Mike Amos

Farewell: the end of the Northern Echo era for Mike Amos

7:00am Saturday 7th December 2019

The designated driver being in Singapore, the bus service from Houghton to home not exactly frequent, the column missed the tribute night at Philadelphia Cricket Club to honour Malcolm Pratt’s 60 years service. It climaxed when the function room was formally named the Malcolm Pratt Lounge.

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After 55 years in journalism, 34 years of Backtrack, Mike Amos’s final column

6:10am Saturday 7th December 2019

Harry Stott, known more familiarly as Harrystottle, was my first chief reporter – today he’d probably be called a line manager – in the Bishop Auckland office of the Northern Despatch, conveniently situated above a money lender’s. It was August 1965.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Celebration of the world's oldest railway institute, plus plenty of beer

5:00am Wednesday 23rd October 2019

MUCH of an improbable nature has happened at Shildon Railway Institute these past few months. Finding ourselves discussing Einstein at a beer festival may be close to the top of the list.

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From bombs to blitzkrieg: wartime memories recalled in new book

5:00am Wednesday 16th October 2019

ALBERT Roxborough has compiled a book of wartime memories of folk in and around his church, from bombs to blitzkrieg and from evacuees to ITMA. “We needed to change the emphasis from research to recall,” says Albert.

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Second’s out: Long-serving Shildon boxing coach stands down

5:00am Saturday 12th October 2019

AFTER more promised retirements than Sinatra, more teasing than a golden fleece, John Heighington has finally stood down as Shildon Boxing Club’s head coach.

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Blue plaque finally unveiled for Spennymoor's aviation pioneer

10:13am Tuesday 8th October 2019

ERNIE Brooks finally has his blue plaque, formally unveiled last rainy Sunday morning. Had the blue plaque been decked in red tape, it could hardly have been more appropriate.

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Mike Amos marks the 160th anniversary of a favourite Darlington public house

5:00am Wednesday 2nd October 2019

A SERIES of events this week marks the 160th anniversary of the opening of the Britannia – forever the Brit – one of Darlington’s most venerable pubs.

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Community buy-out on the agenda for parish church

5:02am Wednesday 18th September 2019

PROPHESIED hereabouts in July, the folk of Witton Park now formally face losing their parish church – St Paul’s – but with an ingenious plan for its salvation.

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Mike Amos meets the man behind the revival of Shildon Carnival

5:00am Wednesday 11th September 2019

FOR medical reasons which need not now detain us, there wasn’t going to be a column this week. Then Paul Evans got in touch about matters close to – well, close to the bit of the anatomy which now diverts the docs. This very weekend, Paul’s resurrecting Shildon carnival.

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The Crook lad who joined the 1860s gold rush to Australia

10:30am Saturday 7th September 2019

It was just a passing reference, a throwaway line as they might almost say in the Crook and District Games League, whose annual presentation we reported a fortnight back.

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Mike Amos travels to a village flooded with community spirit

5:00am Thursday 29th August 2019

WHEN they told the new editor of the Reeth Gazette that the news would come to him they may not have imagined the awful, awe-ful events of Tuesday, July 30.

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Plenty to celebrate on a Saturday afternoon in Tow Law

5:00am Wednesday 14th August 2019

AS ever when blessed by Norman Deacon’s green fingers, the flower festival at St Philip and St James’ church in Tow Law proved a magnificent occasion. As with so many other churches, it was also good to be there and not be attending a funeral.

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Funding to save the bridge at Witton Park may have been identified

5:01am Wednesday 24th July 2019

IN the dear-gone days when public meetings helped formulate journalistic bread and butter, two words from the Bumper Book of Adjectives were considered indispensable. One was “packed”, the other “stormy”.

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Lions bookshop still doing a roaring trade

3:16pm Wednesday 3rd July 2019

A BOOKSHOP in which nothing costs more than 50p and where much represents an extraordinary bargain is marking 25 years at its present premises.

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Mike Amos: Something in the air

6:30pm Tuesday 11th June 2019

TORNADO, the Darlington dreadnought, has been enjoying life on the fast line. Tornado Telegraph tells of the 21st century steam engine galloping from Leicester to Holyhead, from North Road to Chester on a circuitous route via 49 junctions and of blasting at 62mph over the formidable Shap Summit in Cumbria, a heritage steam speed record.

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