I’M a big fan of Terry Laybourne, the no-nonsense chef who managed to squeeze the North-East very first Michelin star out of that snobbish, metropolitan, classical cuisine-obsessed organisation. His Bistro 21 in Durham and Café 21 in Newcastle
STAYCATIONS – where people decide to holiday in Britain, and even close to home to keep costs down – are all the rage at present, so we took ourselves off to Suffolk. The county has enormous appeal. There are pretty villages, gentle rolling scenery
PILES of rubbish beside the Joseph Pease monument in Darlington visibly rammed home the point this week about the casual littering of streets that costs the council £1.5m a year to clear up. Scores of bags full of empty cans, crisp packets,
YOUNG people who like to congregate at a beauty spot in the centre of Barnard Castle may be given somewhere warm, dry and safe to socialise. Police want to erect a youth shelter on Scar Top, a grassed area which is the main entrance to the castle
ALMOST 3,000 people have joined a group aiming to prevent a secondary school being built in a popular park. Stockton Borough Council is carrying out an ongoing study into options to improve secondary school education in Yarm, Ingleby Barwick
FARMERS are being enlisted in the fight against crime in Darlington’s rural areas. Police and community groups are uniting to relaunch the Farmwatch scheme, in which people living in rural areas are encouraged to take an active role in tackling
TRIBUTES are to be paid this afternoon to Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland MP Dr Ashok Kumar, who died on Monday. The 53-year-old was found dead in his Middlesbrough home by police after his constituency staff raised the alarm when he
A NEW farmers’ network is attracting widespread interest. The Yorkshire Dales Farmers Network was launched at Hawes mart last month and has already attracted interest from 300 people. The farmer-based company aims to support farmers who want
A TEESSIDE industrial fabrication plant this week went into administration with 15 redundancies and a further 80 jobs at risk. Hertel Project Services (HPS), based at Wilton, near Redcar, works primarily in the nuclear, process, petrochemical
A 33-YEAR-OLD fly fisherman has landed a top job in the North-East’s expanding forestry sector. Ben Tansey has been appointed director of Northwoods, an organisation which helps the region’s forestry businesses with training and advice, marketing
A NORTH-EAST management consultancy which usually works with multi-million pound companies is now offering its training services to small and medium businesses. County Durhambased Protostar Leadership Development will offer a range of services
TWO developers were so impressed by a rendering system that they have gone into business offering it to others. Dean Wilson and Matthew Bell run Belson Homes, a growing building and property development firm in Northallerton. They hired a sub-contractor
A BOOK of condolence has been opened in memory of Dr Ashok Kumar MP, who died this week. Well-wishers will be able to sign the book in the entrance of Sunnyfield House, Westgate, Guisborough. A commemoration ceremony takes place in Guisborough
THE national spring show of beef cattle will take place at Hexham mart in May. It is part of Beef Expo 2010, which is organised by the National Beef Association and takes place on Thursday, May 27. The spring show is open to commercial beef cattle
A YOUNG cattle handler has become the first recipient of a trophy dedicated to the memory of a popular pub landlord and farmer. Lucy Corner, 15, of Brafferton, near Newton Aycliffe, won the George Wilkinson Memorial Trophy at the spring sale at
HILL farming will need financial support for years to come. Chloe Palmer, Yorkshire regional director of the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group, said the Government must recognise the sector is an “absolutely vital part of the rural fabric”.
