People often forget - indeed younger ones might never have known at all - just how big a railway town Darlington used to be...North Road locomotive works, Bank Top engine sheds, Faverdale wagon works etc, etc. It was hardly possible to set foot anywhere that the railway hadn't been to first.

David Burdon was born and bred in Darlington; his home was close by the tracks and he became an apprentice fitter at North Road works.

No wonder he became steeped in local steam railway history. It was an era that ended with the wholesale closures of the Sixties; but while it lasted Burdon amassed an archive of his own pictures and a selection has just been presented in book form.

Mainly it is a handsome visual tribute to a vanished time...but Burdon's detailed, informative captions alone are worth reading. For instance, how many would have known that the LNER engine Spearmint was not named after a packet of chewing gum but the 1906 Derby winner? Or that Enterprise commemorated the winner of the 1887 2,000 Guineas long before Captain Kirk and his starship had been thought of!

Did someone say who cares? Well a bit of knowledge enriches life.

* The Last Days of Steam Around Darlington by David Burdon (Sutton Publishing, £18.99).