TWO days to the great referendum and few await the outcome with more interest than Mayor Boris of Sleegill.

“Who knows,” says the mayor, “if the Scots go for independence then maybe we should, too. The least we could do would be to have toll gates on the bridge.”

We mentioned the other Mayor Boris a couple of weeks back, failed to make contact, but enjoyed a most convivial couple of hours in his company last Thursday evening.

Only fitting, the mayor wore a dark suit and black bow tie with his handsome chain of office.

They’d invited the other Mayor Boris to the mayor-making, and were disappointed that London seemed overwhelmingly to be calling. “He missed a right good do,” says Boris Peary. “I think this is the first time I’ve worn the chain since.”

Sleegill, they insist, is just outside Richmond, North Yorkshire.

Though the Swale flows swiftly between the two communities, many had supposed the two to be indivisible.

“They’re not,” insists the mayor, “Sleegill isn’t a street, it’s a hamlet, part of a completely separate parish.”

Malcolm Firby, retired landlord of the Holly Inn – where we all gather – was Sleegill’s mayor for ten years before him. “The story goes that when the Mayor of Richmond did his beating the bounds walk every seven years he’d throw pennies to the Sleegill kids and they’d throw them back again,” says Malcolm.

The mayoralty was created by John Ditchburn, landlord of the Good Intent – a nearby pub, now a private house – in 1904. The chain of office and large official pendant were in a museum until the office was revived.

In Sleegill with his wife Anne for 27 years, Boris was actually christened Christopher – though none knows him as that. “Boris” came about when he was 18 and on a particularly laddish outing to London – reference to a Who song called Boris the Spider, said to have been written in six minutes by lead guitarist John Entwistle, an arachnaphobic.

“It’s a lovely, friendly little place and we’re very proud of it,” says the mayor. “The other Mayor Boris can be a bit wild at times, but I’ve got a lot of time for what he says. I’d love to meet him one day.

“It would be lovely to buy him a pint in the Holly. We must have a great deal in common.”

EARLIER that day to the North- East launch of Camra’s 2015 Good Beer Guide, almost 1,000 pages and as reliable and as invaluable as ever.

Camra, ever-burgeoning, now has 160,000 members – “selflessly going around the country testing beer for this guide,” said regional director Dave.

More than 4,500 pubs are listed in around 650 pages; the breweries section occupies another 240. When Camra began in 1971, the country had 147 real ale breweries; now there are almost 1,300.

Among the most recent is the Schoolhouse Brewery – “educate your taste buds” it suggests – set up in Darlington by Graham Gannaway, whose surname’s a new one, too.

Slightly surprisingly, it has no North-East roots. “It’s mainly in the south and in the New World,” he says.

Graham, 57, began working life as a shop boy, became regional commercial manager for Debenhams and was then a YMCA chief executive before taking redundancy. “My family wanted to know what I was going to do next. They were all for the brewery, absolutely,” he says.

When the plan to buy the eponymous old schoolhouse fell through, they moved to a unit on the Cleveland Industrial Estate, but kept the name, anyway.

The market’s crowded, the outlets limited. “The aim for the moment is to break even every month,” says Graham. “I believe that if the product is good enough, it’ll sell itself.”

He’s also a member of Kings Church in Darlington, like Camra ever-growing, and through the brewery will support Hope for Justice, an anti-human trafficking organisation.

The afternoon went well; so did the ale. The admirable John Bull in Alnwick – 120 single malts, too – was named North- East pub of the year. Darlington Snooker Club, corner of Northgate and Corporation Road, won regional club title for the 11th time in 12 years.

  • The Good Beer Guide costs £15.99 from all good bookshops.

STILL on the beer, a letter to The Times from Chris Hawkins in Newton Aycliffe questions Alex Salmond’s wisdom in hoping that Scotland might turn out a bit like Norway. In Norway, Chris points out, the price of a pint is “two or three times” that of the UK. It recalls the lustrously named Topper Oslington, West Cornforth lad, who had a pub in Oslo so English that there was even a train set around the dado. When first we wrote of him, 25 years ago, a pint was pushing £5. Googling “Oslo” and “Oslington” merely brings reviews of a Norwegian restaurant in Islington. Whatever happened to the superlative Topper?

BACK to the Good Beer Guide launch, where Robin Sanderson of Camra’s Sunderland and South Tyneside branch wore a T-shirt with the slogan “Harry Watts: Forgotten Hero.” So remind me again, who was Harry Watts? “If I’d known you were going to be interested, I’d have ironed the T-shirt,” said Robin. Harry Watts is an extraordinary story, though – more wrinkles next week.