IN recent weeks, we’ve been looking at the Christmas Budget magazine produced by The Northern Echo in 1937.

A copy of the magazine has just turned up in Jeremiah Vokes’ antiquarian bookshop in Coniscliffe Road, Darlington. It is called the "Xmas Budget". A “budget” originally had nothing to do with a Chancellor of the Exchequer. A “budget” was originally a French word, “bougette”, which was a little leather bag. In particular, when it entered the English language in the early 15th Century, it meant the collection of interesting and meaningful oddments that might be found in a little leather bag.

The Northern Echo: The Northern Echo's Christmas 1937 Budget
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And so the Budget is packed full of seasonal stories and puzzles, including a cryptic 

Christmas crossword, which we’ve reproduced here. Does it still work 86 years after it was created? Can you complete it? If you get 1 Down, you'll be doing very well – it looks to us to be a word that hasn’t been used since 1937.

The Northern Echo: 1937 Echo Christmas crossword

But best of all in The Budget are the pages of adverts which give you a real feel for what Christmas was like 86 years ago. So here's a Darlington gift guide from 1937...

The Northern Echo: xmas 1937
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The Northern Echo: Christmas 1937
MEMORIES 657 told of the Arthur Pease Practising School that used to be behind the old arts centre in Darlington. The school closed in 1965 and was demolished in 2003 when Scholars Park was built on its site. Teachers at the school had been proud of the mulberry tree – perhaps the only one in town – growing in the grounds (they claimed in jest to their pupils that it was the source of the nursery rhyme). When plans for Scholars Park were revealed, developers said they intended to landscape around the mulberry, and now we are delighted to say that John Waddleton has been in touch from the Park to confirm that it is still thriving in someone's back garden.

READ MORE: THE STORY OF THE ARTHUR PEASE PRACTISING SCHOOL