JUST three weeks to go now, and, since the referendum is the most important vote any of us will ever be offered the chance to cast, the temptation here is to bang the drum, again, for the column’s choice - Brexit.

But let’s begin with something different. Invited to a Buckingham Palace garden party, Prof Tiong Ghee Teoh, a leading consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, and Dr Joanna Bray, an equally-eminent consultant anaesthetist, have given details of the arrangements at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, for the births of Prince George and Princess Charlotte.

“We had a huge team,” explained Prof Teoh. With himself as one of two obstetricians, it totalled 23 in all, completed by three anaesthetists, four paediatricians three midwives, four theatre staff, two special-care baby-unit staff, a lab technician and four senior managers.

“We were all on call for three months,” said Dr Bray. The core group met monthly, switching to weekly as the births neared. “If you were at a party you needed to have your car keys at the ready,” added Dr Bray. “No drinking.”

Let’s trust that the royal infants’ mother, the Duchess of Cambridge, doesn’t dwell too much on the fact that these armour-plated precautions were less for her than to ensure the safe arrival of direct heirs to the throne. Even in the womb some people are more important than others.

And within days that sad fact was confirmed by news of how a husband in Hampshire had had to deliver his wife’s baby after a promised midwife failed to arrive, having been recalled on her way because it was believed the couple lived outside a certain catchment area. Aneurin Bevan (creator of the NHS, for those requiring the knowledge) you should be living at this hour.

A Cambridge University study laments the death of local dialect words. Among its claims is that few northerners now speak of the ‘backend’, a once-common northern substitute for autumn. Well, in my patch of the north they still do. “It’s just like the backend,” someone said to me of last Monday’s Bank Holiday.

But the study does record a few survivals. It says North-East folk call a splinter – that tiny sliver of wood embedded in flesh - a ‘spelk.’ Where I live, just south of the Tees, it’s called a ‘spell.’ Is it a ‘spelk’ further north?

But to conclude – the referendum won’t be denied. From a mounting stack of warnings that should lead you to Brexit I give you just two:

1) Not representing any country, the EU flag nevertheless fluttered alongside those of the world’s seven wealthiest nations, including Great Britain, at the recent G7 summit in Japan.

2) The EU intends to scrap the present 12-minute-per-hour cap on TV advertising. So we can’t even set our own limit on TV commercials.

Meanwhile, Alex Salmond, the former Scottish First Minister, insists that if Scotland is “dragged out” of the EU by Brexit it could demand another vote on independence. Has he considered this: an independent Scotland would have to negotiate a trade deal with the rest of the UK? Could take years, and the phrase ‘back of the queue’ comes to mind. Warehouses overflowing with all that unsold whisky.