SHORT supply and vigorous demand has seen recent wool prices soar to 113p a kilo. The British Wool Marketing Board has sold out and cancelled two of the last six sales of the selling year at its Bradford headquarters. Frank Langrish, chairman,
TWO midwives and a healthcare assistant have retired after more than 120 years’ service between them, during which time they delivered thousands of babies. Midwives Gillian Fawcett and Susan Bunt, along with healthcare assistant Susan Fish,
A PROJECT to improve the quality of a North Yorkshire river holds its first workshop for farmers next week. The River Leven is generally in good shape but suffers from a buildup of silt and mud. The Environment Agency is concerned that unless steps
Richmond man’s vital role with heroines of the Winter Olympics INTENSE PROCESS: Jack Baldwin with a skelton sleigh in Richmond – Picture: Chris Booth/D&S WHEN Amy Williams celebrated Britain’s first individual gold medal in the Winter Olympics
PLANS for a controversial housing development that faced almost 100 objections when it was last submitted are set to go before councillors again. The proposal to build 44 new homes on vacant land known as Pilmoor Hill, between Stanley Grove
IT WAS quarter-finals day in the Dales Cup last Saturday, and holders Bowes reached the last four again with a 4-1 win at Leyburn United. The hosts took an early lead through Ritchie Weedall and they went on to dominate the first half, but
THE Cheltenham Festival saw a local winner in the very first race when the Ferdy Murphytrained Poker de Sivola came home in front in the National Hunt Chase. The 14-1 shot, trained at Murphy’s stables in West Witton, was well-ridden by Katie
AFTER winning on their travels the previous week, both Darlington clubs lost home games they expected to win on Saturday. With four of their pack unavailable, Darlington lost 27-16 against Morpeth, who began the match third from the bottom of
THE persistent icy conditions over the last three months made this winter the coldest for 30 years but, except for those over high ground, we were let off relatively kindly, especially during February. Winds were mostly light, so snow did not drift
Lynda Bellingham talks to Hannah Stephenson about her new book, Lost And Found. ACTRESS, Loose Women panellist and one-time Oxo mum Lynda Bellingham has had more drama in her life than most of us have had hot dinners. Her first two destructive
THE Andreas Ensemble performs The Crucifixion by John Stainer as a meditation for Palm Sunday at St Andrew’s, South Church, Bishop Auckland, on March 28, at 3pm. The director is Brian Varley and Andrew Robinson accompanies on the organ. This
WHEN the trio recorded this programme, they can have had no finer tribute than the one from Dave Brubeck himself, who described it as an inspiration and a challenge. This “invitation to enter the unknown”, as he put it, was ably demonstrated at
THE second round of the League Challenge Cup did not throw up too many shocks last Sunday as most of the ties went with the form book. The tie of the round was the only all-Division One clash as leaders Sportsmans FC travelled to second-placed
ASK any budding gardener which crops he would try to grow first and I guarantee that tomatoes would be among the top answers. They not only look and taste infinitely better than shopbought ones, but there are so many varieties from which to
IT WAS a winless weekend for Thirsk’s teams in a tough series of matches. The women’s firsts, at home to Slazengers, enjoyed a confident start but conceded a goal in the first 15 minutes. Helen Goacher’s goal restored parity before half-time.
Thornaby 1 Northallerton Town 2 FOLLOWING their 3-2 Ernest Armstrong Cup defeat at Thornaby in mid-week, Northallerton Town returned to Teesdale Park on Saturday to take on the same opponents in the skilltraining Northern League Division
TAKE it as read that Edward Fox makes an entirely convincing Anthony Trollope as you could imagine gracing a leather armchair at the Athenaeum. What also makes this evening so satisfying is the genius of the selection and juxtaposition of extracts
Richmond Amateur Dramatic Society’s first production of the year is presented at the Georgian Theatre Royal next week. A Tomb with a View, a comedy-thriller written by Yorkshireman Norman Robbins, runs for three nights from Thursday, at 7.30pm.
WORKSHOPS for young instrumentalists will be held in Ripon over the weekend of April 30 and May 1. The tutors will be the five soloists performing with the St Cecilia Orchestra at its spring concert in Holy Trinity Church on the Saturday evening
BILL Naughton’s comedy Alfie and a stage adaptation of the classic film The Graduate form part of the spring season at Middlesbrough Theatre. Alfie, best known for the film starring Michael Caine, is presented from Thursday to Saturday, March
AN EQUESTRIAN fashion show is to be held in Ripon to raise funds for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance. Freedom Dressage, based at Newby Hall, Ripon, is organising the event at the stables on Monday, March 29, at 7pm, which will feature local riders
RIPON International Festival will celebrate spring with a concert by the Northern Sinfonia at Ripon Cathedral on Saturday, May 8, conducted by Janusz Piotrowicz, who is renowned for bringing excitement to his performances of great classics and
