WELCOME back - a good break, though with rather too many funerals, as tomorrow's John North column will observe. As always Father Christmas was glad-handed.

Amid all the expense, however, probably the most popular present cost just 75p.

West Word is the community newspaper for the area of the Western Highlands around Mallaig, and for the Small Isles.

Thus we are able to report that Mallaig fire brigade was called out twice in November - once to a bonfire, the other to a false alarm - that the lifeboat was launched to help a lady with asthma and that Arisaig primary school has had a coat of paint.

On Canna, it is revealed, cattle feed arrived on the Spanish John and the "Department Bull" left on the Raasay; on Muck they had cabbage root fly and on the Knoydart peninsular, they had chicken pox.

Like the area it serves, West Word is so glorious and so little tarnished by the 21st Century's worst excesses that we have now taken out an annual subscription.

Since it may not be supposed a close rival to any of these columns, others may do so (£13.50 for 12 issues, including postage) by contacting West Word, Morar Station Buildings, Inverness PH40 4NR. Perhaps we shall begin a twinning arrangement.

MALLAIG fire brigade may be running round like blue-lit flies, of course, compared with the boys at Reeth, in Swaledale.

We have told preciously the story of the cow in the ditch - Reeth's first turn-out for three months, followed ten minutes later by the second, to another cow in a different ditch - but were reminded by something in Monday's paper of the story of the Reeth firemen's ball (a dance, not the other thing'.)

The ball was to be at the Buck Inn, where at the weekend they held poor Fremmie Hutchinson's wake and debated over the egg and cress sandwiches whether it had been appropriate to play the Swaledale hymn for a chap from Arkengarthdale.

The problem about the ball had been Fireman Coates. Simon Coates, lovely feller, had been barred from the Buck for some misdemeanor now long forgotten.

When the owner refused to relent, even for a night, the horns of a dilemma fire brigade held a secret ballot over whether the Buck should continue to receive their patronage.

There were 12 fireman, all part-timers, and they voted 11-1 to stay put. Though the ballot box retained its secrets, the identity of the odd man out may have left little to the imagination.

MORE news of North Yorkshire fire brigade, somewhat unexpectedly from the hallowed columns of the Church Times.

David Wilbourne, Vicar of Helmsley and former chaplain to the Archbishop of York, recalls in his incomparable diary that a fellow governor of the local comprehensive - a retained firefighter known sonorously to her friends as Nee-Naw Nick - was persuaded to give a fire prevention talk to the first-form.

Anxious to make an impression, Nee-Naw thought she'd start by kicking the classroom door open, pretend that the room was full of smoke and crawl in like an Old Testament serpent whilst wearing full fire-fighting fig - breathing apparatus, the lot.

The only problem was that the oxygen mask became a bit steamed up and the entry was made yet more dramatic by being into the wrong classroom.

The fourth-year, studying Romeo and Juliet for English Literature, were "enormously startled" (reports the Vicar) at the sight of an axe-wielding fire-fighter writhing the length of their form room. Thereafter, Nee-Naw Nick probably two-toned it down.

ONE of the festive season's more memorable stories involved the children's entertainer Timmy Mallett, remembered for his head banging game Mallett's Mallet, reported to have saved a young lady from drowning in Hartlepool Marina.

His harbourside heroics, sadly, came too late to prevent his excision from the 2002 edition of Debrett's People of Today, a fate he shares with Jeffrey Archer, Anneka Rice and (slightly more surprisingly) Anthea Turner.

Since Darlington library doesn't keep People of Today, we have been unable to ascertain which other luminaries appear within. If anyone could loan a copy we would be most grateful; the December issue of West Word will be offered as security.

ANOTHER Christmas star, we hear, was Sunderland footballer Niall Quinn, who lives near Sedgefield and joined more than 300 others for Christmas Day lunch at the opulently restored Hardwick Hall Hotel.

The Hardwick, it should be noted, was the place of the column's birth - a bulge baby and a heavyweight ever since. The blue plaque seems still to be awaited, however.

Big Niall, for those unacquainted with the sometimes Beautiful Game, has just been awarded a "testimonial" by the Irish FA in recognition of becoming the leading scorer in his country's history.

That he insists every penny should go to children's charities will be little surprise to those festive folk in the Hardwick Hall.

Among the day's highlights was Santa's arrival with an extra present for the bairns. Quinny, reports our man in the silly hat, not only accompanied his own children to the grotto, but stayed to applaud every other child in the room.

"It's the only time," adds the column's own Little Helper, "that I've seen Santa Claus upstaged on Christmas Day."

ANOTHER post-Christmas note, this time from Etymology Avenue: what of the word "sackless"?

It was again aired on Monday in the Brit, not (it should be admitted) as a reference to Santa's P45, but to the domino-playing ability of Mr Jimmy Muggins, the landlady's best friend.

Neither Collins nor Chambers dictionaries so much as mentions it, though there is much of sackbut, and sack race and sackcloth and ashes. The Complete Oxford is altogether more helpful, however - and with a surprising North-East connection.

"Sackless" is from Old English, traced back to the Lindisfarne Gospels and to Matthew 28:14 (which readers will doubtless be anxious to look up for themselves).

Originally, says the Oxford, it meant "secure from accusation or dispute". Down the centuries it evolved to "innocent of wrong intent" and, ultimately, guileless or simple-minded.

Whether the term "simple-minded" could be applied to the way in which Mr Muggins plays 5s and 3s is a matter upon which it would be wholly inappropriate to comment.

... and finally, the observant may have noticed something unusual about today's column - all the usual contributors seem to have had their feet up for a fortnight as well.

In the hope of sparking the year's first proper correspondence, therefore, let us turn to the subject of BBC English.

Possibly it's too easy a target, so greatly have standards slipped, but renewed acquaintance with the news programmes - not least Look North - suggests that the malady may be growing worse.

Monday morning's North-East bulletins, for example, persisted with the phrase "return again", a solecism for which Gadfly readers will need no explanation.

Other examples welcomed. We broadcast again next week.