Discursively as ever, the column catches a bus to the seaside

The subject is much different. Back in 2006, McKie produced a book called Great British Bus Journeys, in which the only roots route – the only one in the North-East – was the 301 from Gateshead to Tynemouth.

Though still it featured on the internet, the only problem last Friday was that the 301 appeared no longer to exist.

“Not for about ten years,” says a bloke on the Market Street bus stand in Newcastle. Goodness knows, I’m accustomed to missing buses by a few minutes, but by ten years?

The chap advises catching the No 1, thinks about it and changes his mind. “Teks about three weeks,” he says.

“Nah,” says his mate, “more like fower.”

It is true beyond doubt that No 1 on the destination screen should not be supposed a sign of pre-eminence, nor even (as the classicists would have it) of being primus inter pares.

Closer to home, the No 1 from Darlington to Tow Law not only goes round by the houses, but has time to paint their front door steps while it’s about it.

“You’ll be bored rotten,” adds the first chap – and, of course, could hardly be more wrong

For one thing there’s the overheard conversation. McKie had supposed it full of disappointments and dissatisfactions – but it’s not on the No 1.

Bound for the coast, two youngish women are discussing the merits of feeding seagulls. “Oh you have to,” says one. “If you feed them they poo on you, and if they poo on you, you win the Lottery.”

It is a stupendous example of what Edward de Bono called lateral thinking.

Then there are the business names. In Wallsend there’s an undertaker’s called Go As You Please, in Tynemouth itself a shop called Children of the Revolution, which sells Dennis the Menace catapults. In North Shields a legal firm promises that “prison law” is a speciality, perhaps simply a case of supply and demand, but perhaps something to do with the fact that the No 1 smells strongly of dope.

Aren’t they supposed to have stopped smoking on buses?

Slicing through North Tyneside like a knife through stotty, we’re at Tynemouth in an hour. The bus from Darlington to Tow Law would barely be in the foothills of Crook in that time.

McKie quotes a self-flagellating medieval monk, exiled to Tynemouth priory, lamenting that spring and summer never come to the place. “The north wind is always blowing and brings with it cold and gloom,” he adds. “See to it, brother, that you do not come to this comfortless place.”

Last Friday, however, summer seems almost to have arrived, albeit whilst still wearing its top coat as a precaution. The real reason for travelling to Tynemouth is, in any case, not to parade the promenade, but once again to marvel at its wondrous railway station, opened in 1882.

Once described as “a dazzling array of ironwork and glass”, it was threatened with demolition in the 1980s, reprieved and now, happily restored, has listed building status.

Outside is a stretch limo, almost elasticated, which appears to bear the registration OOH BOY. Inside, a jazz band plays traditionally until terminally interrupted by the egregious eructations of the malfunctioning Tyne and Wear Metro PA system.

The No 1 has served its purpose very well, nonetheless – and who wants to be on a bus which sounds more like a game of darts, anyway?

AFTER the piece on Andrew Robinson Stoney – “Stoney ground”, it was headlined – Helen Cannam recommends Wendy Moore’s “page turner” book “Wedlock: how Georgian Britain’s worst husband met his match.”

Perhaps less than coincidentally, it’s on sale at the National Trust shop on the Gibside Estate near Gateshead, which Mary Eleanor Bowes – the match in question – inherited alongside Streatlam Castle, near Barnard Castle.

“It’s also, as they say, available from all good bookshops,” adds Helen and doubtless speaks from experience. She’s a prolific author, too.

Fellow writer Jack Chapman, specialist subject cricket, similarly enjoyed the column and didn’t know that the Stanley Kubrick film Barry Lyndon – “good story, wonderful soundtrack” – was Stoney grounded, too.

Jack’s also a David McKie fan, discursively seizing the chance to note that, a couple of weeks back at Hetton Lyons, umpire David McKay was seen to throw his white coat to the ground in disgust.

As may seldom have been said at Streatlam, it’s just not cricket, is it?

A RECENT reference to solicitors, says Janet Murrell in Durham, reminded her of a visit to Leamington Spa, where she came across the offices of the well known legal firm Wright Hassall. Clearly the possible chew-on had done them no harm. “There were several large office blocks,” says Janet.

THE solicitor in question may have been the invaluable Tim Sutton, now retired, who gallops up with information about the Voltigeur pub in Spennymoor – named, as we’d noted, after the 1850 Derby and St Leger winner.

The redbrick town centre pub is the second of that name. The first, so local knowledge proclaims, was built in 1860 by John Robinson from his winnings on the eponymous hoss.

Tim also sends a list of Spennymoor area pubs down the years – five alone, including the Gold Mine, in the small village of Hett, near Croxdale.

Spennymoor had the Albert and the Angel, the Colliery and the County, the Pit Laddie and (more recently) the Polaris. You get the picture.

Tim also supplies information on Whitworth Races, held in Spennymoor from 1868 to1919, a colourful event said to attract thirsty thousand crowds.

On Whit Monday 1868, the Voltigeur Stakes were won by a horse called Boxer. The following day the same horse won the “hack” race and the stewards refused to pay out.

Three months later, a “great sporting case” – Stewards v Richardson – was heard amid the grandeur of Durham Assizes.

It was proved that the winner was Vagrant in 1864, Vicar (more tea?) in 1866 and Boxer in 1868. Richardson argued that the stewards should have known the horse’s identity because it had won just the day previously.

Then up stepped the chief steward – the same John Robinson, known universally as Volti. On the entry forms, he said, it was made clear that payment was at the discretion of the stewards. The court found for the plaintiff; Volti won again.

IN the familiar legal belief that dead men can’t sue, a recent column had also recalled the perhaps apocryphal story of Walton Siddle, long-time landlord of the Cowshill Hotel at the top of Weardale, and his supposed response to a group of disoriented German tourists.

Malcolm Rolling in Durham insists that we were mistaken: the tourists were Japanese. “You found Pearl Harbour, didn’t you...”

Malcolm had called into the Cowshill with his wife, received brusque greeting, but offered to buy the landlord a drink, anyway. Walton had a double rum, bought Malcolm a drink in return, and so it went on. “I was a Durham City rugby player for 32 years. He knew everyone I knew,” he says.

They parted firm friends. “I think Walton was quite proud of that ‘rudest landlord’ tag,” he says.

...AND finally, sundry columns have bemoaned the egregious overuse of the prefix “hand” – as in “hand cooked dog biscuits” on Darlington market – intended to imply craftsmanship. A florist’s in Durham now advertises “hand-tied bouquets.” Others tie them with a windy pick, presumably.