MARKETS are good. In a world of shopping malls where every high street in the country has the same shops selling the same stuff, markets are a chance to do something different.

They're also big business. They run bus trips to Bury Market where you can buy everything from home made pies and black pudding to just the right sort of thingummy to mend a broken shower. Leeds and Oxford are fiercely proud of their Victorian covered markets and promote them whenever possible, while Borough Market in London – a wonderful maze of small producers and delicious food – is foodie heaven, a huge success story and always busy. Thousands throng there.

So good are markets, that Middlesbrough Borough Council is ambitiously hoping to create a new one – with Borough Market as its model - as part of their renovation of the town centre. Excellent.

So what about Darlington?

Darlington has a splendid covered market that was once one of the wonders of the region with huge crowds, especially on Mondays when the outdoor market was on its doorstep.

The indoor market is still going strong – but is now one of the region's best kept secrets, partly because it's been cut off from the outdoor market, which used to be in the Market Square. The clue's in the name…

Despite the brave flags fluttering outside the market hall, the town centre signs point merely to "market area" – which is actually not true, as the few outdoor market stalls that remain are now at the other end of the town centre. Apart from special events, the market place itself is usually empty. It should be the heart of the town but now it's dead space. No stalls. No life. Not even short-term parking for people who might want to pop up the steps and buy their heavy foodstuffs at the market.

Anyone would think the council was ashamed of it.

The covered market is good – pop in if you haven't been lately – but it could be even better, given a bit of support, imagination and investment.

In an identikit world markets are special. People used to flock to Darlington for the market. Remember what those Bank Holiday Mondays used to be like? There's no reason why they shouldn't again.

Unless, of course, they'll all be going to that new market in Middlesbrough…

Tamara Ecclestone apparently spent £70,000 on daughter Sophia's first birthday party – a balloon castle, petting animals, even zebras. She wanted, she said, to give her a day to remember.

But Sophia won't, will she? Which makes the whole exercise even more pointlessly extravagant.

Anyway, I bet none of it was as much fun as mashing birthday cake into the carpet, or playing with the wrapping paper or hiding in the box the present came in.

Sophia is certainly a rich young lady – but maybe ordinary one-year-olds are really the privileged ones.

My mother always used to recite The Daffodils while making chips. I never knew why, but it sounded happy. My father would declaim the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam when he was full of good cheer or whisky. My sister knew lots of short and silly poems.

And my brain is like a much battered anthology – a few pages missing, a bit muddled, the words not always in the right order, but a great treasure trove of poetry, sad, serious and scurrilous.

Well, before I had a phone to play with, it kept me entertained while waiting for trains or gave me something to concentrate on while at the dentist.

("Is there anyone there?" asked the traveller…" Arrghh, gurgle, dribble, spit . "..knocking on the moonlit ..ouch."

From Winnie the Pooh in the infants ( "The more it snows, tiddley pom…") right up to Shakespeare for A-level. ("The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, burned on the water…") teachers made me learn stuff by heart – times tables, formulae, theorems , dates, acts, irregular verbs and pages and pages of poetry, virtually a poem a week for every year of my schooling. Hundreds of them.

Maybe I was lucky that I found it easy to memorise stuff. Maybe I found it easy because I'd been doing it since I was four years old.

So although I have some small sympathy with the GCSE English students who won't be able to take their anthologies into exam, but will actually have to learn 15 poems by heart – or at least know them well enough to come up with the relevant quotes – I don't think it's a bad thing.

Of course it's tricky if you've never had to memorise so much as a phone number but good mental exercise, nevertheless and worth it for that alone. Some experts call it force feeding saying it will put teenagers off poetry for life.

A few will love it. Many will hate it. But some might be laying up future treasures.

Years later, when those words are still rattling around their brains when they're all grown up, they might suddenly realise "Yes, that's what it's all about!" and be grateful.

If only at the dentist's….

So Prince Harry is leaving the army, where he's been brave and skilled and flourished. Let's hope he finds an equally challenging and rewarding role in Civvy Street.

The last thing the royals need is another Uncle Andrew….

In their spat over surrogacy, Elton John has asked us all to boycott fashion firm Dolce and Gabbana.

Well, as they charge upwards of £2,000 for a dress, £800 for shoes and £575 (yes) for an umbrella, I think most of us have already been doing that for a long time.

Does that count as solidarity with Elton?

The daffodils are out. Spring is nearly here. And scientists have developed a wine that doesn't give you hangovers.

Suddenly, the world seems a happier place…

BACKCHAT

Hi Sharon,

Completely agree with your piece on the need for spare tyres in cars. My lovely new VW Polo, like its two predecessors, has a proper spare tyre tucked away in a well under the boot cover. Still loads of room, even with the dog in there. When I had a puncture in my last car, I was on my way in no time after the RAC man fitted the spare.

I don't believe that people prefer not to have this option - it's just a way to save a few pounds for the manufacturers and cause stress and extra cost for the owner.

Pat Timmins

Darlington

Dear Sharon

When I was growing up near Peterborough in the 1960s we had our own police station in the estate. It was just a small office attached to one of two houses which were police houses. One of the bobbies lived there for many years and we all knew him. His daughters were friends of my sisters all through school but that didn't stop him being a figure of authority when he walked round in his uniform. He knew all the troublemakers and must have been a real deterrent.

Jim Pearson (by email).