JUNE and Dennis Luckhurst were married exactly 50 years ago, Easter 1952. The honeymoon hotel, the Rose and Crown at Romaldkirk in Teesdale, offered a felicitous start to their new life.

Dennis died five years ago in the way that he would have wished to, whilst bird watching on the moors. June, from Ingleton near Darlington, sends the bill from those first days of the new queen's reign.

Bed and breakfast for two was £1.13s - you know, £1.65 - a night. Lunch was 5/6d each, dinner eight shillings. The bar bill - "a pint of bitter and a port and lemon," June recalls - barely tottered to three bob.

She also remembers the waitress complaining that the head waiter kept all the tips; things are more gratuitously egalitarian these days.

The other immediately noticeable thing about the account of the Luckhursts' honeymoon is that Romaldkirk was squarely, if barely, in Yorkshire. To the cataclysmic chagrin of many - not least our old friend Jolly Jack Robinson, Hannah Hauxwell's 32nd cousin surgically removed - it was kidnapped in 1974 by Co Durham.

June's father, now 90 and prospering, was born in Cotherstone, next village down. "He's always regarded himself as a Yorkshireman," she says, but Cotherstone's rates go to Durham, not Northallerton.

(The Church of England, more conservative than successive local government ministers, retains the traditional dividing line that anywhere south of the river is in the Diocese of Ripon.)

Border skirmishes notwithstanding, the opportunity was irresistible - a glorious early Easter afternoon and a little price comparison.

The Rose and Crown hardly needs recommendation: accolades are everywhere, commendations abound. It was with mixed feelings that Chris and Alison Davy, the present energetic owners, heard that they were runner-up in the AA's 2002 Pub of the Year competition.

Next year, they say, one better.

Everywhere gleams, everything's relaxed. In the gents there's a splendid array - the collective noun may be a snigger - of saucy seaside postcards, on the hall wall a caveat to hotel staff everywhere:

Ten assistant managers

Tried tasting the wine;

One had a drop too much,

Then there were nine.....

The bar meals menu changes weekly, though - a word to the unwary - last lunchtime orders are at 1.30pm and late comers may thereafter be turned into a pumpkin, or at least into soup and sandwiches.

The fire blazed redundantly, the Black Sheep was off but the Theakston's was fine, the young lady behind the bar offered an object lesson in smiling service.

Starters included broccoli and almond soup, home-made kipper pat with lime and caper dressing, and baked Cheddar and spinach souffle with herb cream sauce.

The smoked chicken and avocado salad was perhaps smoked without fire, The Boss greatly enjoyed her goats' cheese crostini with red onion and tomato salad.

Since she was attending the Mothers' Meeting annual merrymaking that evening, she followed with scrambled eggs and smoked salmon - "best ever" - we with "Mr Peat's" sausage and black pudding with mustard mash and onion gravy.

Mr Peat, it transpires, is the Barney butcher. His stuff's terrific: musky, manly, almost mysterious. (At one point, the black pudding tasted almost like ice cream.)

Other main courses might have been baked plaice fillet (£10.50), grilled Welsh rarebit with back bacon and salad (£6.25) or butternut squash and Cotherstone cheese risotto with salad (£6.75). Lunchtime baps are around £3.50.

In deference to the Mothers' Merriment, The Boss passed on pudding. The hazelnut meringue with chocolate sauce was as crisp, as sticky and as vivid as any in memory.

The Luckhursts, in truth, would have had to pay rather more for their wedding bed and breakfast than they did 50 years ago.

A room with breakfast is £90, dinner £25 each; the bar bill - pint of Theakston's £1.88, port £1.85, lemonade 5p - would have been £3.78, not three shillings.

A highly civilised lunch for two was £24.75, without drinks. As doubtless they said when June and Dennis tied the knot, a very happy occasion.

Rose and Crown, Romaldkirk, Co Durham (for the time being), (01833) 650213. Open seven lunchtimes and evenings; suitable for the disabled.

THERE is evidence of enterprise, too, at the Black Swan in Thornton-le-Moor: 9 for effort, 0 for spelling.

A friend's 13-year-old was invited to amend "sticky toffee suprise" but proved unable to offer enlightenment. Since he attends one of the North's better known public schools, we suggested that either his father make an appointment with the headmaster or, better still, sue.

Can't spell for sticky toffee.

Thornton-le-Moor's between Northallerton and Thirsk, next to Thornton-le-Beans and Thornton-le-Street. The pub's extraordinarily large - how on earth do they fill it? - the management exceptionally friendly.

Old photographs of the area line the walls, notably one of the staff of Newsome Baxter's Thornton-le-Moor brewery wearing, beneath their despairing moustaches, the mien of morose antagonism always reserved for Victorian photographers.

The workforce, says the caption approximately, are exhibiting an expression of joyful endeavour which so greatly would be treasured by today's industrialists.

Lunch was a bit mixed: interesting but very spicy Cajun fish, "boozy chicken" that would have passed muster at a Rechabbites' convention, slightly limping lamb shank, good beef.

There are a couple of real ale fonts, an attractively-furnished restaurant, daffodils front and back. Sit a spell; surprise.

BOGGART Hole Clough is not a dubious firm of solicitors, at least it is fervently to be hoped not, rather a brewery out Manchester way. They had BHC Sundial at the celebrated Number 22 in Darlington last week.

It was the bi-annual occasion upon which we guide Cleveland CAMRA members around Co Durham's more refreshing pastures. Trouble is, they get carried away, particularly extolling a Belgian raspberry beer that smelled for all the world like Lowcock's cherryade and may have tasted of it, too.

They sniffed it, swooned over it, damn near proposed running off into the yonder with it. It cost £2 a half, and will never take the place of Strongarm.

RECCYING for the Cleveland visit like a good scout should, we looked into the Tap and Spile in Bondgate and were immediately accosted by concerned customers. Until recently it was among Darlington's top real ale pubs, last week there was Old Peculier - hardly a quaffing beer - or fizz. They blame new owners, not management. It is a crying in the beer shame.

....and finally, the bairns - in a hurry as usual - wondered if we knew what's yellow and white and travels at 125mph?

An engine driver's egg sandwich, of course.

Published: 02/04/2002