WITH a few long words from the column – a “cornucopia” we called it, and so upon rewarded investigation it is – the Darlington Lions’ Club bookshop has marked 20 years in the same premises in Houndgate Mews.

They baked.

The shop’s success helped them win the Club of the Year award among 43 in North-East England and Scotland in 2013 – “the sheer adversity of their work” said the citation fixed to the end of a book case, though it’s possible they meant “diversity”.

They’d semi-squatted in two or three town centre venues before 1994, moved to the little place up the arcade on the understanding that it might only be for a week, and with a week’s notice.

The Lions remain, rent and rates free, still on a week’s notice. “It’s a pretty good arrangement,” said Fred Thompson, the treasurer. “Mind, I don’t know what we’d do if we ever did get notice.”

There’s now an overflow shop next door, everything 50p and pearls to be discovered. It used to be £1: they halved it and sold twice as many. By mickle and muckle means, they’ve raised around £100,000 for charity.

“Mind,” said Fred (again), “you’d be surprised how many pick up a book, throw it back down again and say they’re not paying 50p for that.”

Ceremonials attended, someone shoved into my hand a little tome called How To Chat Up Your Lover in Five Languages. Regrettably, none of them was Welsh.

AFTER all those other books, the Good Book. The indefatigable Daphne Clarke incites us to a little service on Sunday evening at the Queen’s Court sheltered accommodation in Richmond.

Marie White, the mayoress, is there, too. So is the Rev Les Nevin, the newish Methodist minister.

They will learn that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle (as the scripture has it) than it is to say no to Daphne.

She herself is 80, a lay preacher in both Methodist and United Reformed churches. After introducing Bible study to the monthly Sunday evening services, she persuaded the Bible Society to donate a dozen copies of the Good News Bible – four of them large print.

They’re steered through the 23rd Psalm, Daphne a most able navigator. It finishes with The Day Thou Gave Us Lord is Ended, the hymn that many years ago I would sing at 7.30am in the future inlaws’ bathroom.

Though it wasn’t even in Welsh, it confirmed to her father that she’d found the right man at last.

BRIEFLY, as might be supposed, the column two weeks ago mentioned being taught shorthand in the mid-1960s at what then was Darlington College of Technology.

The teacher was Miss Sharkey, the method Pitman’s New Era. You can tell it was long ago because the £2 book token for being top of the class bought 16 paperbacks at half a crown apiece. These days New Era’s old hat. It prompted an email from Susan Jaleel, also in Darlington, who learnt shorthand in the sixth form, believing that it would be useful in life.

So it proved – “a few bob now and again” – so much so that she wonders if it’s still taught or consigned to “yesterday’s ever-growing relic heap.”

It is, we’re assured. Technology’s short forms notwithstanding, it’s still required in the National Council for the Training of Journalists proficiency test.

The Pitman’s record, set in 1922, was 350wpm by Nathan Behrin. The top of the class at Darlington Tech was only 230 words behind.

WE also had cause a fortnight back to mention the Tile Sheds pub in Great Ayton. Don Cowan reports that it’s been closed since Christmas 2012, though the decorations are still up. “It looks like they got to Twelfth Night and then called it a day.” Tile Sheds is also an area of Boldon, between Sunderland and South Shields, but these days chiefly a bus stop. You can’t get a drink there at all.