LOOKING back to the week of September 11 to 17, five years ago.

A SEVENTEEN-year-old driver was set to make his debut as the youngest racer on the grid of an illustrious championship as he took to the wheel on Saturday, September 15, 2018.

Ethan Hammerton was ready to pull on his racing boots and suit for the last two rounds of the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC), which was to be held at the world-famous Silverstone and Brands Hatch circuits.

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The Northallerton teenager was called up to replace Team Hard racer, Michael Caine, a former British GT Championship winner who had been racing in the BTCC since 2011.

The young racer overtook more than 100 other drivers to secure the Team Hard GKR Scaffolding Scholarship and had since been racing in the prestigious VW Cup Championship.

His move up to the BTCC arrived far sooner than he expected and recognises his talent on track.

“I have been watching British Touring Cars at Croft with my mum, dad and brother since I was a young boy and I can’t believe I am now going to be actually racing in the championship,” he said.

“I switched from racing karts to racing cars in the Junior Saloon Car Championship when I was 15, in 2015, and it was my goal then to race in the BTCC and I’ve achieved that ambition – it’s a dream come true.”

A group of Dale women bared all for charity by creating their own naked calendar, in September 2018.

The Weardale Calendar Girls 2019 project started out as a dare in a pub in Stanhope with hairdresser and businesswoman Jackie Brown.

Mrs Brown, a cancer survivor, was organising a ladies’ day fundraiser for Cancer Research UK when she asked some local men to take part in a Full Monty piece following the success of the BBC show The Real Full Monty, earlier in the year.

The men agreed, but only if the women would be prepared to take on their own Calendar Girls project too.

Mrs Brown, 43, said the idea snowballed from there and before she knew it, a team of 27 ladies had bravely volunteered for the cause.

“I suffered cancer last year and I’m now in remission form Hodgkin’s Lymphoma,” she said. “I was diagnosed after four months and was Stage 3 when they caught it so I had to have an aggressive form of chemo but I’m now out of the other side so wanted to give something back.”

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Scenes include enjoying a drink outside the local pub in the snow, getting creative in the local greengrocers and showing off their shooting skills on the fell.

The mum-of-two said: “We had an absolute hoot and laughed from start to finish."

Animal lovers were urging people to help save hens destined for slaughter by adopting them and giving them new homes where they can live out their lives.

Emma Docherty’s house in Langley Moor, near Durham, was set to become a rehoming centre for some of the some of the thousands of hens who have passed their use in the commercial egg production sector.

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She said: “When the hens get to 72 weeks old the farmers then send them for slaughter because they are not viable for egg production.

“Their carcasses are worth very little and are usually sold for dog food, baby food or cheap, processed pies.

“Fresh Start for Hens has a good relationship with British farmers and buy the hens from the caged, barn and free range systems, just before their slaughter date."