Of myths and legends

A variety of unusual engines will be in steam and offering rides at the Shildon museum. There will be the recently restored Kitson No 5, which was made by Kitson and Company of Leeds in 1883 for the Consett Iron Works.

It was the last engine built to an 1841 design by Robert Stephenson.

He introduced a revolutionary “long boiler”, which increased steam production, but he sat it on a short wheelbase.

This meant that whenever an engine of this class used its enhanced steam production to go very fast, it lurched violently from side to side on the tracks.

At slower speeds, it was fine. And, it was discovered, its short wheelbase meant it was ideal for work in cramped ironworks and colliery yards where there were often tight curves to negotiate. So the Kitson, which is on loan from the North Tyneside Railway, carried on working for the National Coal Board until 1968.

The most intriguing of the engines must be Bellerophon – if only for its fantastic name.

Bellerophon was built in 1874 for the Haydock Collieries on Merseyside, which had 60 miles of private track connecting the pits to the main lines.

It was designed by colliery owner Josiah Evans and was both backward and forward looking: it had an outside motion and yet it was two decades ahead of its time in having piston valves.

Bellerophon – which is how someone who is hard-of-hearing conducts their telephone calls – was one of six similar engines working at Haydock: Makerfield, Parr, Golborne, Hercules and Amazon.

The first three names come from Merseyside pits; the other names seem to be mythological.

Bellerophon was, in Greek mythology, the chap who slayed the greatest of all monsters, the chimera, which had a lion’s head, a goat’s body, a serpent’s tail and which breathed terrible fire.

By riding on Pegasus, the untamed white winged horse, Bellerophon was able to throw a lump of lead down the chimera’s throat.

The chimera’s fiery breath melted the lead and the molten metal trickled down the monster’s airways and suffocated it.

In Greek, Bellerophon’s name means projectile, dart, javelin or bullet, so perhaps the engine’s name was chosen to reflect its great speed.

Or perhaps it was chosen because it is a great name.

See it today and tomorrow in steam from 10am to 5pm at Shildon.

NEXT Saturday marks the 189th anniversary of the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. To celebrate, the Friends of the line and the Brussleton Incline Group are holding a walk on the trackbed starting a midday from the Whistle Stop cafe opposite the Locomotion museum car park, in Redworth Road, Shildon. The walk will go from the Masons Arms – where Locomotion No 1 was first attached to its coal wagons in 1825 – over Brusselton to West Auckland station. It is not too demanding a walk, but sensible footwear is recommended. All are welcome.

MEMORIES 192 contained some pictures of young men scrabbling up the steep River Tees floodbank at Piercebridge in pursuit of the Harry Walton Easter Monday Handicap Trophy in 1980.

What, we asked, was going on.

“The story was that Harry Walton and his mates used to drink in the George, at Piercebridge, and they knew Richard Wilson, who lived at Cliffe Hall, and so, after closing time, they had a race back to his house,” says William Snaith, of High Coniscliffe.

Probably around 1970, the race became open to all drinkers over the Easter Bank Holiday, and from 1978 However, he generously shares the trophy with his son, Stephen.

“I remember taking him round the course before he had learned to walk so, technically, he is the last person to win the trophy,” says William.

‘CRIKEY, Chris,” began an excited email from Mary Everitt. “That was my year at Darlington High School. We are all approaching 70 years of age now.”

Last week’s photograph is from this month’s exhibition about the Girls High in the Darlington Centre for Local Studies in the library.

The high school opened in 1913 in Cleveland Avenue and shifted to new premises in Edinburgh Drive in 1955 – the school was opened on November 15 that year by the Duke of Edinburgh, hence the street name. In 1968, when it became a comprehensive, it was renamed Hummersknott school.

Our netballers’ photograph was taken three years after the duke’s visit. Several people – Frances Lorimer, Valerie Tait, Marion Morton and “JMR” – offered names for the girls on the team. Most of them recalled that second from the right on the back row is Hilary Cleminson, the mother of Martin Johnson, the 6ft 7in England rugby captain who lifted the World Cup in 2003.

As well as playing netball, Hilary was an international athlete and a county standard shot putter and high jumper, and she came from a family with great sporting ability but also severe cardiac problems.

With thanks to the Backtrack column, we can report that her grandfather, William Osborne Cleminson – the England rugby captain’s middle name is also Osborne – was a cabinet maker in Bishop Auckland, won three England amateur football caps while with Darlington and also played for Plymouth Argyle.

He, though, died aged 45 while running for a train at Bank Top station.

Her father, Bill, was 45 not out while batting for Cockerton Cricket Club in 1972 when, aged 53, he died from a heart attack running between the wickets.

Hilary, who joined Darlington Harriers when aged 15, also suffered cardiac problems, but died in 2002, aged 57, of pancreatic cancer.

Having discovered all of the above, another email pinged in from Mary Everitt. “With great excitement, I have located my school magazine for 1958-59,” she said.

Of course, the magazine named the netball team so, with the help of our other correspondents, we have just about completed our caption.

LAST week’s From the Archive section of Memories featured Masham in North Yorkshire, to which we shall return in the near future because we misplaced our schools. In the meantime, Darlington Councillor Alan Macnab has been in touch because he lived in Masham in the early 1960s. He was particularly taken by the splendid portrait of James Mallaby.

“I knew Jim,” says Alan. “He fought in the First World War with the Australian forces and for ever afterwards he had the nickname Digger. Jim was a waller – he made dry stone walls. He rode about the area on his sit-up-and-beg-bike, which he called Jinny.”

Alan continues: “The local GP in Masham in the 1960s was Dr Dodds, a wonderful and caring doctor. He made a record of Masham and its people on cine films which he used to show in the White Bear to much hilarity and amusement.

“I remember he had a cine night on November 22, 1963, just after the shocking news of the Kennedy assassination had come through.

Naturally the evening was solemn and subdued.”

• NEXT weekend, Darlington will be abuzz with the Festival of Thrift which is being held at Lingfield Point. As part of the festival, Chris Lloyd is giving a talk about the history of Paton and Baldwins on the site on Saturday at midday. More information next week.