• Related article: The northern Echo.
• Related article: Hold The Front Page.

This week I heard that one of the north east’s regional daily newspapers, The Northern Echo, would finally be moving from its long established base in Priestgate in the centre of Darlington.

My connection with the paper goes back more than 30 years because it was where I actually first saw inside an editorial department in a newspaper.

Back in 1989 I had owned a SLR camera for about three years and my hobby was getting so serious that I was considering a career change as a photojournalist.

One of my friends, Ken Lambell who sadly is no longer with us as he passed away a few years back, had a brother who worked in the industry so we travelled to Darlington for a catch up.

Phil Lambell was the chief sub editor of The Northern Echo at the time, a sub editor is the person who makes sense of our copy and makes our photos look good on the page, and he kindly agreed to give me a guided tour of the editorial department on the Sunday morning.

When I got there I was amazed to see photos appearing on the computer screens which were sent by various wire services from all over the world.

Phil gave me some good advice because he pointed me in the direction of the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) photojournalism course in Sheffield and recommended Harold Evan’s book Pictures on a Page which I subsequently bought.

Needless to say I was convinced that a career in the media was the way forward for me and I was successful on being accepted on the course two years later – as I recall every year there were more than 1000 applicants for just 13 places so I felt very fortunate to get a place. And, more than 30 years later, I am still puzzled why I still have not what would be considered “a proper job” by most people.

The Northern Echo has had some illustrious editors over the years including W T Stead, who was a pioneer in investigative journalism in the Victorian era who went down with the Titanic, and the aforementioned Harold Evans.

Evans successfully campaigned for cervical smear tests to become more readily available and for a pardon for Timothy Evans who was wrongly convicted and hanged for murders in Notting Hill in London.

Also when he was on a national newspaper he also campaigned against the thalidomide drug which was prescribed to expectant mothers suffering from morning sickness which led to thousands of children in Britain having deformed limbs.

I do hope The Northern Echo thrives in its new location and it is good to see that its new address is still in the town centre which is unusual for a lot of newspaper relocations – having said that my current employer relocated into the city centre rather than opting for a faceless and inaccessible unit on an out of town industrial estate.

I did get back to Darlington in 2014 when I got these shots and it was good to see that the pub across the road honoured W T Stead and there was a plaque next to the rock where he tethered his pony.