Durham is not only the city of the aristocratic Prince Bishops and the learned gentlefolk of the University. It is - or rather, it was, until the coal ran out - also the focal point for the miners who worked the Durham coalfield, and their families. The work was hard and dangerous, but there was an annual day out to look forward to, organised by the Miners' Union: the Miners' Gala or Big Meeting.

These days, Durham Prison is a category B local prison, and John McVicar is a journalist; but back in the 1960s, John McVicar was an armed robber who acquired the title of Public Enemy Number 1 (it was a slow year, he says now) and Durham was the high security jail where he was imprisoned.

Bryan Talbot is one of Britain's comics stars, with an international reputation both for the comics he writes and draws solo (such as the groundbreaking The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and The Tale of One Bad Rat which won an Eisner award - the comics equivalent of an Oscar). (Read more about Bryan, and see some of his work, on his web site).

On Saturday, Pauline, Andrew, Becky and myself met up at the Lit and Phil to check out their local history section for tales from Durham. I discovered an Ecclesiastical History of the area in volume II of William Page's A History of the County Durham, and jotted down some notes on the interesting bits.

Huddled back into the river bank near Prebend's Bridge, there's a building that looks like a Greek temple. It's known as "The Count's House", but in fact it's just a summer house, all that remains of the home of Durham's Little Count.

Here's the Wikipedia article about Józef Boruw?aski, the Polish dwarf who lived in Durham in the early eighteen hundreds - eventually dying here in 1837, at the age of 98.

There are stories all along the riverbanks, and one of the best is the story of Saint Godric, who ended his life near Finchale priory.

According to my Penguin Dictionary of Saints, Godric was born near Kings Lynn in Norfolk in 1065 (though that seems unlikely, since he lived until 1170), made a living as a pedlar and then went to sea where he became a wealthy trader. Reginald of Durham, who knew him, said that his early life was disorderly and his business methods dishonest - perhaps this is why he felt the need to go on several pilgrimages, and ultimately become a hermit.

I wanted to point people in the direction of David Simpson's North East England History Pages, which has a section devoted to County Durham History. This looks to be an excellent resource for developing our Story Map of Durham's Necklace Park.

In my last post, I promised I would go into some of the more interesting stories encountered during research, and for your reading pleasure I present to you...

From Chapter 4 of the graphic novel 'From Hell' by Alan Moore