Find out about changes to our services and Christmas opening times on our Festive information page. To find out when your bin will be collected over the festive period, visit Changes to County Durham bin collections at Christmas.

Due to maintenance, the following systems will be unavailable from 11.45am on Tuesday 24 December until 8.00am on Thursday 2 January: our online Council Tax, business rates and housing benefit services, and our welfare assistance form. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

My mother's parcel

Regular letters and parcels from home were the only way that soldiers living thousands of miles away could keep in touch with their families and friends and were vital in maintaining morale. But all the homeward-bound post had to be read and censored and this was the often-unwelcome duty of the officers, especially unwelcome when the letters revealed long-distance arguments between husbands and wives.