On January 18, 2017, Jill Halfpenny unknowingly kissed her partner, Matt, goodbye for the last time. In an utterly relatable scene from households everywhere, she was peeing on an ovulation stick while Matt was getting ready to leave for an early morning gym class. Less than an hour later, Jill was awoken by someone banging …
Dance City does what it says on the tin — or at least on the front of the building — but in this Refugee Week the focus is as much on food as on dance. That’s why I’m sitting in the café with Anand Bhatt, Dance City’s artistic director and chief executive, where the chalkboard …
Wherever you travel in the world you can bet your bottom dollar you’ll bump into a fellow Geordie, Mackem, or Sand-dancer. My latest such encounter was on the other side of the globe with a 20-year-old lad from a rather famous Newcastle family. But he had perished more than a century before in the most …
In the library of the Friends Meeting House in Middlesbrough, the whirr of sewing machines and conversation provide an ambient backdrop to a sunny Saturday morning. The sewing bees stitching and mending are just a handful of volunteers who have given their time to run the town’s very first Repair Cafe. It is the latest …
Retired doctor Richard Wharton travelled to the North East from his home in Somerset to meet one of his ancestors face to face. It was part of a family time travel visit to Wharton Park in the heart of Durham city, which was created by William Lloyd Wharton in 1857. At the park, Richard was …
From Scotswood Road to Scotland’s Euro 2024 base on the edge of the Alps, it’s been quite a journey. There have been ups, downs and almost everything in between for John Carver. Only his career in football was almost over before it really began. John was released by Newcastle United in 1985 as a teenager …
Let’s not beat around the bush here — when it comes to loyalty and longevity, Darius Defoe is part of a dying breed. We may never see his like again. His legacy, his achievements and his contribution to the North East will live on long after he finally calls time on his decorated playing career. But …
On June 16, 1964, Connie and Tom Pickard organised the first poetry reading at Morden Tower on Newcastle’s mediaeval town West Walls. Over the next few years, against the odds, it became an international centre for poetry and one of the most iconic venues for poetry performances in Britain. It played host to Allen Ginsberg, …
Recently while watching Mammals, the latest of David Attenborough’s remarkable films about the animal kingdom, I was entranced as a gorilla used the branch of a tree to help him walk along a path through dense jungle. Then he went and spoiled the touching image by braying a rival over the head with it. This …
No matter how England’s male footballers fare as the Euros get underway in Germany this week, it surely can’t compare with the special achievements of an amateur women’s team from the grass roots of County Durham. What the Chester-le-Street Amazons have done goes way beyond football. Theirs is a victory for the human spirit. Not …
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