SHE has pneumonia, bless her; lungs rattling like a Saturday street collection, cough like a corncrakes' chorale. Neither of us has had much sleep these past few nights.

In search of solace, therefore, the column has been back to the Old Home Town and to what was always known as the rest house.

It was locked, grilled and shuttered. No rest house for the wicked.

While the rest house was ever thus, the place in which it is recumbent was known to generations of brazzened fond bairns as the Rec but in a rash of municipal hauteur has been upgraded to Timothy Hackworth Park, in honour of the railway pioneer.

Even the dog waste bins carry the town council's coat of arms, as if to remind them of their indebtedness.

The reborn rest house, meanwhile, is among 46 nominations for a North-East architectural award. Dwarfed by multi-storey flats in Sunderland, drowned by waterworks in Cleadon and at Wearhead, outspoken by "fully flexible multi-streamed facilities", its citation is simple.

"The restoration of a very dilapidated pavilion to a high standard," it says, evidence that even pretty humble places like Shildon shouldn't take problems lying down. If only the bloody vandals would go and play round their own end.

When we were just kickabout kids, chased from the Rec each dusk by a bell ringing, ear stinging attendant, the rest house was effectively out of bounds.

It smelled of polish and of pipe tobacco, echoed to the knocking of dominoes, the buzz of the wagon works and to the wisdom of the elders. Though the door was unlocked, you didn't - dursent - go in.

Now it's part of a £1m park restoration project on which the town council is hugely to be commended, but which is still a misadventure playground for the feckless. One by one, they're even pinching the letters from the name outside.

"We even had some fancy bits on top of the lamp posts," said town mayor Garry Huntington over a welcome-home wine. "A gang came with ladders, passed themselves off as council workmen and nicked them. I know it's no laughing matter, but you had to marvel at their audacity."

"I've had to stop calling the police," said a lady who lives over the road. "I just can't afford the phone bill any more."

In old days, in our days, the playground comprised swings, a slide, an ocean wave, a teapot lid, a rocking horse and a plank, as thick as that. Now there's a skateboard and BMX bike park with a notice about not being responsible and a note of the nearest accident and emergency unit.

There are contraptions with which Timothy Hackworth might have hauled chaldrons on the Stockton and Darlington and playthings which appear to be the work of Ms Tracey Emin and which, if taken on the back of a council lorry, could win £100,000 from the Tate Modern.

Amid it all, unworthy tyres swing limply in the breeze, like the gibbet at the start of Great Expectations.

The band stand, Trumptonesque, has struck up once again; the drinking fountain is ornately refurbished, though still as dry as a chapel Sabbath.

If only the rest house were able to offer repose. If only restless, reckless youth could leave well alone. The rest, as they say, is history.

IF it is true that for six days thou shalt labour, then in Shildon it's the seventh.

Ten miles from Tony Blair's den, the solidly working class, distinctly unpretentious County Durham town failed to return a single Labour councillor at the last municipal elections.

The town council had 15 Independents and two LibDems; all six Labour candidates on Sedgefield Borough council were defeated. It was a quite remarkable result which the media, locally and nationally, almost completely ignored.

"I thought it might have been worth a few column inches," says Garry Huntington. "It did seem a bit of a turn up for a place like Shildon."

He's a LibDem on both town and borough, though Labour has regained two town council seats - each by a single figure majority - in recent by-elections.

A letter in Monday's Echo pointed out that while Labour controlled authorities were again increasing their tax demands, Shildon town council's was being cut by almost ten per cent.

Among the first savings they made, says the mayor, was to stop attending conferences. It saved £32,000 annually. "There are no longer closed doors, no smoke filled rooms.

"They asked me to be mayor for a second year and I have to say I'm very honoured. It was a long time coming, but I hope that we're showing there's a different way of doing things."

Coincidentally, he lives opposite the park, hopes soon to have surveillance equipment in place which will mean that the rest house will be able to open as intended.

"It's a problem, undoubtedly, but we also hope to have a couple of wardens with an office there. We're by no means beaten yet."

SHILDON, of course, is optimistic of a double whammy. While the rest house builds up its hopes of an architecture award, the new railway museum is in line for the £100,000 Gulbenkian museum of the year accolade.

Among others nominated for the Gulbenkian award is the Taigh Cheasabhagh arts centre and museum on North Uist in the Outer Hebrides, one of the remotest places in Britain.

Because telephone lines were down and telecommunications technology is decidedly downwardly mobile, they didn't even hear the news until 24 hours after it was announced.

The tiny museum, also the post office, is so close to the sea that seals swim up to look through the windows at what's going on.

It's probably also the first time that North Uist has taken on North-East - and may the best museum win.

ANOTHER nursing grievance, the lady's pneumonia meant that we missed the surprise 85th birthday party in Saltburn for Ian Nelson, formerly the Echo's distinguished reporter in east Cleveland and until recently the Darlington & Stockton Times correspondent.

Ian's finest hour, however, came when he was a Daily Mail man in Scotland and received a tip-off that a very important passenger was about to land at Prestwick Airport.

He was onto it, going for a song, at once - the only man to interview Elvis Presley on the only occasion he set foot in the UK. A belated happy birthday, old friend.

AN institution yet more vulnerable, King James I Grammar School in Bishop Auckland marks its 400th anniversary with a week of events in July. Emails arrive asking what's going on. "It'll all be on our website from shortly," promises Steve Rodchester, head of what is now King James I Community College.

There's a reunion for past and present staff and governors on July 2, a week of events for present students from July 4-8 - "looking back on 400 years of education," says the head - and on July 9, a celebration which includes summer fair, tea dance from 4-6pm and an "all age" reunion in a huge playing field marquee from eight to midnight.

"We've had interest from all over the world. It's going to be a tremendous occasion," says Mr Rodchester. More from the alma mater very shortly.

...and finally, amid all the promotions for faraway places with strange sounding names in the window of a Darlington travel agency is an ad for a "Pamper yourself hen weekend." One night in Warrington, £69.

If we can sleep on it long enough, the column returns next week.