THE words honourable and honorary are oft confused, but really aren’t synonymous at all. Were titular office to be honourable, it’s doubtful if my name would ever have appeared atop a sheet of notepaper.

Since it is invariably honorary, meaning unrewarded save for the occasional fruit scone, presidencies prevail.

There’s even a football club in Darlington with a swanky motto, Supare possamus, which is Latin for “scraping the barrel.” Another, in Spennymoor, struck a large medal – El presidente, it said though they folded, finito, soon afterwards.

The Northern Echo: Rosie Page, daughter of Alf Wight

Rosie Page, daughter of Alf Wight

Then there’s the Wensleydale Writers group, whose latest anthology was launched last Monday at The Old School House – affectionately abbreviated to TOSH – in Leyburn.

Its sale will raise funds for Herriot Hospice Homecare, an admirable organisation covering all northern North Yorkshire, but presently dismayed because central funding for what chief executive Adele Hudson rather ambiguously calls their “fast track end of life care service” has been withdrawn.

“The decision has broken all our hearts,” she writes in the newsletter.

The charity will continue to offer care and support to those with life limiting illness, their family and friends, though Dr Rosie Page – James Herriot’s daughter – admitted she’d been initially uncertain about the name.

“I thought people might suppose ‘Herriot’ to be for cats and dogs,” she told last week’s gathering, urged them to follow her father’s example and to write about that which they knew and loved and to eschew long words.

The last bit is not necessarily incontrovertible.

The writers share a love of words and, manifestly, of the dales – Swaledale scribes equally encouraged. Attractively illustrated by David Nash, the anthology embraces both poetry and prose. Eager to raise more money for Herriot, the authors even learned book binding and, laudably, did it themselves.

The man at the top of the notepaper failed to write anything, to bind or to bake anything – the buffet was magnificent – added not a word to the readings and didn’t even bring a bottle.

The Northern Echo: Bill Bryson, the former Durham University chancellor

Bill Bryson, the former Durham University chancellor

Wensleydale Writers have a president ghost.

n Wensleydale in Words costs £5 plus £2 90 postage, though free delivery can be arranged in the dale. Enquiries to susenic@aol.com or phone 01969-640415.

COINCIDENTALLY bookended, there’s another launch the same evening in the bar of Richmond Georgian Theatre, 11 miles down dale. It’s of a wholly more contentious nature – “scurrilous,” it says on the back cover, but that’s much to underestimate the potential offence.

“Cleverly conceived, imaginatively written, but in utterly appalling taste,” I tell George Jowett, the book’s author, over coffee a few days earlier.

“The publisher thought the taste was appalling, too,” says George, unabashed. “It’s why he wanted to do it.”

Thatcher’s Folly, as might be supposed, is a lengthy poem concerning the former Prime Minister – specifically at the time of the Brighton bombing. No further detail will be forthcoming, save that a planned reading at the Richmond Walking and Book Festival in September has been cancelled

The poet suspects political pressure, even tried to raise it an EU forum with local Tory MP Rishi Sunak. The MP had another agenda.

“It could just be a clash of personalities, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I think Tory Central Office could be involved,” he says. “I always feared the Establishment would try to silence me in some way.” Perhaps more liberally minded, the Lit and Phil in Newcastle hosts a reading on July 18.

The Northern Echo: GATEWAY: Bishop Auckland Railway Station is being celebrated as the gateway to the town ahead of major regeneration plans

Bishop Auckland Railway Station

George Jowett lives in Richmond. He last appeared hereabouts in 2002, having written an epic poem about Brian Graham, a Middlesbrough boy who had a successful boxing career despite all but killing himself in an 11,000 volt childhood accident at an electricity sub-station.

The column thought it tremendous; George was more modest. “It’s typical of his luck,” he said, “that when other people get Jeffrey Archer to write their biography, poor Brian gets me.”

Since taking early retirement as a social worker, he has earned a crust delivering pizzas – “the oldest pizza boy in town” – in the course of which Jowett’s Law was devised.

“The longer the journey, the grander the gates and the bigger the house, the smaller the tip will be,” it proclaims, and seems altogether less objectionable.

n Thatcher’s Folly: the Lost Canto is available through Amazon or from Iron Press, the publisher, at 5 Marden Terrace, Cullercoats, Tyne and Wear NE30 4PD. Imaginatively illustrated, it costs £6, plus £1 postage.

MORE reading matter: a postcard in the village shop in Barton, south of Darlington, advertises for sale a ladies’ bicycle, ridden just twice. Cost £295, peddled for £115 and in perfect nick save for a scuffed saddle. “That’s where I fell off,” she adds. Another paragraph for the column? Easy as falling off a bike.

CLEARLY today’s is to be a literary offering. For the price of a pint through Amazon, The Road to Little Dribbling has arrived.

It’s Bill Bryson’s latest, a sort of sequel to Notes From a Small Island. Between the two, he became Chancellor of Durham University. “A chancellor is rather like a bidet,” Sir Kenneth Calman, the vice-chancellor, told him. “Everyone is pleased to have one, but no one knows quite what they are for.”

The latest has him bed and breakfasting in Barney, noting that C Northcote Parkinson – he of Parkinson’s Law – was born in Galgate. His father was an art teacher.

Parkinson’s Law, of course, supposes that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Old Bill thinks the notion fairly obvious. “Never has anyone milked a single thought more vigorously or successfully than he did.”

In Barnard Castle in the 1970s, however, Parkinson’s law meant something else entirely. George Parkinson was the local police sergeant, one of the nicest men ever to swing a truncheon and also the British police weight lifting champion.

Off duty, he’d sit contentedly in the window of the White Swan in Evenwood, wreathed in aromatic baccy smoke and given every 20 minutes or so to the no-less profound observation that ''there was nee fear of steady men''.

It may never have had the currency of his namesake’s axiom, but manifestly these Parkinsons were very clever fellers.

OTHERS just read The Northern Echo. Last week’s piece on the 40th anniversary of Ray Wade and Ralph Wilkinson taking over The George at Piercebridge stirred many memories.

Alan Dodd recalled happy days in the late 70s, not least the livery man’s dog from next door having a distinct liking for a glass of bitter.

Retired solicitor Tim Sutton remembers the Young Conservative dances, that he once won a rock and roll competition, that there’d be “stand-offs” between the locals and the Shildon boys, “who’d come down to view the talent.”

Last week’s paragraph was followed by a rueful note on another Methodist church closure in Weardale, coincidental because Ralph’s grandfather was a staunch Methodist from Westgate who helped build the first Methodist chapel in Newton Aycliffe. Small world.

...AND finally, a printed notice on the loo door at Bishop Auckland railway station apologises for the absence of toilet paper. “We are awaiting a delivery,” it says and in an industry risibly renowned for its excuses may have found a bottom line. “We are sorry for any inconvenience,” it adds.