A VISIT to the region by the chairman of the Labour Party, Charles Clarke, was cancelled at the last minute yesterday following the death of his mother.

The cabinet minister had planned to take time out from his official business to visit the area of Murton where his mother, Lady Brenda Clarke, was born.

The trip down memory lane had been organised by Easington MP John Cummings, whose family had also lived in the now demolished Albion Street, in the former pit village.

The area of long-disappeared colliery rows was known as Cornwall because so many of its residents had moved north from the South-West to work in the mining community.

All that now remains of the once close-knit terraces is the old Cornish Chapel, where Mr Cummings and Mr Clarke were to have met yesterday before moving on to fulfil official commitments across the county.

Lady Clarke's maiden name was Skinner, and after the First World War her father moved his family to Frosterley, in Wear Valley, where he became headmaster of the village school.

Lady Clarke later met and married Sir Richard Clarke when he was a permanent secretary at the Home Office. Mr Cummings, who cancelled Mr Clarke's appointments, extended his sympathy to the family.