IT was December 2000, and Tony Blair was visiting a primary school in his North-East constituency to open a new library. The horrors of September 11 and the war in Iraq were still to come and the Prime Minister was enjoying a prolonged honeymoon period towards the end of his first term in office.

The children of Hurworth Primary School were ushered into the hall, where they sat cross-legged on the floor, and were invited to ask questions.

"What's it like to be important?" asked a little girl.

Mr Blair smiled that smile and said: "When you meet the most powerful people in the world, you realise that they are really quite ordinary."

Yesterday, Tony Blair - Prime Minister of Britain and one of the world's most powerful men - left the grandeur of Westminster to announce his resignation among the ordinary, down-to-earth County Durham people he has made feel so special.

They stood like proud parents welcoming home the boy who'd done good and, before finally thanking them and wishing them good luck, he asked them to accept one thing: "...that, hand on heart, I did what I thought was right".

Over a decade in which it has been the Prime Minister's local paper, The Northern Echo has often questioned whether Mr Blair was right. We have agreed with him and disagreed with him, praised him and condemned him.

Today, as he prepares to leave Downing Street, we give him and his Government credit for a great deal.

When our own photographer, Ian Weir, died in 1999, it was a tragedy which symbolised the failings of the health service. At the age of 38, the father-of-two had survived a heart attack, been told he needed a triple heart bypass, and waited nearly eight months to find out when he might get his operation. He died of a second heart attack the day before his appointment at South Cleveland General Hospital in Middlesbrough.

At that time, the average wait for a heart bypass in this country was a year, compared to three months in other parts of Europe. Following a campaign by The Northern Echo, which inspired extensive national publicity, the Government responded positively and one of the tangible benefits of Tony Blair's time in power is that waiting times are now in line with the rest of Europe.

There are other undeniable legacies: improved schools and colleges; more jobs and less unemployment; the most stable economy in memory; and an environment in which peace could take root in Northern Ireland at long last.

Did we ever believe we would see the day when Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness would be photographed together, smiling together, plotting Northern Ireland's future together? It happened because Mr Blair was personally determined that it must.

Just as incredible was the sight of the President of America flying in to Trimdon, parking his helicopter on an old pit spoilheap, and going off for fish, chips and mushy peas in a local pub.

It remains hard to believe but it happened because Mr Blair made a point of involving his ordinary constituency in the extraordinary world of international politics.

It gave him a foothold on real life, a feel for what mattered to ordinary people way beyond the Westminster village, and the great disappointment of yesterday was that he was unable to tell his constituents face-to-face whether he intends to carry on as their MP. We hope that he does.

Whatever Mr Blair does in the future, and however history judges his achievements, he will be mostly remembered for the devastating mistake that the war in Iraq has become. It is a war based on a lie, bolstered by a dodgy dossier which came to symbolise New Labour's association with deceit.

Early on in Mr Blair's premiership, we were warning of the dangers of excessive spin, the dark arts of media manipulation, information regurgitation, and the infamous burying of bad news. It all went too far and trust inevitably evaporated.

It is, of course, much easier to make judgements with the benefit of hindsight and we have no reason to doubt that Mr Blair based his decision in good faith on the intelligence that was available. He was told that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, capable of swiftly being targeted at this country, and he acted.

The fact that it turned out to be false information may not be Mr Blair's fault but, ultimately, he must accept the responsibility for a decision which has cast a lasting dark cloud over everything else he has done.

And then there is the cash-for-honours inquiry. Even as he prepares to leave Downing Street on June 27, Mr Blair does not know quite how dark that particular cloud might become, although his adviser Ruth Turner, one of those arrested in the inquiry, was among the crowd at Trimdon Labour Club yesterday in a very public show of support.

Whatever the conclusion, it is a shady episode which has again undermined public confidence in the Blair administration and British politics in general.

As Mr Blair said at the beginning of his resignation speech yesterday, ten years as Prime Minister is enough for anyone. It is impossible to be in power that long, covering three terms in office, without things going wrong and misjudgements being made.

Tony Blair has certainly made mistakes - who wouldn't? He has been badly misguided at times - who wouldn't be? There are millions who will be glad to see the back of him and last week's local election results tell their own story, although the most recent poll showed that 61 per cent of people consider him to have been a good Prime Minister.

We hope and believe that, in time, he will be viewed both as a decent man and a successful Prime Minister who had his heart in the right place and made Britain a fairer, more tolerant, and more prosperous country.

The experience of being his local paper has been exciting and fascinating and it has been a privilege to record the extraordinary moments of history that have been brought to an ordinary, down-to-earth constituency which is now known around the world.

Tony, we haven't agreed with everything you have done. But, for the record, we believe you did what you thought was right.

Thank you and good luck.