THE Northern Echo's headline for Wednesday, June 7, 1944, was upbeat -"Invasion of France going well".

Other headlines were similarly positive: "Our landings successful - Official"; "Casualties far few than expected"; and "600 warships crossed unmolested".

Even the front page advert suggested things were going smoothly. "Scalp and forehead freed from skin disease, writes naval commander," said the copy, which was promoting Valderma. Rather than being a Colombian footballer, Valderma was an antiseptic balm.

Like most newspapers, The Northern Echo gave prominence to the evocative words of Desmond Tighe, a Reuters reporter aboard a British destroyer.

War correspondents had accompanied British Armed Forces since the Crimean War of the 1850s. Reports were "pooled" and available to all papers during D-Day.

"Guns are belching flame from more than 600 Allied warships," wrote Tighe. "Thousands of bombers are roaring overhead and fighters are weaving in and out of the clouds.

"The invasion of Western Europe has begun.

"It is now 7.25am and through my glasses I can see the first wave of assault troops touching down on the water's edge and fan up the beach."

Inside the four-page paper, priced one penny, was an article from inside the tent somewhere in the South of England where Eisenhower had "pressed the button" that had started the invasion. There was also an update on fighting around Rome.

In Hear All Sides, a Dunkirk veteran was complaining about the standard of housing supplied to ex-servicemen by Richmond council, and a Coxhoe reader was complaining about the delivery of Sunday newspapers.

A Northallerton man demanded the "destruction of Toryism which has caused such misery to ordinary men and women", which rather overlooked the misery being caused on the beaches as he wrote.

At the Royal Theatre, Newcastle, Ralph Lynn and Enid Stamp-Taylor starred in Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary?, and at the Empire cinema, in Darlington, there was a continuous showing of Charles Laughton and Binnie Barnes in The Man From Down Under.

The Mike Amos of his day, J Fairfax- Blakeborough, used his column to muse on how the word plough was pronounced in the Cleveland dialect.

Was it "ploo" or "pleeaf", he wondered, before concluding that both pronunciations were becoming obsolete as the modern generation of Clevelanders said "plew".

Therefore, back on the beaches, Clevelanders in the Green Howards must have been "plewing on" up the sand.