LEAVE a party too soon and you’re a killjoy. Hang around too long and you’ll never get another invite. You have to know when to go and for the Ray Mallon column, the time is now.

It’s been quite a party.

When I began this column, I was a serving police officer. I am now in my third term as Mayor of Middlesbrough, a post which I will leave in May 2015. What happened in between has been exhaustively – and even, at times, accurately – documented. I’ll focus on other things today.

First of all the thank yous, which are sincere and not the usual platitudes.

First to the editor of The Northern Echo, Peter Barron, who, when he was deputy editor, first commissioned this column and has stuck with it ever since.

I know of no other editor who would have allowed me so free a rein. But that is in the great and historic tradition of the Echo, a fair and fearless newspaper that never shirks an issue of public interest, presents its readers with the facts and trusts them to make up their own minds.

I would not, and could not, have worked for so long and so happily for any other publication.

So thanks to Peter, his current deputy Chris Lloyd and all the sub-editors who throughout the years have been presented with my thoughts on a Thursday tea-time and made sure they reach you on Friday morning. Thanks also to Ian Cross and, for the past few years, Michael Clark who have helped knock my ideas into shape and contributed generously of their own.

The column has ranged far and wide, from population control to people watching, birdsong to classical music.

I suppose a few themes have stood out: law and order, naturally, public services and the ongoing trials of local government; sport, health, the environment; the regional economy and the need for a regionally-elected body to ensure the North-East gets proper reward for its contribution to the national good.

If there is one theme that knits those columns together it is celebration–- celebration of the achievements of wonderful, positive people who, by their hard work and enterprise, commitment to the community and, at times, sheer genius, have enriched so many lives and hopefully provided some interesting reading for you.

Sometimes, I have written about groups working with young people or their local community. Or it might be an individual who has used their talents or initiative to develop a business or achieve distinction in sport or the arts. The people who make us take a fresh look at the world and ourselves. The people who inspire us.

The best thing was that nearly all these people were local, a reminder – as if we needed it – of the still untapped potential of our region. Meeting them, talking to them and writing about them has made my job as a columnist and an elected mayor worthwhile.

They are the people whose personalities and values make it worth getting up in the morning.

I hope I’ll meet more of them in the next year or so, because the work goes on. I might not be writing about them here, but I am sure you will hear about them, because despite my chosen professions, I am an optimist. I still believe that the good people will win in the end. Not least because there are more of them.

For now, maybe for the first time, Ray Mallon has no more to say.