Hats off to these Wearside characters who did Sunderland proud

Let's hear it for some more of Sunderland's finest.

In recent weeks, we have paid tribute to some of the great people who put the character into Wearside.

There's more to come including these two whose outstanding work ethic deserve praise.

60 years of delivering the Echo

A big’ round of applause please for pensioner Lizzy Hall.

The prodigious paper deliverer retired on Christmas Eve in 1988 at the age of 74, after 60 years of bringing Wearsiders their evening Echo.

Lizzy of Hylton Lane, delivered her first Echo in 1928 when it was still a broadsheet and called the Sunderland Echo and Shipping Gazette.

She has been doing the rounds ever since and was putting 200 copies of the Echo through letter boxes in Town End Farm and 70 in Monkwearmouth every night.

She braved storms and snow drifts

Lizzy didn't miss a single day through illness in 60 years and can boast that the Echo has always got through despite blizzards, snowdrifts, gales and storms.

Lizzy, a familiar sight round the streets of Sunderland with her pram laden with the Echo, said: “I shall be sorry to give it up as I have made loads of friends and the job gets me out of the house for a few hours every day."

But she's not the only stalwart worker who gets our praise.

A lovely man with pride in his work

Tommy Johnson spent 24 years going up and down from basement to fourth floor in the lifts at Binns.

We got him on camera in 1993 when the store was about to close for the last time and plenty of Wearside people remember him well.

Members of the Echo's specialist nostalgia page on social media - called Wearside Echoes - responded when we shared this photo of Tommy.

They described him as a 'lovely man who had pride in his job'.

Another said he was 'always polite' and always had time for a chat with customers.

Name the Sunderland characters who you remember from the past.

Email [email protected] to tell us more.