Looking back to 2013, when a Northern Echo petition was presented to the Government to stop hundreds of jobs being moved out of a town, on February 27, 2013.

The Northern Echo delivered the Save Our Jobs campaign to Downing Street, urging the Department for Education (DfE) to keep its 480 civil service posts in Darlington.

The DfE, which was looking to cut 1,000 jobs nationally, said no decision had been made and it was still considering alternative sites in Darlington, Durham and Newcastle.

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Staff said they would be unable to afford the travel costs if their jobs are moved from the town.

The Northern Echo presented the petition, which contained nearly 1,200 signatures, to the DfE alongside Darlington MP Jenny Chapman and Sedgefield MP Phil Wilson.

Mrs Chapman said the jobs were vital for Darlington's economy because Mowden Hall workers and their families generated up to £21m a year.

She said: "This petition has allowed us to take the campaign to the highest possible level and show we must keep the jobs in the town.

"I also want to commend The Northern Echo for the role it has played in organising this petition, and for its ongoing support to the workers."

Michael Gove sparked fury on March 5, 2013, when he warned he could "smell the sense of defeatism" in some North-East schools.

The Education Secretary picked out east Durham as a "prime example" of schools being dogged by a "problem of ambition in certain traditional communities".

He turned his fire on the lack of choice and on Labour-run Durham County Council, saying: "When you go into those schools, you can smell the sense of defeatism."

Phil Wilson, the MP for Sedgefield, and Grahame Morris, the MP for Easington, said they could not remember Mr Gove visiting any school in east Durham in nearly three years in the job.

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Amy, from Aiskew, near Bedale, North Yorkshire, got her shed for her 15th birthday to nurture her vegetables in. But it has grown from its humble roots and she has branched out to convert it into a shrine to vintage furniture and the royal family.