OUR coverage of the exalted history of the Durham Light Infantry missed out one extraordinary story, quite probably because it has very little to do with our region.

But it’s a great story, and it involves a man whose culinary innovation has had a profound effect on our lunchtimes ever since.

The DLI traces its origins to the 68th Regiment of Foot, which was formed in 1758 under the command of Major-General John Lambton, of Lambton Castle – that’s the start of the DLI’s connection to County Durham, although the formal attachment began in 1782 when it became the 68th (Durham) Regiment of Foot.

Anyway, in 1771, James Hackman, a 19-year-old from Hampshire, joined the regiment, quite possibly to escape his inappropriate relationship with a 29-year-old mother-of-nine, Martha Ray. Martha was the daughter of a stay-maker who was just a teenager herself when her parents sold her “honour” for a £400 down payment plus £30-a-year thereafter to John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich. He was 25 years her senior and in need of a mistress as his first wife had gone mad.

Despite the differences, Martha and Sandwich – who was the First Lord of the Admiralty and financed Captain James Cook’s exploration of the south Pacific so the Middlesbrough man named the Sandwich Islands after him – had a happy and productive relationship, until she formed her liaison with young Hackman.

After a year, Hackman joined the 68th, was posted to Ireland, and the relationship broke down.

Hackman left the fledgling Durhams after five years and became a vicar – and a stalker, following Martha around.

On April 7, 1779, he was watching her at Covent Garden Theatre and saw her talking to Lord Coleraine, and became convinced that his lordship was her new lover. Hackman stormed out, got two pistols, returned and shot Martha through the forehead from point blank range as she was about to step into her cab.

He turned the second pistol on himself – but missed, and was arrested beating himself with the two useless guns.

On April 16, despite claiming that “momentary phrensy” had caused him to kill Martha, he was found guilty of murder. He was hanged just three days later and his body was publicly dissected at Surgeons’ Hall, yet there was a great deal of sympathy for him. His was the ultimate romantic self-destruction which showed “the dreadful effects that the passion of Love may produce”.

When Sandwich heard his mistress had been murdered, he “wept exceedingly”. Sandwich was a great card player, on one occasion gambling for 24 hours non-stop. To sustain him, he ordered some cold meat placed between slices of bread so that he could eat and manage his hand simultaneously. Other players ordered “the same as sandwich”, and so a snacking revolution began.

THE world has been eulogising David Bowie, but I was distinctly unimpressed when I saw him on the opening night of Newcastle Arena, on December 7, 1995. The arena was far from full which, I said in my review, was because he “hadn’t released any worthwhile material for a decade and is notorious for not playing his greatest hits”.

I wrote: “He emerged at nine o’clock from behind a couple of dust-sheet covered statues and some strategically arranged chairs, and he looked like a painter who had been caught in a nasty hurricane which had blown his shoes off and torn his smock. Overhead was a sign in French and English which said, rather strangely, ‘open the dog’.”

This week I have learnt that Bowie was an unimpeachable godlike genius, so I was obviously wrong.