EULOGIES were paid to a popular pitman and writer at an event staged to celebrate his life and work.

Tributes to County Durham author Sid Chaplin were led by his son, Michael, who has followed in his father's footsteps, earning many writing credits to his name.

Michael, the creator and key scriptwriter for the BBC series Monarch of the Glen, made the first of a number of readings and reminiscences.

Others were given by his mother, Rene, and many family friends, at the tribute night in South Shields, South Tyneside.

Sid Chaplin was born in Shildon, County Durham, in 1917 and died 19 years ago, at the age of 70.

His work, which enjoyed a popular readership in the 1960s and 1970s, influenced a generation of writers, including Stan Barstow, David Storey and Keith Waterhouse.

He drew on his working-class upbringing and working life, with his social observation, humane characters, evocative writing style and authentic dialogue considered as fresh and relevant today as during his lifetime.

Mr Chaplin worked as a miner until 1946, when he published his first collection of stories, The Leaping Lad, which gained him a prize enabling him to take a year away from the coal face and produce his first novel, My Fate Cries Out, about the experiences of the lead mining community of Weardale.

The Heritage Club tribute night took place at South Shields Library where several of Mr Chaplin's books were on display.

Two of his recently re-issued books, The Day of the Sardine and The Watchers and the Watched, set in the working class communities of the east end of Newcastle, were available for purchase to event-goers.