RAILWAY HERITAGE

I WAS lucky enough to have had saved for me a copy of your supplement Treasuring our Railway Heritage.

I read it from cover to cover, enthralled by your journalist's accounts of one of the great moments in history - the labour pains and birth of a means of transport that was to revolutionise the world.

And we had been there, to the start of that very railway - St Helens Auckland. We had walked part of the Etherley Incline, seen where the coal trucks would have been marshalled onto Stephenson's railway and seen the derelict abutments of his Gaunless Bridge, and your supplement fired my enthusiasm to return.

Last weekend, armed with the supplement and the route of a nine-mile walk (also saved from your publication) we came back.

Despite the current crisis, the enthusiasm for the railways remains undiminished. The National Railway Museum at York is the most successful museum in Britain and your supplement confirms that the museum intends to inject millions into the Timothy Hackworth Museum at Shildon. But it needs more.

It needs a re-birth of the S&DR before what little is left vanishes forever. It, too, could attract a huge tourist influx, a complement to the outstanding Beamish Museum.

So, come on you people of the North-East, lift your heads out of the mud and shout to the world about these great beginnings.

They are just as worthy of "World Heritage" status as yet another pile of Roman remains, or a Welsh Smelt Works. Shout loud enough and the world will come and look because the entire world has a love affair with the railways you started. - JF Gordon Fisher, Wetherby.

SPAR BOXES

OLDER residents of the dales will remember spar boxes. They were made by the lead miners, and came in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Some were highly ornate and complex, some quite plain and simple, but the basic idea was the same in each case.

Spar boxes consisted of a collection of beautiful local minerals cemented into a wooden box in imitation of a miniature grotto.

The spar box makers sometimes employed mirrors and candles, placing them in the boxes with great skill to create a dazzling miniature fairyland. Other miners used the boxes to show off their fretwork skills in elaborate ornamentation.

This craft of spar box making flourished at the end of the 19th Century and then pretty well disappeared, to be reinvented and reinvigorated recently by a few local people.

They were made in Allendale, Nenthead, Weardale and Teesdale, but spar boxes are not well known outside the North Pennines. Making them seems to have been a very local tradition; indeed spar box making is a craft of which this area should be particularly proud.

Killhope, the North of England Lead Mining Museum, has several spar boxes on permanent display. Next spring the museum will be celebrating the work of the miners of old and stimulating interest in the craft by staging a big display of spar boxes. This exhibition will also be seen at the Queen's Hall in Hexham and at Nenthead.

If you have a spar box which you could loan for the exhibition, or if you know any stories or traditions about spar boxes or spar box making, I'd be delighted to hear from you. I can be contacted at Killhope or by phone on 01388 537505. - Ian Forbes, Manager, Killhope Lead Mining Museum.

AGE OF CONSENT

IT annoys me that the Labour Party is still hell bent on lowering the age of homosexual consent to 16. How can Tony Blair do this when the global threat of Aids and HIV is rising?

Let us all hope that William Hague gains political power next year, so that he can banish such disgusting laws and restore pride back to all that is British. - Christopher Wardell, Darlington.

AIDS

WHAT a lot of bigoted rubbish was printed in the Peter Mullen column (Echo, Dec 5). His words were homophobic and outdated.

I have just watched an article on TV about a priest who died from an AIDS related illness, but according to Peter Mullen you have to be a promiscuous homosexual or a junkie to contract such a disease. I wonder what category this priest fell into?

People from all walks of life get this terrible illness Mr Mullen. Children, haemophiliacs, doctors, nurses, etc. Africa is rife with it. Ordinary men and women who might just make one mistake in their lives get it.

If you have no compassion Mr Mullen, you are in the wrong job. - J Staziak, Darlington.

COLIN COWDREY

I WAS very sorry to hear of the death of cricketer Colin Cowdrey. I once saw him play in an England v West Indies Test Match at Headingley.

He always looked so comfortable when taking stance at the crease and was one of the best batsmen in the world.

He was a master cricketer who made the game look easy. - LD Wilson, Guisborough.

DRINKING

I ASSUME R Turner (HAS, Dec 5) does not live in a town centre. Would he be so keen on all night drinking if he lived near a pub?

Years ago pubs closed at 10pm. The landlords had a good living, people still got drunk. Longer opening just means people go out later, they do not drink any more beer. More pubs should build on estates outside town centres. - J Dunn, Crook.

DRIVING

YOUNG drivers have the most accidents and old drivers have the least.

So is it fair that a young driver pays for his driving licence and it could last 50 years and an old driver pays for his licence and he has to pay again after three years? - E Reynolds, Wheatley Hill.