I did a deep dive into Sunderland Echos from years gone by and it was amazing what I found

They say the past is a foreign country, but I've found that isn't always the case.

Local history is a topic that fascinates many of us.

It might be places from our own lifetime that we remember with fuzzy nostalgia - say 'Chambers', 'Annabels', 'Hills', 'The Old Twenty Nine', 'Vaux' or 'The Puffin' Billy' to a Mackem, and likely you'll see their eyes light up at least once.

Then there are the less well-remembered landmarks - I could not for the life of me remember the name of the bookshop by Crowtree Leisure Centre where I used to buy old American comics in the '90s. Facebook was able to inform me that it was called ... The Book Shop.

But once we start delving into the past, the days and years before we were even around start to fascinate too.

Old photos take us to a world that feels like it only existed in black and white - one that looks familiar, but also different. We all of us who grew up in Sunderland know - hopefully - about its historic shipyards; my dad worked there. The Pyrex factory that operated here for years but is now gone without a trace? My mam had a job there.

Another place she worked was at a Fulwell branch of Presto - a supermarket chain that does not now exist, but at one time briefly had two branches across the road from each other on Station Road.

A little further down from there was Windmills, a bar I cannot think of without hearing Wheatus's Teenage Dirtbag and experiencing the ghost taste of Smirnoff Ice.

Go back far enough in time and figures wander in and out of our history who seem almost legendary - Charles Dickens came to Sunderland; Henry Irving, the actor who author Bram Stoker reputedly had in mind when he wrote Dracula, made his stage debut here. Mary Cotton poisoned left, right and centre. Laurel and Hardy popped in for a drink at the Dun Cow - hell, even Arnold Schwarzenegger was once a customer on the premises now occupied by Grannie Annies.

The landscape of the city is always changing - sometime faster than many of us would like - but the past is never really dead and always finds ways to intersect with the present.

With the kind permission of Sunderland Antiquarian Society - and, of course, paying my membership dues - I've been able to enjoy a delve into stories from Wearside's past via the pages of the Sunderland Echo.

I've found stories both tragic and inspiring, quirky and occasionally baffling - some that demonstrate how history repeats, and others that show how things have changed, often for the better.

'You'd never get away with that now!' is an increasingly difficult phrase to calibrate, but it came up occasionally.

And while I feel I've barely scratched the surface of these treasures, what I have unearthed has formed the basis of a four-part series, Wear Tales, which makes its broadcast debut on Shots!TV on Sunday, April 6.

Our brilliant host Marrianne (just Marrianne - like Cher) guides us through the first double bill of episodes. Episode 1 looks at the way stories from the past still resonate with the present. Episode 2 deals with reports of ghosts abd hauntings - the less famous ones than those you tend to hear about all the time.

Episode 3 looks at brushes with fame and notoriety, and Episode 4 recounts some of the casebooks of Chief Inspector Middlemist - a Sunderland lawman of the 1930s and 40s.

Needless to say, if you discover you have your own links to these tales, we'd love to hear from you.

Our thanks, too, to Sam's Bar in Sunniside, for the use of The Library room.

The first episodes start at 6pm on Freeview channel 262. They're also all available on the Shots website.

Remember, for all things local history and nostalgic in Sunderland, you can also join our Wearside Echoes Facebook page and subscribe to its newsletter.