Christmas: Where's Santa? And 8 other festive Hartlepool stories which made the headlines in 1983

Father Christmas opted for a new mode of transport that year and that’s just one of the seasonal tales we have from the town 39 years ago. Take a look.

A man in a red suit ditched his sleigh for buses in 1983.

Santa Claus took trips around Cleveland, spreading some early Christmas cheer for bus passengers. He handed out gifts to children and four adults won a London mini-weekend break. Were you one of them?

Where had all the Santas gone?

The Binns search for a jolly Father Christmas drew a blank despite repeated advertising at Hartlepool Job Centre.

Not one person stepped forward for the £1.85 an hour part-time job at the town’s biggest department store.

After a break of three years, Binns plans to bring back the merry old gent to hand out toys to the children.

Christmas on a submarine

Christmas came early for Brierton Comprehensive School pupil Deborah Heron who won a dream trip under the ocean waves.

Deborah, 11, was one of eight people in the UK to win a day on board a submarine.

What a turnaround it was for Deborah who missed the chance to go on board HMS Onyx during its visit to Hartlepool in August, 1983.

A 42-inch Christmas cactus was quite the sight in the home of Hartlepool gardener Eva Marshall – especially as it had produced 126 flower buds.

Mrs Marshall’s remarkable cacti were her pride and joy, and they outdid themselves in 1983.

Staff in the Whitby Street Post Office were inundated with parcels, letters and cards with the centre’s huge sorting room overflowing with mail.

That year the Post Office employed an extra 45,000 “posties” nationwide to cope with heavy bags and bad weather.

Post Office staff were also found working in all sorts of unusual places, such as parish and drill halls, on sorting the millions of greetings.

Boogie wonderland at High Tunstall

Disco dancing members of High Tunstall Youth Club began a boogie marathon to raise funds for a local cause.

And they were still going 14 hours later when, exhausted and bleary eyed, they finally stumbled from the dance floor.

But there was also a sense of triumph among the 15 to 18-year-olds as they knew their efforts had raised about £180.

They planned to divide the proceeds between the Premature Baby Unit at Cameron Hospital and a newly-formed group which helped children with disabilities.

Nimble fingered Peter Leck, a chief steward, managed to carry a remarkable 21 china cups in one hand on the BBC television programme The Record Breakers.

The Hartlepool man was aiming to stack up 17 of the heavy green cups on his left hand and establish a new world record but he went even further.

Frog’s legs for Christmas?

We all love a Christmas feast at this time of year.

But chip shop owner Billy Lofthouse offered something different by selling frogs’ legs.

Billy got the idea for his shop in York Road, Peterlee, from his travels as a sailor in the Merchant Navy.

Peter Lord’s shoe shop was to close in 1983 because of a lack of business.

It first opened in Middleton Grange Shopping Centre 18 months earlier but failed to meet its sales quota.