Thanks for the memory man

A paragon, most dictionaries would agree, is a model of perfection or supreme excellence. It is therefore entirely fitting that the lovely little story which follows is from Hails of Hartlepool, former captain of Paragonians Cricket Club.

Tuesday's column, it may be recalled, principally concerned former Darlington fast bowler Les Childs, about to reach 90 not out.

Les also worked for 43 years at the Whessoe, and it's from the works cricket team that Ron Hails remembers him.

Paragonians were at Whessoe, batting first, maybe 40 years ago. Fred Battersby ("a Paragonians legend") was on 97 but still finding Les awfully hard to get away.

Up in the pavilion, both visiting skipper and home tea lady were growing anxious.

Ron was worried about the declaration, the tea lady had kettle boiled and table laid and was getting hot under the gas ring.

The consternation reached the middle; Batty knew what to do.

As Les Childs came in to complete the over, he held up a hand and walked down the wicket. "Look Les," said Fred, "I promised my old dad a hundred when I was a lad.

"He's at death's door" - he was, too, confirms Ron - "and if I get a ton now he'll die happy."

Each returned to his place. Les delivered a ball of such unique innocence that the batsman smote it first bounce to the rope, fell over, raised his bat - "like a periscope" says Ron - and departed arm in arm with the opposing bowler.

Fred Battersby is long gone. Ron Hails had assumed that Les Childs - "one of nature's gentlemen" - has passed the same way and was delighted to learn otherwise.

Les, as we were saying, now lives happily in a flat overlooking Darlington RA's cricket ground from which he still watches the summer game through binoculars.

Though he is unable to recall the incident, Ron Hails is the Leslie Welch of North-East sport, his memory unimpeachable.

"Should the Whessoe tea lady read this," Ron adds, "she may be assured that the splendid refreshments served that day were very well worth waiting for."

Cricket, alas, is Childs play no longer.

Remember Leslie Welch, the Memory Man? He was the star of eight Royal Command Performances, 4,000 radio shows, 500 television appearances and 12 films for Twentieth Century Fox.

He specialised in facts and figures about 37 different sports which he knew, appropriately for Valentine's Day, by heart. Eventually, however. The Memory Man just wanted to slip to the back of the public mind.

Leslie Welch was born in 1907, read Ruffs Guide to the Turf while classmates were reading Comic Cuts, was "discovered" while serving with the Eighth Army in the western desert.

Overhearing two officers arguing about the result of a football match, he instantly provided not just the score but the teams, the colours and probably the maiden name of the goalkeeper's grandma.

They at once transferred him to ENSA.

After demob, he became hugely popular on radio shows like Variety Playhouse and In Town Tonight and made many London Palladium appearances.

By the 1960s he was on the northern club circuit - anyone see him? - but in 1973 turned his back on the stage and took a clerical job at Holloway Road labour exchange in north London.

Staff there recalled him as being rather scatter-brained. He died, never to be forgotten, in February 1980.

Another test for the grey matter, Ian Barnes from Darlington Harriers seeks our help in tracking George Butterfield - Darlington's first Olympian.

Without avail, Ian had taken tooth comb to microfilm.

"I suppose in those days there wasn't the hype surrounding the Olympics that there is now," he says, and never spoke truer word.

It was 1908, White City in London, the fourth modern Olympiad.

Eighteen countries took part with 17 flags, Finland so hard up that their man carried a card - a little self-consciously, perhaps - with the country's name on it.

The Northern Echo's preview on the morning of the royal opening ran to four paragraphs, slightly more than the free puff for the Oxo Olympic souvenir but about the same as the report of Tow Law Catholic Sports Day.

Its being July, it poured down. The 60,000 capacity White City stadium was two-thirds empty, not least because whilst the King and Queen might have been under cover, the cheap seats weren't.

The parade was cancelled, lest the wretched athletes catch a cold.

Soon after the opening, George Butterfield came third in his 1500m heat to Melville Sheppard of America, the eventual gold medal winner.

A week later he was second in the first heat of the 800m, only the winner qualifying.

Apart from his name among the also-rans, the Echo didn't consider him worth a mention among the world's broad jumpers, Swedish drillers and catch-as-catch-can wrestlers.

