MILDLY outraged, The Times reports that 11 Church of England bishops – including the Bishop of Durham – still have chauffeurs. It prompts affectionate memories of one of our former bishops and a rejoinder from a second.

The first is Michael Ramsey who, when Archbishop of Canterbury in the 1960s, would still drive himself around the country in an “elderly and battered” Morris Minor Traveller.

“Blessed are the meek,” suggests The Times correspondent, approvingly.

Tom Wright, Durham’s bishop from 2003-10, had a letter on the same page. He and his driver, he says, would regularly cover between 30,000-40,000 miles a year. “I used almost all of that time to work – drafting sermons, lectures, letters and even chapters of books on the laptop and catching up with phone calls, reading, prayer and occasionally sleep.

“In what is often a 100-hours-a-week job, there is little ‘meek’ about spending half of that time holding a steering wheel.”

The episcopal chauffeur for many years has been the admirable Gerry Vickers, who is also an official of the County Durham branch of the Campaign for Real Ale. In Bishop Wright’s time they were known as Tom and Gerry – though never, of course, within his lordship’s hearing.

MICHAEL RAMSEY didn’t always drive himself. There’s a famous story about his being approached on Darlington railway station by a zealot who demanded to know if he were saved.

On another occasion he was 14 minutes late for the London train after a meeting with striking Durham miners. The driver waited for him.

Sadly, the precise wording of his reply to the trackside evangelist cannot be recalled. A Google search incorporating Michael Ramsey, Darlington, station and saved reveals only that the a Durham and District Sunday League goalkeeper called Michael Ramsey once played a blinder against Consett Station. Sadly, there is unlikely to be a connection.

THEN there’s another letter to The Times, from the Very Rev Charles Taylor, which had best be repeated in its entirety. “Given his penchant for drifting off into profound theological reverie, the very thought of Archbishop Michael Ramsey attempting to pilot a Morris Minor from Lambeth to Liverpool and back is the strongest argument I’ve yet heard for bishops being driven by a member of their staff.”

P J PROBY is alive and well and these days almost under-exposed. Briefly mentioned in last week’s column – replaced at the Globe in Stockton by the unknown Tom Jones after splitting his trousers once too often – he’s appeared twice in the past year in the Golden 60s Show at The Sage in Gateshead. Robert Bacon from Wolviston was there both times.

Though being subbed at the Globe never did him any harm, Proby – says Robert – credits his rapid rise to fame to Mary Whitehouse.

The singer also talked at The Sage of his fond memories of Spennymoor, particularly the old Top Hat night club. Memory suggests that he also became engaged to a lass from Durham Road secondary modern – whatever happened to her? – though, perhaps unsurprisingly, it didn’t last.

“He’s still a tremendous showman with a good voice, gold lame suit and a tremendous head of silver hair,” says Robert, Sage and sager, PJ’s trousers appear to have remained intact.

SINGERS of a rather different note, we wrote a couple of weeks back of what affectionately is known as the old folks’ folk club at the Mill Stone in South Gosforth. Anne Alderson reports that there’s now a very similar monthly gathering at the Travellers’ Rest in Cockerton, Darlington, hosted by local band Hambones. “As more folkies retire from work, it seemed to make more sense to have sessions in the daytime,” she says. “It’s not that we’re wary of the dark but rather that we can go to the pub in the afternoon.” The next one’s on Wednesday March 11, 2-5pm. All welcome.

NEWS of the death of Canon Michael Perry, the former Archdeacon of Durham, had bypassed Alan Vickers until he read it in last week’s column. “He was 81,” Alan reflects, “the same age as me.”

Thus armed, he has written a tribute for Monkwearmouth parish magazine in Sunderland, not least recalling a course by the archdeacon on how lay people might in emergency lead services, especially evensong.

It stirred further memories of evensong 40-odd years ago at St John’s in Shildon. The vicar was elsewhere, the curate singularly failed to show up.

One churchwarden was sent off in his car to see what was amiss, the other – an irreverent young journalist – prepared to lead the service.

Fifteen minutes after the appointed start, the bewildered curate was finally ushered in, having been woken from his slumbers.

The headline “Curate sleeps in for Evensong” flashed satanically before the eyes – first in the Echo and then in newspapers throughout the world. It never appeared. The curate’s still hereabouts, and still owes me a pint.

MARJORIE HOWES was almost certainly among that Sunday evening congregation and, as always, very much awake. Margaret, her daughter, reports that Marjorie – loyal churchgoer, dedicated charity worker, proud mum and still in Shildon, will be 90 next Monday. May she have a very happy day and a seamless stroll to the century.

If sand buts

THE column three weeks ago contained what some call a typo and others a literal. We meant to refer to South Shields residents as Sand Dancers but, unhappily, called them Sad Dancers.

Since it concerned the seashore, it was thus that rarest of hybrids, a littoral literal.

Waving but not drowning, it was spotted by Sunderland native Mike Tulloch, now in Barnard Castle. “I’ve never encountered the term,” he insists, perhaps tongue in cheek. “Please enlighten us.”

The greater enlightenment would come if anyone convincingly could explain the allusion. The most popular theory, though still implausible, is that it refers to an influx of Yemeni sailors – popular lads, by all accounts – in the 1890s.

Other suggestions are that the renowned sand dancers Wilson, Keppell and Betty came from those parts – they didn’t – and, simply, that there’s an awful lot of sand thereabouts. There’s even a pub called the Sand Dancer.

Once more unto the beach, the column takes itself to South Shields. Though it’s half term, none dances, nor even walks, on the beach. In the Alum Ale House, by the ferry landing, the barman pulls a sort of men-in-white-coats face when asked the big question.

A customer insists he knows the answer, however. “Nothing to do with Arabs at all. In the 1930s they’d have tea dances on the beach – windy-up gramophone, big tea urns, rock cakes.”

A grain of truth? Readers may know differently.