NORTHALLERTON DMC finally struck lucky on Sunday for their annual Clubman trial at Girsby, near Yarm. After a string of cancellations due to bad weather, the sun finally put a smile on clerk of course Nigel Rooksby’s face as he plotted four
LOCAL competitors were scattered far and wide for a number of rallies last week and once again, a mixture of success and frustration greeted the crews in their bids for glory. Heading north to the Hytorc Stages Rally at Ingliston, near Edinburgh
Breckenbrough. - April 10: novice and open classes, for schedules, send SAE to Helen Bell, The Barn, Manor House, Newsham, Thirsk, YO7 4DJ. Camp Hill. - April 2: Easter egg hunt. April 3: BE XC day course. April 6: children's XC Sessions. April 12
THE Cheltenham Festival took centre stage this week and Yarm-based jockey Paddy Aspell had his biggest career win on Tuesday, when steering home 33-1 shot Chief Dan George for Cartmel-based trainer Jimmy Moffatt. Aspell has suffered mixed
I AM frequently asked why some market crosses look more like ornate temples than a simple posts fashioned from local stone. Recently, two people stopped me in Helmsley to ask that question, probably because its cross with its restored head
From this newspaper 100 years ago. Topics of the week: The news from Biarritz. Rough, cold, disagreeable weather and a slight cold in the head have been keeping King Edward indoors at Biarritz. At most, all he has done is to go for a run in his motor
THE countryside in the Yorkshire Dales National Park is full of pointers to bygone days when our ancestors worked the land to survive. Some need an expert eye to trace them while others are more obvious – it’s just a matter of knowing what to
THE colourful life of a country character who once battled through 7ft-high snow drifts to deliver food to starving farmers has provided rich material for a book. Albert Prest, of Borrowby, near Thirsk, endured a hard childhood and is proud to
From this newspaper 100 years ago. – Topics of the week: The news from Biarritz. Rough, cold, disagreeable weather and a slight cold in the head have been keeping King Edward indoors at Biarritz. At most, all he has done is to go for a run in his
POSSIBLY the biggest shot in the arm for the Yorkshire tourism industry since Alf Wight created the Herriot phenomenon half a century ago is likely to hit our TV screens next year. Spectator understands negotiations are at an advanced stage
TWO reports in this week’s edition underline the importance of providing young people with meaningful activities or places to meet. Firstly, Thirsk’s acclaimed and highly valued youth project, The Clock, is set to complete its controversial move to
Sir, – The letter from Carl Lis, chairman of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (D&S, Mar 12), is reassuring in asserting that “there is no possibility that the name Yorkshire will be dropped from the title of the national park”. However
Sir, – As a loyal Lancastrian exiled in the Dales, I believe it’s time to give a Red Rose perspective on the current debate about extending the Yorkshire Dales National Park. I feel strongly that the park should focus its activity within its present
Sir, – The Prime Minster isn’t telling the truth on defence spending. Gordon Brown boasted at the Iraq inquiry that he had provided all the equipment that our armed forces needed in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Straight after his six-hour testimony
Sir, – I have just been reading Nicholas Rhea’s Countryman’s Diary with interest as a resident of Northallerton. Two points struck me, Firstly, the lion above the porch of the Golden Lion Hotel, is it really recumbent? My Chambers Twentieth Century
Sir, – As the chairman of Thornton le Moor with Thornton le Street Parish Council I would like to clarify the report of the meeting with MP Anne McIntosh at her surgery in Thirsk (D&S, Mar12) to discuss the Thornton Gate retirement village. Readers
Sir, – I feel compelled to write as the D&S falls through my letter box with the leading news article in the County Durham edition being yet again about Hurworth – and dog dirt no less! Is there no other newsworthy issue that could adorn the front
Sir, – The report of Dr Burgess, the Rural Advocate, (D&S, Mar 12) is a damning indictment of the current Government’s failure to address the concerns of rural communities such as ours in the constituency of Richmond. He rightly highlights the
Sir, – I am pleased to see that Christopher Loader has not been discouraged from airing his views in your august journal (D&S letters, Mar 12), even if I do think them a bit daft. Mr Loader may well enjoy a “highly rewarding” future in local government
Sir, – following the OFTs high court defeat over odious bank charges last month, a member of the banking aristocracy, Simon Hester, boss of RBS, felt sufficiently secure to be able to lecture the public that there is no such thing as a free lunch
Sir, – European Parliament plans to grant pregnant women 20 weeks of maternity leave on full pay, which would have a significant impact on Yorkshire businesses, have been shelved pending a full impact assessment, following demands by the Conservatives
Sir, – So the government wants to reduce the drink-drive level to one pint. I can only assume they are terrified there might be one or two rural pubs still serving. GODFREY BLOOM UKIP MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire Selby.