In July 1908 we also reported that Middlesbrough FC had made a profit despite players' wages rising to almost £4,000 a year, that North Ormesby sports had been postponed because of the weather and that Yorkshire CCC had made a presentation to mark Lord Hawke's 25 year captaincy.

Chiefly thanks to Darlington library, however, we can now add that George Butterfield was born in 1882, probably in Stockton, and won the AAA mile championship from 1904-06, his 4.18.4 the world's best in 1906.

He became landlord of the Hole in the Wall in Darlington Market Place, joined the Royal Field Artillery in 1916 and was killed in action the following year - among 16 British members of the 1908 Olympic team who perished.

"Among his numerous exploits was a race against a greyhound, which he won," said the Evening Despatch obituary of October 18 1917.

In 1987, the mayor of Darlington was presented on behalf of the town with the illuminated address given to the great Butterfield in 1907 in recognition of his AAA hat trick and of his "many sterling qualities" - and all day yesterday we had the town hall searching for it.

It remains missing, presumed - presumably - lost. Though the council have promised to continue the search.

Ian Barnes, however, hopes that his club will now inaugurate their own trophy in tribute to their champion. George Butterfield, the Harrier jet, will be remembered yet.

On Wednesday evening to Billingham Synthonia v Dunston Fed, where Tony Woods' 37th minute goal gave Synners a place in the Durham Challenge Cup final. It was particularly pleasing for Mr Woods - the "Golden goal" ticket he bought on the way in was for the 37th minute. They play Horden in the final.

Horden has loomed large in recent columns, following the piece on miner's son and West Brom legend Bob Taylor. Three other Horden lads are proposed to add to the village "Football league" team.

George Cram nominates Jackie Price, known as Mutt - "I don't know why, all the Prices got Mutt in Horden" - and Norman Corner, known as Nonky for similarly impenetrable reasons but usually (says George) in the butcher's on a Saturday morning.

They were born eight months apart in 1943.

Norman, who will be 59 on Sunday, kept Colin Bell out of the junior team and played professionally for Hull City, Lincoln City and in 110 games for Bradford City between 1968-71.

Jackie Price spent most of his career in two spells with Stockport County - 312 Football League appearances - and also play for Burnley and Blackburn. Bob Bailey, another Horden lad, also wants Ian Collard - West Brom, Ipswich, Portsmouth - on the village team sheet.

Though the Big Book of Booters (or whatever it's called) says that Collard was born in Hetton-le -Hole, Bob's almost certainly right.

All the Hordenaires need now is a goalkeeper. Where was Norman Oakley from?

Bob Bailey also suggests that Jamie Clifford, the 12-year-old Durham lad banned from football because he wears glasses, is a ringer for the young Denis Law.

Denis, 63 next week, was recommended to Huddersfield Town manager Bill Shankly by his brother Bob.

Shanks met the 15-year-old on Huddersfield station, couldn't believe that the skinny kid in the specs could ever kick a ball, much less become a world beater, paced up and down the platform believing that it was a brotherly practical joke.

Denis Law did pretty well for himself.

Young Jamie, now that he has contact lenses, may prove just as much a star.

* Bob also asks us to settle an argument over whether former Sunderland manager Alan Brown is dead.

"My friends at the pub all say he's still living. Many pints, as well as my reputation as the memory man, depend upon your reply."

Brown, Sunderland's manager between 1957-64 and again from 1968-73, died in March 1996 - but Hails of Hartlepool remains the memory man around here.

And finally...

The six players who left Newcastle United and went on to win a European Cup medal (Backtrack, February 11) are Alan Kennedy, Terry McDermott, Ronnie Simpson, Andy Cole, Peter Withe and Frank Clark.

John Briggs in Darlington, incidentally, points out that Ripon lad Derek Kevan - the answer to last Friday's poser - was christened Derek Tennyson Kevan, thus explaining his clear poetic streak.

George Butterfield, remembered earlier, was one of just two Darlington Harriers to represent Great Britain at the Olympics. Readers are today invited to name the other.

We're back with the five ring circus on Tuesday.

Published: 14/02/2003