Mike Amos
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.
The sun has had its hat on; the column heads out bare-headed
9:59am Wednesday 1st August 2018
VERY likely it’s the case, as Mr Noel Coward supposed, that only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun. They and itinerant columnists, anyway.
Market town folk looking skywards and wondering what's happening to the swifts
8:22am Wednesday 25th July 2018
MASHAM’S a small market town in North Yorkshire, population 1,205 when last anyone counted, perhaps best known for its breweries, its sheep and last weekend’s steam engine rally.
On its travels again, the column looks like the cat that got the cream
8:42am Wednesday 18th July 2018
THOUGH more than three months must be surmounted before our ruby wedding – and perhaps in anticipation that she might yet dispense with my services before November 1 – we’ve received the first anniversary present.
The King is dead no longer. The column raises a glass to that and to the NHS
8:49am Wednesday 11th July 2018
THE King Willie wasn’t just any old street corner pub, it was our street corner pub, 100 yards from the ancestral home in Shildon.
Mike Amos: Is the No 840 really Britain’s best bus route?
8:16am Wednesday 27th June 2018
A POLL of 15,000 people recently voted the No 840 Britain’s most scenic bus route, a claim intermittently and immodestly reproduced on the double decker destination board when properly it should say “Whitby”.
A pledge to honour an aviation pioneer is about to be fulfilled
9:24am Wednesday 13th June 2018
ALMOST half a century after he plunged to his death, aviation pioneer Ernie Brooks is doubly to be remembered.
Mike Amos: From the great dance hall scandal to a slight encounter with the nobility
9:41am Wednesday 6th June 2018
DR DUNCAN Bythell, that great Swaledale historian and author, has given what he vowed would be his last public lecture – the history of Keld from 1870-1970. As usual, Reeth Museum sold out.
The funeral celebrant so moved that she decided she had to do something
8:55am Wednesday 30th May 2018
ANGELA WALLS was the celebrant – the preferred term, though sometimes it seems pretty paradoxical – at Sam Gordon’s funeral last month.
Mike Amos: Future bright for Barningham pub with no bar
9:14am Wednesday 23rd May 2018
WHEN last we visited Barningham, that delightful village on the Durham/North Yorkshire border south of Barnard Castle, it was the local hedgehog population that was deemed to be endangered. Hence the novel road signs indicated a slow-go area.
Mike Amos: Dome, sweet dome
9:25am Wednesday 16th May 2018
WHITLEY Bay’s evolving, edging – some might say accelerating – upmarket. Shortly, spectacularly, to be reborn, the Spanish City may be the icing on the enchiladas.
Mike Amos: SLUG's pace
9:11am Wednesday 9th May 2018
THE 17.52 from Darlington to Saltburn last Tuesday evening would have been fine had it been a bit warmer, a bit more comfortable and, ideally, enjoyed the attentions of that colourful conductor chap who got on television for making his announcements in verse.
Mike Amos: Judge not lest thou be judged, but the column’s still much impressed by Lady Hale
8:42am Wednesday 25th April 2018
THERE may not have been a longer queue outside the old Zetland Cinema in Richmond since kids got into the Saturday morning matinee in exchange for a couple of jam jars.
Mike Amos: Signs and wonders
8:43am Tuesday 17th April 2018
NAMED a hedgehog champion by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds – an organisation clearly spreading its wings – transport secretary Chris Grayling is considering road signs wordlessly urging greater care. Barningham’s beaten him to it.
Mike Amos: The scandalous story of the future Prime Minister’s wayward mother
9:20am Tuesday 10th April 2018
WINDLESTONE Hall and parkland, set magnificently near Rushyford in south Durham, was for 100 years until 1936 the garden of Eden, though little in the garden seemed rosy.
Mike Amos: Enjoying Easter - who says you can't have your cake and eat it?
8:20am Tuesday 3rd April 2018
IN Weardale, as in these columns, Easter Day customarily begins with what the churches formerly called a sunrise service, but which, experience having eclipsed expectation, is now a dawn service, instead.
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
Peter Barron
Weekly columns from The Northern Echo's former 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.
Chris Moncrieff
Weekly political comment from political correspondent Chris Moncrieff.
Ruth Campbell
Ruth on the heartaches & belly laughs that go with being a mum.
Harry Mead
An offbeat view of the week's events and how they affect the region.
Julia Breen
Anti-injustice, pro-equality, sometimes ragey.
Jo Morris
Regular ruminations of a 30-something reporter from Teesside.
Ben Houchen
Monthly column from Tees Valley Mayor, Ben Houchen.
Mike Barton
Durham Constabulary Chief Constable Mike Barton's monthly column on policing.
