UK's first official twitterer appointed

A teacher has been appointed the country's first Twitterer-in-Residence by his home town.

College lecturer Mike McTimoney will be paid £140 a year to write tweets about Darlington, the County Durham market town where he teaches IT.

The idea was to update the long-standing positions of artist or writer-in-residence that many cities around the world have appointed for years.

Mr McTimoney, who tweets under the name TheDarloBard, won the position by displaying a prolific ability to tweet and a passion for the town.

The teacher said: "I am really into social media and all the fantastic opportunities the internet offers - so I thought this would be an interesting thing to do.

"I think it is great to be the UK's first Twitterer-in-Residence and hope other towns will follow suit. I deal with young people on a daily basis and think this is a great way to get important information to them."

The role is linked to the Dx2 website which launched in September to promote the town.

Andy Atkins, a member of the Darlington Partnership which is behind the innovation said: "More and more people are communicating using digital and social media and we want to reach as many people as possible.

"Darlington is a lively, interesting place to be and the aim of our resident twitterer is to maintain and generate a conversation about what's going on and what people are talking about in the town."