John North: It's still a man's world

Now they've moved premises - "escalating costs" - have barely half that many members, open only three nights a week and struggle still more anxiously.

Whatever a gentleman may these days prefer, it appears not to be the discreet appeal of a private members' club. "I think it's our image that's against us," concedes Roy Kellett, the chairman. "It's really just a place for like-minded people to have a quiet drink or a game of snooker, and almost anyone is welcome to join."

So long, of course, as they are male.

Founded in 1868, fancifully claimed to be Britain's second oldest "key" club and still listed in Whitaker's Almanac, it began in the Market Place and for over a century occupied sedate premises in Victoria Terrace.

Even the Victorian urinals were a sort of gentlemen's gentlemen's, a framed notice urging the membership to refrain from dropping fag ends in the bowls.

It was where the town's public figures led their private lives, often on their way home from the office. "We'd do more trade before seven than we would afterwards, though you sometimes couldn't get in at all on Thursdays and Fridays," recalls Peter Cooke, the president.

The card schools, big stakes into the small hours, would be something to brag about, too.

A plaque by the door identified it simply as "The Club", new members were carefully vetted and occasionally blackballed, the dress code smartly applied. Peter Cooke recalls being upbraided for wearing a V-neck sweater - "only cardigans were allowed" - Brian Shaw, now the secretary, remembers the blessed relief on an 85 degree day at being told that ties might for once be removed.

Now no one need be hot under the collar, nor concerned about anyone's business but his own. "It's a different social scene now, how many places in the town are still independently run?" says Peter Cooke. "It's now just a place for friends to meet."

The new premises are in the Lightfoot Institute, next to Bishop Auckland's fabled football ground, pictures of Queen, Duke and W S Churchill still hanging to attention on the walls.

Another picture shows Red Alligator winning the 1968 National. Jack Manners, who owned the horse and was a local butcher, is written in gold on the past presidents' board alongside familiar Bishop Auckland names like Billy Gill, the furniture shopkeeper, Harold Stephenson, the builder and E B Proud, the coroner.

We look in last Friday, three snooker tables and about 15 members in attendance. Once you were lucky to get two frames a night, says Peter. Now they play six or seven.

Brian Shaw insists there's a future for such remnants of a man's world. "It's neither being stubborn nor sexist, there's a place in small towns for somewhere where people can come without being disturbed and after 134 years I feel we're duty bound to ensure it survives."

Prospective members will be much welcomed on Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday evenings or can get daytime details from Brian on 01388 775357. We said there'd be something in the column, anyway. Gentlemen's agreement.

LAST week's piece on retiring Durham CIU secretary and well known journalist Jack Amos omitted to mention - because Jack did, too - that for five years he had an entry in the Guinness Book of Records for buying the world's largest round.

It cost him at the Mayfair Ballroom in Newcastle at one of his Jack of Clubs command shows. "I actually counted out the money for the waiter, 1,222 bottles of Drybrough's Export," he recalls.

His munificence was finally beaten by an American, a round 1,500 drinks. What goes around comes around. "Typical bloody Yank."

SPEAKING of America, a copy of the glossy US magazine Screw Machine World ("All rights reserved") has arrived.

Amid articles on machine tool farming, threading equipment and multi-spindle automatics we are directed to the "On the Job" column and a verbatim interview with globe trotting Mr Fixit Brian Madden.

Once familiar on the business side of the bar at the Ball Alley in Stanley, more recently on the social side at the Hole in the Wall in Darlington, 55-year-old Brian now lives in Connecticut and married an American lass in the summer.

That the interview is well dotted with b-words may be explained because the journalist he arranged to meet in a bar arrived two hours late. "You have to do something, haven't you?" says Brian.

DRIVING through Tow Law, Archangel of the North, Paul Symons notices the extraordinary number of Christmas trees bracketed at 45 degrees to outside walls. Since no one else in the North-East seems thus inclined, Paul wonders if it's local custom in those perishing parts. Tow Law unto themselves? Perhaps someone can explain.

...and finally for this year, we are grateful to Tom Purvis in Sunderland - a man whose technological handiwork is unmistakable - for what he claims to be the world's tiniest Christmas card. "A small challenge to our wonderful Post Office," it says on the back. The card is reproduced below actual size. The Royal Mail rose massively to the challenge - no lost causes at Christmas - though Sharon, a postmaster's daughter, reckons something so small is illegal.

She also reckons that red envelopes were once outlawed, too, though is unable to suppose why.

To Tom, our postmen and to all faithful and ever helpful readers, the rich blessings of the season. The column will again be on the cards on January 9.