Come back Italian coffee bars. Last week we were down Memory Lane in Dimambros in Houghton le Spring with Norman Cuthbertson. Well Ethel Dobson and Mary Miller were there too. Mary, who now lives in Durham, was a regular in the 50s "the days when we soaked our petticoats in sugar solution to make them stick out more " she says tantalisingly on my answer machine, "We would drink frothy coffee and, like Norman Cuthbertson and his ha'penny cornets, make one last all afternoon."

Ethel Dobson, of Bishop Auckland went to Houghton le Spring Grammar School. "We would call in Dimambro's when afternoon school finished and crush into a cubicle to natter for ages about really important matters - such as what had happened that day and who we were going out with. Or, we would arrange to meet before going to one of the three cinemas in Houghton, trying to get to the cinema early to get the double seat."

Diana Simpson, of Darlington, remembers visiting an older cousin in Newcastle and going to an Italian coffee bar in the city centre where youngsters could sit all evening for a price of a coffee. "At the time, I thought it was terribly sophisticated," she says, "but looking back, I realise how friendly and kind the proprietors were. They made teenagers welcome and certainly not for the money they got out of them. I can't think of anywhere these days that would be so welcoming for so little reward.