An Echo appeal to fundraise for legs for swimmer Lyndon

OFFERS of cash came flooding in after a campaign was launched to buy an inspirational teenager a pair of artificial legs, in August 2009.

The Northern Echo urged its readers to get behind a bid to raise £10,000 for Lyndon Longhorne, from Crook, County Durham.

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The determined 13-year-old was left severely disabled by meningitis as a baby, but was aiming to swim in the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

His mum, Tammy Shevels, 31, said the legs provided on the NHS were uncomfortable and hampering Lyndon's development at a key time.

She hoped enough money could be raised to buy limbs from specialist clinic Dorset Orthopaedic.

Civic dignitaries officially opened a community centre in Newton Aycliffe in August 2009 after a £275,000 rebuild.

Work started four months previously to demolish Agnew Community Centre's ageing green hut, in Morrison Close, and replace it with a larger building, complete with improved facilities and extra rooms.

The ten-strong committee which ran the centre secured £264,000 funding from Sedgefield Borough Council's Local Improvement Plan to finance the rebuild.

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A further £11,000 was later awarded to install a security fence around the building.

Surrounded by family and friends, Mrs Bowman celebrated her 111th birthday on August 23, 2009.

Mrs Bowman was born in Wigan, but moved to the North-East with her family in 1905.

As she celebrated yet another landmark birthday, the supercentenarian said: "I have never drank alcohol or smoked. I have had a happy life."

Her life spanned three centuries, and it was thought she was Britain's third oldest person in 2009 - and the 49th oldest in the world.

She lived under six monarchs and 22 prime ministers and saw two world wars.

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In 1919, she married Robert Pearson and they had four children, Norman, Tommy, Doris and Connie. Robert contracted tuberculosis in 1928 and died the same year.

In December 1941, she married for a second time. Eunice and Frank Bowman had two children, Sheila, who died as a child, and Ann, born in 1945.

She had 17 grandchildren, 30 great-grandchildren, and five great-great-grandchildren.