ERIC WHITE’S funeral takes place in Aycliffe Village today. Lovely chap, local councillor, old friend, he’d appear occasionally in these columns – mischievously, but never once maliciously.

The last, November 2013, was when he wondered if Mr Robert Mugabe might be an honorary Yorkshireman, since his surname was an anagram of E Ba gum.

Before that he’d complained about the over-use of the phrase “You know” on daytime television – “I’ve nothing much else to do these days, it’s driving me crackers” – and, for at least seven years, about Darlington Council’s insistence on delivering the Town Crier newspaper to Aycliffe, which had never ever been in the borough. “It goes straight in the bin,” said Eric.

Chiefly, however, he may be remembered hereabouts for his attempts to establish the legitimacy – or at least the acceptability – of the word “pillock.”

Back in 1989, when times were different, the former mayor had accused fellow Great Aycliffe town councillor Ernie Elmer of “looking like a pillock” after Coun Elmer had dressed up as Snoopy, the Peanuts cartoon character, to promote the town show.

Accounts vary, admittedly. Some say that Coun Elmer dressed as Fred Flintstone, accompanied not by the winsome Wilma but, inexplicably, by Beryl the Peril. Coun Elmer would also dress annually as Santa Claus, though no one complained about that.

What’s not in doubt is that Eric used the p-word, his explanation that it was from the same root as “pillory” a little etymologically disingenuous.

“The Northern Echo had never heard of it and neither had anyone else. It caused quite a stir,” he recalled many years later.

Since the word had been around since the 16th Century, the Echo probably had heard of it. We’d reported how successful North-East businessman Karl Watkins had called industry minister Peter Lilley a “little pillock” – the minister’s principal grievance that he was 5ft 10in – and that, in 1991, a Cruft’s exhibitor had fallen asleep in his Pharaoh hound’s kennel just as Princess Margaret was on walkies.

“I felt a total pillock,” he said.

Perhaps most memorably, Whitby solicitor Roy Oddy was struck off for calling a fellow Law Society member a “useless pillock” and refusing to pay the resultant £2,000 fine. That he also called the gentleman a “bent little git” probably didn’t endear him to the Law Society, either.

Mr Oddy had talked subsequently of becoming a Church of England priest. An internet search offers no evidence that he embraced holy orders.

The Echo has employed the p-word on 59 occasions since 1989, from Coronation Street actor Bill Tarmey – “I’m just a pillock who comes into a studio to say some words” – to a theatre review (“arrogant pop pillock”) from Sunderland Empire.

Before today, the last occasion was in December 2013 when the lady of this house wrote of Barack Obama “behaving like a pillock” for taking selfies with David Cameron and Neil Kinnock’s daughter-in-law (or someone) The White House is not thought to have complained; Eric is vindicated.

He was 92, bless him, and unrepentant. “If you’re talking of councillors as pillocks, a lot of them still are.”

SAD, also, to learn of the passing of Ted Harrison, a Wingate miner’s son with a truly amazing life story.

Ted was a painter – another p-word – who attended Wellfield Grammar School, won a prize for drawing the best apple and a Christmas hamper in a competition run by the Northern Echo Nig-Nog club. The hamper, alas, got lost in a railway siding, its contents pretty ripe when finally it arrived in January. “We couldn’t afford turkey and we’d been really looking forward to it,” said Ted.

In 1967 he got a teaching post in the Yukon – “weaklings need not apply,” the ad had said – and through his painting became what a British Columbia newspaper called a national treasure. He won the Order of Canada, the country’s top honour, had four honorary doctorates and was even an honorary admiral.

In the Yukon, and in British Columbia, his philanthropy was as legendary as his paintings – “the School of Cheery,” he supposed.

In 2006 he was home to celebrate 80th birthdays with Algar, his twin sister, in Wheatley Hill. “It fills me with nostalgia, the miners were wonderful people,” he told the column. “The accent is a sort of freemasonry. You have it and you at once belong.”

The headline on the 2006 piece had been “Anything Yukon do”, but clearly none had ever done it better.

MICHAEL ADAMSON MBE, a marvellous man who was among these columns’ oldest friends, died in October 2010. He was chairman of the Durham-based Ramside Estates group, a hotels and catering company where his son John is now gaffer.

Last Thursday John became a father for the fourth time, a little lad after three lovely little girls. By great good chance, I happened to be at a meeting at the Ramside Hall at the same time as the head wetting. Rarely may a new father have been more excited.

“I’m 49 and I’ve scored the winner in extra-time,” said John. Welcome to the world, Joseph Michael Adamson.

SINCE we’re never too old to learn, the column two weeks ago highlighted the Echo reference to Cocktail Hill infants school in Bishop Auckland, when everyone else thought it was Cockton Hill.

It brought an email from Judith Bainbridge in Frosterley, who taught there for almost 40 years, initially during Harold Guthrie’s time as headmaster.

Every morning, Judith recalls, the bairns would recite the Lord’s Prayer. “Our father, which art in heaven, Harold be thy name...”

Babes and sucklings? “I don’t think they saw the significance.”

PRE-EMPTIVE strike, we proposed to make 2015 the year of campaigning against the absurd and unnecessary overuse of “pre” – as in pre-book. You either book or you don’t.

Steve Leonard in Middleton Tyas, near Richmond, bought a radiator shelf on Amazon and was offered the choice of “unfinished” or “pre-finished.” He thinks they meant finished.

Robert Bacon in Wolviston, near Billingham, raised a similar point – about pre-ordering – with BBC Tees presenter Tom Davies and was, he says, mocked.

“His defence was that it’s a modern expression to indicate that the items were ordered ahead of the official release date.

First home in this little pre-amble, however, is North Yorkshire police deployment officer Paul Richardson who, in a story about last week’s inclement weather, urged motorists to “pre-prepare” for their journey.

He wins this week’s Grand Pre.

...And finally, while the world worries over weightier matters, Telegraph readers have been growing increasingly concerned about the changed recipe for Cadbury’s Crème Eggs.

“An outrageous attack on the nation’s cultural heritage that must not be tolerated,” wrote Dr Bertie Dockerill, from Shildon.

With Easter and the general election just a month apart, Dr Dockerill may have the answer: "Though I have never supported socialism, if Mr Miliband were to pledge to nationalise Cadbury’s. I would have to give serious consideration to voting for him.”