DEEP in the inky innards of last week’s Whitby Gazette, the Vicar of Danby – on no account to be confused with the Vicar of Dibley – had a think piece headed “Stop playing the blame game.”

It gave him chance to disinter the old joke about the junior school scripture class, asked who was responsible for the destruction of the Walls of Jericho.

A hand shoots up from the back. “Please sir, not me, sir.”

The vicar had a point about culpability, nonetheless (and you know what they say about he who is without sin.)

Is it my fault, after all, that the annual Feversham Cricket League excursion is due at Gillamoor, holed up amid the North Yorkshire moors, and that just about the only way by public transport of getting to within several miles of the place is to start by taking the Esk Valley railway from Middlesbrough?

Is it my fault that the Esk Valley line train arrives at Grosmont at 11.36am, six minutes after the North Yorkshire Moors Railway service has steamed off eastwards to Pickering, that the next is almost two hours away and that the only reasonable option appears to be to continue on the Esk Valley to Whitby and catch the NYMR from there?

Am I to blame that it’s an Oh-to-be-in-England sort of a summer morning, to which might be added the codicil “and preferably on the Esk Valley railway en route to Feversham League cricket”?

Somebody has to do it, after all.

Chance on the Esk Valley line to note a report in The Times that King John also enjoyed that part of the world, though not – of course – by diesel multiple unit.

If heading north with his entourage, say Cambridge researchers, the old magna carter would forego the direct journey from York to Darlington in favour of the scenic route through Scarborough, Whitby and Guisborough. These days it’s called the A171.

The king also liked to take a circuitous line from London to Kent, stopping only – by way of diversion, as it were – to chop off the hands and feet of the defeated garrison at Rochester.

The fate of the North York Moors men is, perhaps happily, not recorded.

The scene’s expansive, the guard laconic. The 16 stations between Middlesbrough and Whitby embrace 19 words, the precise sum of his staccato public delivery – one fewer, in truth, because the new stop at James Cook Hospital is surgically shortened to James Cook.

Whitby’s wick wi’ folk. Before the clock strikes 12, they’re queuing down the street outside Trenchers fish and chip emporium, the doorman handing out menus with which to pass the wait.

At the NYMR booking office, an old chap’s told that, if he and his wife want to go to Goathland, he’ll need, once there, swiftly to cross the footbridge to the opposite platform and head straight back whence he came.

“Suits me. Nothing to see in Goathland, anyway,” he says, “we’re only going because of ‘er.”

We’re hauled by what in British Railways days was called a Standard locomotive, but which scarcity now makes special. Back at Grosmont, however, the steam engine is hooked off with all the by-your-leave of a plastic duck at a fairground and replaced with what Thomas the Tank Engine dismissively called a Diseasel.

This one can’t even play Ilkley Moor Bah’t ‘at properly. Even multiple units can do that.

Whatever the technical term for it, Nigel Molesworth would have supposed it a mouldy chizz. Coals of fire are applied (rather appropriately) when Sir Nigel Gresley, one of the greatest steam engines of all, sidles past in the opposite direction at Goathland.

Had Sir Nigel not been both a very handsome engine and a knight of the realm to boot, you’d have sworn that he smirked as he did it.

The journey’s glorious, notwithstanding. At Pickering, where Feversham League secretary Charles Allenby is doing a voluntary shift in one of the signal boxes, they’re also having a visit from the Office of Rail Regulation.

I ponder a complaint about infectious diseasels, but decide it’s probably outside their jurisdiction.

There’s a school’s-out bus from Pickering to Kirkbymoorside, where Waund the butcher sells a very good pork pie and the White Swan a similarly enjoyable pint of Kirkby Gold, brewed locally.

They’re complaining about traffic wardens. “A village 200 yards by 200 yards and two of the beggars here this morning.”

Gillamoor, a three-mile walk up the hillside, is altogether smaller. A delightful place of perhaps 200 souls, it retains a pub, a two-class primary school and a church in which the north and east walls never had windows, so strong the winter winds thereabouts. Surprise View stretches, stupendous and self-explanatory, out the back.

There’s also a tennis court at which a little generation game is planned. “Let’s be British,” says the noticeboard, “bring a sense of fair play and an umbrella.”

As if by way of reminder that it’s still the real world, a sign on the church door advises that all valuables have been removed. The local police log, displayed by the playing field, adds that two bikes have been stolen from an “insecure” shed in the village.

The cricket field’s up the path, flattish by Feversham levels, the hut burned down – “fired with enthusiasm,” as Mr Graham Kelly likes to say of his FA departure – some time after our first visit in 1997.

Gillamoor are playing Slingsby, Malton way, the sort of evening upon which village cricket shouldn’t just be encouraged but made mandatory under MCC (or EEC) directive. That the match starts late is because several Gillamoor players have inadvertently gone to Slingsby instead.

Slingsby bat. After five overs they’re 8-3, of which four are wides and a fifth a no-ball. “If we’re not careful,” someone says, “it’ll be ower before’t pub’s oppen.”

The umpire rather resembles the verger in Dads Army, his coat has the cut of a shellfish salesman, circa 1966.

The sun-blessed evening has attracted the biggest crowd for years – there must be nearly ten – including 86-year-old Frank Barker, who first played for Gillamoor in 1952 and four years later took 121 wickets. “Proper wickets,” he says.

Gillamoor’s glories notwithstanding, Frank and his pals wear jackets zipped to the glottals and caps that meet them half way. The phrase about ne’er casting a clout until May is out is considered unduly optimistic up here.

When, I ask, did the village last have a bus – even a post bus? “Post bus?” says Frank, pronouncing “post” as in cost, “we only get a delivery once a fottnight.”

The air’s full of the fragrance of cow parsley; the soundtrack is of bird song, bleating and sportsmanship. Sledging’s strictly a winter sport around here. The midges make an occasional appearance, the horse flies – “clegs” in Yorkshire – stay happily away.

“Them clegs,” a Gillamoor entomologist once observed, “are likes midges on marijuana.”

Slingsby subside to 43 all out; for a farming community some of the shots decidedly agricultural. A departing batsman vows to go mushrooming, instead.

“Get us a boiling,” says the bowler who’s seen him on his way.

Signal shift finished, Charles Allenby has turned up, too. Four-strong, foursquare, his little league survives jauntily. “On a night like tonight,” he says, “where on earth would you rather be?”

Led by brothers Ben and Jack Corner – the elder 20, the younger just 11 – Slingsby fight back. Young Jack does well. “When you’re a bit older,” someone says, “they’ll let you bowl downhill.”

Ben takes two in two balls. “Mally, I’ll buy you a pint if you let me have a hat-trick,” he tells the new man. Mally plays to mid-wicket.

The home side finally wins by four wickets, Craig Ibbotson 28 not out. Both sides retire cheerfully to the Royal Oak, where a glass is raised to the Feversham with no compunction whatsoever.