More and more North-Easterners are being helped to give up smoking. Health Editor Barry Nelson talks to a former 40-a-day man who has successfully quit.

MATTIE Dobbin can hardly believe it himself when he says that, until recently, he was smoking up to 80 cigarettes a day until recently. The 57year-old from Coxhoe, County Durham, started smoking when he was still at school.

A few years later he was regularly smoking 40 a day - and even more at the weekend. "I reckon I used to smoke between 60 and 80 a day at weekends, no bother, " says Mattie, w hose long hair and fondness for heavy metal bands like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple seemed to go with the chain-smoking image.

The former biker, who is often told he is a dead ringer for former Sabbath front man Ozzy Osbourne, has tried to give up before. More than 20 years ago, when packets of cigarettes hit 80p a packet, Mattie tried to give up his expensive habit. "I must have been about 32. I tried to stop off the tabs but I only lasted a month. I was really craving for one, " remembers Mattie.

But when he was told recently he would need an operation for a hernia he decided to try again. This time he really meant it.

"I had this operation coming up and my chest was really bad. The anaesthetist told me I needed to give up so I thought I'd have a go again, " says Mattie, who has four grown-up children and eight grandchildren.

He contacted the stop smoking team through his local GP and enrolled on a smoking cessation course. Following a pep talk from a specialist nurse and with a month's worth of nicotine patches, Mattie was off to a flying start.

"I've been on the patches for three months now. I finished on Monday.

I'm doing fine. I haven't smoked and it doesn't bother me any more, " says Mattie, who is determined not to lapse. "It all depends on what frame of mind you are in. You have got to really want to give up."

The fact that he can go out socially with friends who still smoke and not feel the urge to light up is a big plus factor.

Apart from saving more than £5 per packet on cigarettes, Mattie says he feels so much better. "I feel I could run a marathon now. I feel 20 years younger, " he laughs.

Mattie was helped to quit by health professionals trained by Durham and Chester-le-Street Primary Care Trust.

As part of a network of smoking cessation teams around the region, the Durham and Chester-le-Street team helped 619 people to quit between April and December last year.

This takes the total number of successes in the district up to 1,066 for the whole of 2005.

During the past year an extra 60 health professionals have been trained by the PCT to reinforce existing teams of smoking cessation staff.

Most smoking cessation work is carried out from GP practices and local health centres but increasing numbers of high street chemists are taking part in Durham and Chesterle-Street, including some which are offering a Saturday morning service.

People who want to give up smoking are offered free support and advice and then offered nicotine replacement therapy, which can include patches, or the drug Zyban.

Such an approach has been shown to double people's chances of stopping smoking.

Anyone in the North-East who wants to give up smoking can take the first step by contacting their local GP surgery.