Harold Evans, above, has been voted the greatest British newspaper editor. His first editorship was The Northern Echo. Now he has published his autobiography, My Paper Chase. Chris Lloyd selects excerpts from the book to show Evans’ remarkable impact on the troubled North-East of the Sixties

FOR young Harold Evans, “the most exciting sound in the world was the slow whoosh-whoosh of the big steam engine” taking him on his summer holiday to Rhyl, in North Wales. But it was amid the rhythmic clatter of a different set of giant revolving industrial wheels that he made his name – those of the hot metal printing press.

Born near Manchester in 1928, Evans began his career on Durham University’s Palatinate magazine in the Forties. He found national acclaim editing the Sunday Times in the Seventies during its campaigning heyday, and then international acclaim in New York as a shrewd commentator, historian and publisher.

In 2001, he was voted the all-time greatest British newspaper editor – and his first seat was here at The Northern Echo.

He arrived in Darlington in August 1961 to edit the “Miners’ Bible”, which, although selling 100,000 copies a morning, was moribund and stale.

The Echo’s condition mirrored the state of the North-East, and the 33-year-old set about shaking up both. He placed his faith in the Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, whose experience as MP for Stockton in the Twenties and Thirties Evans believed to be vital.

In his autobiography, My Paper Chase, which is published today, the Fleet Street favourite tells his role in lighting up the region’s economy.

It is a story that might even illuminate our own recession-ravaged times.

“So I regarded Supermac as a good bet; if we reported and argued effectively, we might win a better share of public sector investment to tackle our 20th Century devils: a male unemployment rate twice the national average; little new industry; thousands of slum homes without a bath; air and water pollution; schools falling down; landscapes scarred by derelict spoil heaps from exhausted coal mines.

“Macmillan couldn’t by himself regenerate the region. It was psychologically depressed by daily life amid the debris of the industrial revolution and the careless 1930s. It had to be roused from stoicism to strenuous endeavour, it had to inspire more civic service, it had to nurture its own culture: two cathedral cities, two universities, the Northern Sinfonia Orchestra and the creative talents that had somehow flowered among the privations of the pit villages, most notably in the paintings of Norman Cornish, 33 years underground, and the novels of Sid Chaplin.”

EVANS, the son of an engine driver, lunched with Shildon-born Chaplin who told him: “There’s an ache for leadership.”

Evans determined that the Echo would provide that leadership.

“By the time lunch was over I felt we had already retrained miners displaced by pit closures, grassed over the scores of hideous slag heaps, diverted the heavy lorries, cleaned up the beaches and rivers, purified the air, and capped it all off with a spectacular celebration concert in Durham Cathedral.”

Reality intruded. “With each passing week, the news got grimmer. The last shipbuilding yard on the Tees closed; so did Darlington’s railway workshops. We hammered away at the piecemeal, short-term and incoherent government polices for the region. We emphasised the crucial interaction between the economy and the environment. You couldn’t walk in the shadow of the giant pit heaps without wondering why everyone had not fled long ago: skilled labour migrated south all the time.

“The vile winter of 1962-63, the worst in living memory, exposed the inadequacy of the road system. Giant snowdrifts cut off thousands of people for days. The effect on the local economy was devastating: nearly 90,000 were unemployed.”

The Echo launched a series, They Came North to Success, to highlight firms which had relocated to the region, and then seized upon the Hailsham Plan. Supermac sent Viscount Hailsham to the region that bitter winter to plan a new springtime.

“The conurbations of Tyneside, Teesside and the Darlington, Aycliffe area would become ‘growth zones’ for investment with new airports, motorways, revived seaports; a regional council would make decisions on the spot so that everything didn’t have to await the nod from London.

“Hailsham envisaged making towns and villages more pleasant with decent housing, schools and hospitals, by removing the industrial scars, tackling pollution and fostering the arts. I couldn’t contain my glee, hopping around the editorial floor like a kid with candy.”

The Echo sent an architect touring the region to illustrate how “the big clean up” could begin. “Our attention to the derelict wilderness between Thornaby and Middlesbrough near a tatty racecourse was the genesis of the amusement park and modern shopping area funded in the 1980s.”

Regeneration may repair a regional economy, but it cannot uplift the regional soul.

A reporter visiting France spotted a “son et lumière” concert. “In his review, he wondered why we could not do the same in the much grander and more glorious setting of Durham Cathedral.”

DURHAM, both cathedral and city, quickly came on-board. Evans found a lighting engineer and a director. “I asked Sid Chaplin to write the script; Flora Robson, born in South Shields, agreed to narrate. We dragooned the cathedral choir, the Horden Colliery Band, the Cornforth Men’s Choir and the cathedral’s bell ringers.” Tickets flew.

“It was the single most exciting and uplifting experience of my time in Darlington, a magical marriage of North-East enterprise and artistry to reflect the splendours of human faith and endeavour. You could hear the intake of breath among the crowds as the lighting revealed the hidden beauties of the interior and the pageant of 900 years unfolded.

“When it was over, we were able to give the cathedral the profit of around £70,000 at today’s values. It was agreed most of the money should go to pay for the installation of permanent floodlighting. In the years since, I’ve never been able to look on that glorious heritage of the cathedral shining in the night without a rush of exaltation and gratitude.”

■ My Paper Chase: True Stories of Vanished Times by Harold Evans (Little, Brown, £25).

TOMORROW: The cervical smear campaign and the Teesside smell