetton-le-Hole 100 years ago last Wednesday. Liverpool pushed the commemorative boat out, ferry across the Mersey. Save for a mayoral mention before the town council meeting, Hetton did nothing.
Crossing the borders by bus
5:00am Wednesday 30th January 2019
ON the day that Arriva bus bosses met the drivers’ union in an attempt to avert another strike, the column put Plan B into operation.
Star struck by a County Durham vicar
5:00am Wednesday 9th January 2019
CHRISTMAS overflowed, as always it does hereabouts. Stockinged surprises included A Field Guide to the English Clergy, a greatly entertaining – some might say irreverent – volume which relies heavily on the adage that it’s awfully hard to libel the dead.
Mike Amos: A life-or-death experience via the 7:38 from Darlington
2:30pm Wednesday 2nd January 2019
YOU know the bit in A Christmas Carol where the second of the spirits, the Ghost of Christmas Present, leads old Scrooge to what Dickens calls a “bleak and desert moor”?
Trip to The Station for latest adaptation of A Christmas Carol
12:00pm Wednesday 19th December 2018
IF not (quite) since Dickens was a lad, A Christmas Carol has been an integral part of this family’s festive approach road for very many years.
Duleep Singh, the man they called the Maharajah of Mulgrave
1:50pm Wednesday 12th December 2018
POTTERING around the Whitby area a couple of columns ago, we noted a rather large polar bear – made from white willow by local sculptor Emma Stothard – on the end of the pier at Staithes.
The Culines - eight generations of travelling showmen
2:45pm Wednesday 5th December 2018
JOHN CULINE recalls his childhood. Born in a caravan, left school at the age of 11, taught by his sisters to read and write, sent to Hull – and back? – to help their Yvonne on the bingo stall.
Mike Amos: Remembering Tom Guy and the great cow rescue - the most memorable story from 54 years in journalism
1:10pm Thursday 29th November 2018
ON a wet and woebegone winter day in Swaledale, we gathered last Tuesday to say goodbye to Tom Guy, the man at the centre of the most memorable story in my 54 years in journalism.
Loving spoonsful
12:20pm Tuesday 23rd October 2018
In a small back room they remember an entertainer with a huge personality
Costa plenty?
5:00am Wednesday 17th October 2018
BACK on August 25, bullish summer time, the Echo reported an internet-inspired survey that, of the 60 UK resorts with the best beaches, Whitby cost most for a family day out. It was even dearer than St Ives, goodness knows, and in Sr Ives the seagulls half-inch your ice cream.
Prison sell
5:00am Thursday 11th October 2018
The performance poet who writes alternatively about terrible times behind bars
Mike Amos: Bakelite fantastic
10:46am Tuesday 2nd October 2018
Even when 300 miles from home, the column finds that there’s always a dull moment.
Mike Amos: Sunderland bar Life of Riley an "oasis among amid all this dross"
10:35am Wednesday 26th September 2018
THE Campaign for Real Ale has around 5,000 members in the North-East. Around 4,985 had other things on when the 2019 Good Beer Guide had a teatime launch at Fitzgerald’s, in Sunderland.
Duty and the Beast
10:51am Tuesday 11th September 2018
Somewhat unexpectedly, the column finds itself in the middle of a Labour Party gathering
Ferrari rasher
8:00am Tuesday 4th September 2018
The world’s most expensive car has a very improbable number plate
Mike Amos: Summer Wine’s brilliant, though not everyone’s tipple
12:13pm Tuesday 21st August 2018
On the Fringe if not quite beyond it, the column has a confession to make.
Mike Amos: Gentlemen’s relish
5:00am Saturday 18th August 2018
Thick skinned or otherwise, we have been learning more about the hot property that’s claimed to be football’s most egregious shirt.
Mike Amos: Wild things
10:33am Wednesday 15th August 2018
DURHAM Wildlife Trust’s Low Barns nature reserve at Witton-le-Wear may offer rare and curious delights, none stranger than that on a summer Sunday no one from the trust seemed to be about.
Award-winning columnist Mike Amos with stories of the characterful people and colourful places that make the North-East.
• Mike also writes about grassroots sport in his weekly column, Backtrack
Hannah Chapman
Opinion on the issues of the week by The Northern Echo's editor.
Mike Amos
Stories of the characterful people and colourful places that make the North-East.
Chris Lloyd
Strange and trivial fascinations in a quest to understand today’s world.
Peter Barron
Weekly columns from The Northern Echo's former editor.
Chris Moncrieff
Weekly political comment from political correspondent Chris Moncrieff.
Harry Mead
An offbeat view of the week's events and how they affect the region.
Julia Breen
Anti-injustice, pro-equality, sometimes ragey.
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Regular ruminations of a 30-something reporter from Teesside.
Ben Houchen
Monthly column from Tees Valley Mayor, Ben Houchen.
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Durham Constabulary Chief Constable Mike Barton's monthly column on policing.
