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Light the blue touch-paper and retire

11:43am Friday 12th March 2010

SPECTATOR would like to echo the sentiments of the correspondent who last week praised the contribution made to our letters page by Christopher Loader, a pupil at the Allertonshire School, Northallerton.

Is Darlington a dirty town? Discuss

11:00am Friday 5th March 2010

SUNDAY morning in West Auckland Road, Darlington. Near the Faverdale roundabout, a council workman is spotted wearing his “Street Scene” team bib busily litter picking.

What’s the future for old school?

11:32am Friday 26th February 2010

THE relocation of Hurworth House School to Polam Hall in Darlington, if approved, opens up an interesting commercial property opportunity in Hurworth.

Welcome to Thornton Gate: we hate you

12:37pm Friday 19th February 2010

DRIVING through Thornton le Moor, the village near Northallerton which seems pretty much united in opposing Judy and Nigel Bell’s plans for a retirement village on their doorstep, Spectator noted the dozens, perhaps more than a hundred, of “Say No to Thornton Gate” posters on almost every gatepost, tree or other roadside vertical surface.

Darlington’s growth industry – pawnbroking

12:08pm Friday 12th February 2010

JUST a few years ago, a pastime for an idle Spectator moment was counting the number of places one could buy a cup of coffee within half a mile of Pease’s statue in Darlington town centre. Every time it was a different number, because new coffee outlets were opening almost by the week.

Please sir, can I have some more sage butter?

11:41am Friday 5th February 2010

SCHOOL dinners are not what they used to be, that’s for sure.

Darlington’s invisible man finally breaks cover

11:22am Friday 29th January 2010

UNTIL this week, we had begun to think Darlington’s Conservative prospective Parliamentary candidate Edward Legard was the invisible man.

Jury is still out on Darlington’s economic future

11:45am Friday 22nd January 2010

THE Darlington Debate, held this week by the Darlington Partnership at Lingfield Point, was a good natured discussion about the economic future of the town.

The big county finds its borders are expanded

11:15am Friday 8th January 2010

NOW we know Yorkshire’s a big county and once was even bigger when its boundaries stretched to the south banks of the Tees, but we don’t think even the most expansionist Tyke would claim that Raby Castle, the Bowes Museum and Hartlepool could ever be counted as part of the broad acres.