Though the christening went well, early years have sometimes proved a baptism of fire

“Rather like that bit in the Bible,” the subsequent column began, “the lady of this house reckons that, whenever two or three are gathered together, at least one will have played football for Shildon.”

Shanaya Atkinson-Jones, then three years old and recently adopted by her parents Floyd and Belinda – he Jamaican, she from Shildon – pirouetted proudly in her christening frock. “I think she wore it every day since until it fell apart,” Belinda now recalls.

Jade Byrne, Shanaya’s 16-year-old cousin, was christened at the same time by the Rev Tjarda Murray, born and raised in Holland and conducting her first service in Darlington – “a lovely, lively, internationally flavoured occasion,” the column concluded.

Fifteen years later, Jade Sloan, living in Darlington and with two adopted children of her own, is a promising actress with television credits including Casualty and Inspector George Gently.

It’s Shanaya, however, with whom we’ve been catching up at her parents’ home in School Aycliffe – a young lady hoping to hit some very high notes indeed.

Though her parents are loving, the extended family hugely supportive, life hasn’t always been easy for Shanaya. “It’s no secret that she’s struggled, that there’ve been emotional and mental health issues,” says Belinda.

“It’s all to do with being adopted, with attachment. She doesn’t go out at night, has no friends her own age. Basically she doesn’t trust anyone.”

So Shanaya sings, sings soulfully, sings superbly. Ten days ago she qualified for the national final of the Open Mic UK competition at the NEC in Birmingham in January.

In the area final she performed a Jennifer Hudson song called I Am Changing, in the regional final a Beyonce number, Listen. “The song just wants people to listen to her, it all comes from the heart,” says Shayana, now 19.

She attended Durham High School and Greenfield Arts College in Newton Aycliffe, models herself on black singers like Aretha Franklin and Whitney Houston – Michael Jackson, too – plays drums, is a dab hand at artistic make-up, reached the third stage of X-Factor auditions and four years ago won the Young Aycliffe’s Got Talent competition.

Sometimes, though, it seems that her best friend is Kingston, the family cat.

“Even when I had tonsillitis and couldn’t talk, I was still in my hospital bed signing,” she recalls. If I’m sad, really lacking excitement, that’s my way of changing it. Even when I’m very sad I sing, songs that mean something to me.

“When I’m on stage there can be hundreds of people there and it’s like I’m the only person in the room, like there’s a door between us and no one else there but me.

“My ambition is to make a living from signing. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll still always sing. I want them to listen to me, too.”

Back in 2001, I’d wangled a way into the reception at a West Indian restaurant in Darlington, steel band up from Leeds, raised a glass to the excited little girl in the flouncy frock. Now that she’s an ambitious young lady, it’s a pleasure to do so again.

A FUNERAL service was held last week for Rita Everett, the lovely lady once delighted to be termed loquacious in a licensed trade magazine until advised what the word meant.

She could talk for England, and Scotland and Ireland as well,” her granddaughter Sarah told the gathering in rather plainer language.

They’d called an ambulance to her Darlington home at 6am. When the nearest available was found to be in Middlesbrough, they turned out the fire brigade – who by every account were tremendous – instead.

“It’s a long time since I’ve had two men sitting on my bed,” said the indomitable Rita, who died later that day.

We returned to Darlington Snooker Club, run by her son Peter, toasted her memory in an appropriate pint of Matriarch. They also had Old Slapper. Rita would have had something to say about that, an’ all.

AT one of Pete’s beer festivals a week or two earlier, the conversation had improbably been navigated towards which was the more westerly, Edinburgh or Carlisle.

A school held, and internet searchers seemed to confirm, that not only was the answer Edinburgh but that it’s also west of Cardiff. Something to do with the way that maps are drawn.

In vino veritas, can anyone offer sober orientation?

MOURNING Amy Kilfeather, the column two weeks ago lamented also the passing of the quiet pub. It’s thus a particular pleasure to acknowledge Poppy Harris’s 70th birthday, last Tuesday.

Poppy’s been landlady of the Half Moon at Barton, between Darlington and Scotch Corner, for 35 years. Before that, she and her late husband Joe ran the Round House in Darlington for 12 years.

The Half Moon’s a proper pub, beer and conversation. “You’d be amazed how many people say how nice it is to be in a pub that doesn’t smell of vinegar,” she says.

An elderly weekly card school was leaving as we arrived, clutching little bags of medication lest things get over-excitable. Uneclipsed, the Half Moon shines on.

AFTER 70 years and about five million journeys on the No 1 bus from Darlington to Bishop Auckland, things changed for the better last Tuesday evening.

The bus travels through the village of Heighington. On November 22, more than a month before Christmas, the place – the green, the pubs, the houses, the very air – were hung with thousands of Christmas lights.

The place has come together for local 18-year-old Kieran Maxwell, who has declined further treatment after a long battle with a rare cancer.

So everywhere was bright blazoned, everywhere cheerful. However hard the times, however dark the days, the true spirit of Christmas shines on in the village of Heighington.

...AND finally, we learn of problems at that wonderfully improbable art deco mansion, built 20 or so years ago next to where the gas holder used to be at Fylands, near Bishop Auckland. The rendering is very visibly peeling – and a banner names the contractor. It’s for scriptural not legal reasons that the column declines to follow suit. Romans 12:17 – “Render to no man evil for evil….”