THREE faint streaks on a grainy map of the North-East could be the most damning evidence yet that Britain's Royal Family welcomed Hitler's henchman Rudolph Hess with open arms.

Startling evidence that the Durham-based Royal Observer Corps stood by and watched the Nazi peace-merchant pilot his own plane up our rugged coastline will be revealed in a TV documentary to be shown later this month.

And publicity about the programme has reunited Madge Sanderson, now 79, with the chart she drew as a rookie wartime plane spotter 60 years ago.

On May 10, 1941, Madge was an eager raid orderly in the Royal Observer Corps. It was to be the first and last time she plotted an enemy plane on the sea board - the grid referenced map.

Madge, of Newton Hall, Durham, said: "For the first time that morning I was asked to go on the sea board because the usual person wasn't around.

"I was actually quite excited because I got to sit in the 'posh seat.'

"Shortly afterwards a small plane was seen by our spotters on the coast who radioed in. I then had to plot it on the map using a magnet.

"It was first spotted about ten miles south of Bamburgh and as I plotted it I realised it was going all the way up to Scotland.

"As I watched it go up the coast I thought to myself 'Gotcha'. Afterwards someone came up to me and asked if I knew who that was.

"They said it was Rudolph Hess and I said, 'Oh, really?' I'd never heard of him, of course.

Madge, who went on to work for Durham CID for more than 30 years, said she was surprised at the time that no RAF planes were scrambled to intercept Hess's Me-110E fighter bomber.

The TV documentary, put together by producer Richard Taylor, is based on the controversial findings of a new book, Double Standards: The Rudolph Hess Cover-Up, which claims his fate was intrinsically linked to that of at least one very senior Royal.

Authors Lynn Picknett, Clive Prince and Stephen Prior believe the Duke of Hamilton and the king's brother Prince George - the Duke of Kent - were expecting the Deputy Fuhrer and were hoping to broker a peace deal.

They claim the map, recovered from the vast vaults of County Hall at Aykley Heads, shows Hess's twin-engined fighter-bomber hugging the North-East coastline with his two-fighter escort about to turn back to the Fatherland - proof that our top brass knew he was coming and let him continue on his date with destiny.

Officially, he was a lone madman with a crazy crusade to broker a peace settlement that went horribly wrong when he crash-landed 12 miles from Hamilton's estate at Dungavel.

He was arrested, tried for war crimes at Nuremburg and sentenced to life imprisonment at Spandau prison, Berlin, where he died in 1987.

The cover-up theory says he actually died in a plane crash with the Duke of Kent in 1942 while making a pact with Germany and the man who spent 40 years at Spandau was a double agent planted by British intelligence.

Producer Richard Taylor said: "If this is correct, and we believe it is, it has the potential to re-write history.

The map establishes that he was not flying alone and that he was seen at the early stages of his approach.

"No Spitfires were scrambled to intercept him and he was allowed to fly, sometimes at a height of only 50ft, all the way to Glasgow."

And Durham County Council's response to history buffs?

"You should see what else we've got down in that vault," a wry spokesman said