A family who hosted Jimmy Carter and his wife for a weekend almost 40 years ago said they “were just lovely people” who left “such fond memories”.
Jenny Coates, 73, said the village of Riding Mill, in Northumberland, was “taken by storm” in 1987 when the former US president stayed with her and her husband, Terry, and their two daughters.
The Coates family got to know the Carters through Friendship Force, an exchange organisation which they helped set up in the 1970s.
Mrs Coates recalled how she made dinner for the couple and how her late husband went for a morning jog with the VIP guest and his security detail “which was quite amusing” before they headed to see Hadrian’s Wall.