June 15, 2012

Rapper Chris Fawcett was 16 when a careers adviser told him he would never get a job in music. Today, he’s teaching songwriting to youngsters and has become one of Hexham’s rising stars, with 210,000 views to date on his YouTube channel. YOU can’t buy a CD of Chris Fawcett’s Read More

Just below the Alpine areas of Veneto in Italy, is a valley blessed with the perfect climate for producing a dry sparkling white wine – something Tynedale’s Stuart Colmer just can’t resist. IN a lush sun-drenched Italian valley in between the majestic Dolomite mountains and the Read More

Sausage sarnies and bacon butties are recipes for success for Flora Wright, whose burger van on a Hexham industrial estate does a roaring trade AS JOB descriptions go, it sounds rather ideal: Commuting distance? A couple of minutes at most. Job satisfaction? Well, you will be Read More

A couple have converted a former Methodist chapel in the remote village of Slaggyford into their home – made all the more colourful by a series of stunning stained glass windows. SHAFTS of rainbow coloured light dart across the pale, maple floorboards in David and Mary Livesey’s Read More

Bumblebees and other pollinators are crucial to our existence. So why not give them a hand by planting the right types of flowers in your garden? WHERE would we be without bees and other pollinating insects? Well for starters, many of us wouldn’t be here at all. We’d have starved Read More

Many of England’s once prosperous country houses are either no longer with us, or cared for by organisations like the National Trust. When the visitors go home, the doors are locked, the lights go out and these preserved icons of a past age lie silent and empty. But at Hesleyside Read More

The National Gardens Scheme, which encourages people to open their gardens to the public to raise money for charity, celebrates its 85th anniversary this year. SOME gardeners find themselves at cross purposes with Mother Nature – they believe their patch of ground is a flower Read More

Welcome to the world of sailing.  A world of nautical terms and one inhabited by 14-year-old Simon Weatherspoon who is following in the footsteps of his father – a former world champion. DURBAN, South Africa, 2001. Rough seas and towering waves are threatening to overcome even Read More

Bardon Mill and Henshaw – two villages, two parishes and a lot in between – but all linked together as one community which is looking forward to a brand new village hall. THE view from Maureen Brook’s living room across the Tyne Valley, rising to the hills of Plenmeller Common is Read More

Car boot sales, it seems, have become part of our national psyche. A man bought his house at one of them. Another came across a photograph of his mother on VE Day. No wonder they’ve become so popular. WHEN Dennis Davison bought a couple of Victorian watercolours for just £18 at Read More