ON March 18, 1938, on the stage at the prestigious Dorchester Hotel in London, surrounded by sporting celebrities, a boilermaker from Darlington took to the oche and was crowned the inaugural Pouff Darts Champion of the World.

With his ten pouffs, Syd Hall scored an impressive 644 points. He won three guineas, a silver cup and a world title that was never awarded again.

Syd had honed his dart-pouffing skills in the cinemas and pubs of south Durham (it would be an insult to refer to him as a common "dart-spitter" and "pouffer" was the late 1930s fashionable word for what he did).

The area was clearly a hotbed of dart-pouffing talent because third prize in the inaugural championship went to Miss Edna Beattie – “an attractive dark-haired young woman” – who also came from Darlington.

In the years before the Second World War, darts was all the rage across all the social classes. In December 1937, King George VI and his wife, Elizabeth, popped out from Windsor castle to open a social club in nearby Slough. Elizabeth, still fondly remembered as “the Queen Mother”, spotted a new dartboard in the lounge, and said excitedly: “Do let me try. I have heard so much about this game.”

In a quick three dart match, she beat her husband by 21 points to 19.

What was good enough for the queen was good enough for women across the country, and the popularity of darts exploded.

This opened the way for Syd, real name Stephen, who was in his early thirties and worked at Cleveland Bridge.

During the First World War, Syd's father had been in the trenches where he had either been injured so his arm didn't work properly or he had been so restricted for space that he couldn't play darts properly. Either way, he had placed a dart sideways in his mouth and propelled it towards a dartboard.

Syd learned from his father and turned the strange skill into a pub act, touring County Durham – for example, he is known to have regularly gone to the Black Lion in Wolsingham – and taking on the locals for beer.

One of his most remarkable appearances, though, was at a cinema in Skinnergate, Darlington. Sources vary as to whether it was the Arcade Cinema (now a bingo hall) or the Court Cinema (now shops), but the story is consistent: he would take to the front row of the circle and pouff his darts over the heads of the patrons in the auditorium below towards a dartboard which had been lowered in front of the screen.

He would invariably hit the bullseye – from a distance of 36.5 feet.

But Syd was not just a one trick pony, a one dart pouffer. He developed his act. A thread was stretched across the board on the cinema stage, and Syd pouffed his dart with such accuracy that it cut the thread in two. The audience could see his success because the snapping of the thread caused a large message to unfurl across the screen: “That’s all, folks.”

The Daily Mirror newspaper in London heard of these curious goings-on in Darlington and, keen to pursue any new angle on the latest fad, called upon the nation’s “pouffers”, as it termed them, to come forward and take part in the first “Pouff Darts Championship of Great Britain”.

Seven competitors arrived at the Dorchester. Edna was the only female entrant; she and Syd were the only pouffers from north of Watford.

They stood nine feet from the board – then the standard oche – and placed their darts sideways in their mouths. On the word “blow”, the contest commenced.

According to the rules, they had “ten goes of three pouffs each”. Syd won, averaging 17.89 points per dart, and the Mirror crowned him “World Champion” (even though the paper had started the pouffing as a national championship, it seems to have realised there were no other pouffers in other countries and so inscribed the trophy to recognise the global nature of Syd’s achievement).

The paper's report was headlined: “P-o-u-f-f PLONK... He is Darting to Fame”.

An elated Syd said: “All you need is a good pair of lungs. I have been playing on and off for about two years. It’s a grand sport.”

The runner-up was Mr T Baldwin of Tunbridge Wells, who had raised himself from his sickbed to pouff at the Dorchester. He took home a silver tankard and two guineas.

And third place went to Edna who, said the Mirror, had been “swell in the picture” throughout the tournament.

“Her dark eyes dancing with fun”, she told the paper: “Gee, I’m so excited that I’ve got a prize. I have been playing for a month. I just retreated foot by foot until now I can blow a dart 20 feet.”

Of course, for Syd his name was made, and he toured the cinemas and pubs of County Durham billed as the world champion and accompanied by a stooge called Curly Humble. He developed his act so that it included trick shots and six inch nails.

Unfortunately, in 1939 the Mirror did not hold a second Pouff Darts World Championship – there were other, darker things on the nation’s mind. In fact, the outbreak of the Second World War ended the fashion for darts and it became a pub game.

Syd died of lung cancer in 1956, leaving a daughter, Barbara, who was only 17. She, though treasured his trophy, and appeared with it in The Northern Echo in 1984. Her married name was Knox and she lived in Clifton Road – where is she now?

Before Syd died, he passed his dart-pouffing secrets on to his nephew, Ron Tomlinson, who grew up in West Auckland.

As the baton was handed from one generation to the next, the name of the skill changed. Pouffing was no more. Young Ron, aged just 12 at the start of the Second World War, was a dart-blower, and he was discovered blowing a lit cigarette off his sister’s head with a dart. They put him on the stage, and by the time he was 13 he was earning £2-a-week in London's West End.

He performed under the name of Rondart, and he was billed as the “world champion dart blower” or the “modern William Tell”.

In 1951, he appeared on stage in 1951 with Stan Laurel, with whom he swopped stories about their Auckland upbringings. Among the other stars he worked with were Frankie Vaughan, Frank Randle and Larry Grayson, and he blew darts so accurately that he could propel one into the neck of a bottle from 15ft.

Such skill took him around the world – three tours of Japan alone in the late 1960s and early 1970s – and put him on the telly. In 1973, he blew a cigarette off Colin Crompton’s head on the Wheeltappers and Shunters Club, and in 1985, he appeared on the Paul Daniels’ Magic Show.

His last TV appearance was on the Spanish version of the Generation Game in 1995.

Having supported himself, and his Colombian wife Cristina, through 40-plus years of professional dart-blowing, Rondart retired to Witton Park. He began writing his autobiography – tentatively entitled I Blew It – but it hadn’t been published when he died, in his eighties, in 2005.

THERE was a brief mention of Rondart in Memories 208, which was spotted by Doug McCarthy in Crook, who played darts for England from 1977 to 1985. Doug kindly passed the mention on to Patrick Chaplin, who lives in Essex and is known as “Dr Darts” as he has spent a lifetime fascinated by darts and has a PhD in the social history of the game (his latest book, 180 Fascinating Facts About Darts is available on Amazon).

Patrick has generously provided much of the information for today’s article, which has also drawn on an interview that Mike Amos did for The Northern Echo in 1997 with Rondart.

When Rondart died in 2005, Patrick informed the entertainer Roy Hudd who said he was “one of the last representatives of the great variety speciality acts”.

“That’s praise indeed from a man who has made it his life's work to record the lives of hundreds of variety and music hall artistes,” says Patrick. “I don't think Ron would really have liked to be remembered as a 'darts-spitter' as he always preferred to be known as a 'darts-blower' or, of course, simply Rondart.

“However, I am absolutely certain that he would have been proud to be featured in Echo Memories ten years after his death.”

If you have any information about Rondart, Barbara Knox or third-placed Miss Edna Beattie, we'd love to hear it.