Languishing in Sir Cliff’s shadow... (From The Northern Echo)

Languishing in Sir Cliff’s shadow...

11:00am Monday 19th October 2009

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CRAMMED between the natural lull of the summer and the Christmas break, it’s a busy time on the speaking circuit.

Last week’s engagements included a date at Witton-le-Wear Sunday School Chapel for a meeting of the Gaunless Valley Group of Women’s Institutes.

I was expecting a decent audience. After all, it wasn’t a mere branch meeting, but a group meeting, encompassing local villages such as Hamsterley and Frosterley.

The electric bar heaters were on full blast so there was a warm welcome but, if I’m honest, the numbers were a bit disappointing.

Evergreen Sheila Tock, long-serving president of the Witton-le-Wear branch, stood up to introduce me: “We’re delighted to have as our guest speaker this evening, Peter Barron, editor of The Northern Echo.”

She then turned to me and added: “Sorry about the low turnout, Peter, but you clashed with Cliff Richard. Quite a few of the ladies have gone up to the Newcastle Arena.”

Now, I’m not easily offended, but if I’d known I was competing with Sir Cliff, I might have turned down the invitation.

And to think he was charging £60 a ticket and all I asked for was a donation to the Butterwick Children’s Hospice.

I was sorely tempted to launch into my own version of The Young Ones, but I looked around and thought better of it.

THE following day, there was a much bigger turnout when I addressed the South Durham U3A in Darlington, even though Bargain Hunt was on the telly.

Among those in the audience was Sandy Hood, my lovely landlady in Southend Avenue when I first came to Darlington to train as a journalist at the technical college.

That was in 1980, but she’s hardly changed – and she’d never have deserted me for Cliff.

YOU can’t beat a good juxtaposition. On the day we led the paper on MPs being ordered to pay back thousands of pounds in claims for cleaning bills, the page one advert was “Win a home makeover”.

I LOVED the report in another North-East paper about Newcastle United player Andy Carroll: “Carroll became a father on Tuesday morning after making a quicker than anticipated recovery from a groin injury to cap off a whirlwind week.”

POSTSCRIPT to last week’s mention of Taylor’s Butchers in Darlington refusing to sell two chicken legs because they only come in fours...

Word reaches me of a real-life encounter in McDonald’s when a customer saw on the menu that you could order six, nine or 12 Chicken McNuggets.

The customer ordered a half-dozen.

“We don’t have half-dozen nuggets,” said the teenager at the counter.

“You don’t?” asked the customer.

“We only have six, nine, or twelve.”

“So I can’t order a half dozen nuggets, but I can order six?”

“That’s right.”

The customer ordered six McNuggets.

A FINAL thought on Sir Cliff. I wonder if the following announcement was made at the Metro Radio Arena in Newcastle: “Apologies for the complete lack of any spare seats, but tonight’s concert unfortunately clashed with the appearance of Peter Barron at Witton-le-Wear Women’s Institute.”

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