A RUSTING party boat famed for its revolving dance floor was heading for the scrapheap in January 2018.

The Tuxedo Royale was set to be dismantled after nearly a decade of disrepair.

The decaying vessel had long been targeted by vandals and thieves, and was gutted by fire in 2017.

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Teesside marine engineering firm Able UK confirmed on January 11, 2018, that the ex-car ferry, once based near Middlesbrough Football Club’s Riverside Stadium, would be scrapped.

Campaigners had fought to save the boat, which had been moored at Able’s Middlesbrough port for eight years, highlighting its “great sentimental value” and potential as a training base for students and unemployed people to learn IT, welding and plumbing skills.

However, Neil Etherington, business development director at Able UK, which was also breaking down the massive 24,000-tonne Brent Delta oil rig in the region, said dismantling the Tuxedo Royale was the only option.

He said: “This has been an expensive process, has taken up valuable quay space and we have received no payments for storage.

“At the same time, it has become an ever-deteriorating eyesore. Well-intentioned enthusiasts have made valiant efforts to save the vessel, but dismantling and removal is the only viable option."

A charity football tournament established more than a century ago raised £1,000 for a little boy with a rare genetic disorder.

When the team behind the Darlington Charity Cup heard about the challenges Alfie McBride, from Bowburn, near Durham, and his family faced they were determined to help.

The six-year-old suffers from a chromosome variation called 16p13.11 microduplication, which resulted in learning difficulties, sensory issues and an inability to talk.

At school, the youngster benefits from sensory equipment, including hydrotherapy and fibre optic lights, but his family had struggled to afford or access funding to offer these therapies at home.

Alfie’s mother, Joanne Bugg launched a fundraising appeal to help create a sensory room. She was thrilled when the Darlington Charity Cup team offered to help.

“I was overwhelmed,” she said. “It feels as though I have had to fight for everything Alfie needs so to have someone contact me and offer to help means so much.

"Alfie’s condition is very rare so I don’t know exactly how it will affect him in the future. His behaviour can be challenging but we find he responds well to sensory equipment at school. This money will allow us to create a calming environment at home.”

As father and son explorers Robert and Barney Swan came to the end of a unique polar expedition, plans for their next big adventure were revealed, in January 2018.

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Robert, who grew up at Wycliffe, near Barnard Castle, was the first man to walk unaided to both north and south poles in the 1980s.

The 61-year-old was persuaded by his 23-year-old son to again cross Antarctica for the zero carbon South Pole Energy Challenge (SPEC), but was forced to pull out halfway through their 600-mile trek.

The pair next planned to sail with more than 100 leaders from 20 countries on a 12- day International Antarctic Expedition to equip them with resources and solutions so they can become a global force for environmental change, in February 2018.