AS BEFITS a place which values its privacy, and where the population may not exceed two families and next door's hamster, there has been silence from Hutton Bonville.

When previously encountered, it was somewhere between Darlington and Northallerton. Last week's column mentioned it alongside Hutton Henry, Hutton Magna and probably Sir Leonard Hutton an' all.

But what of Hutton Conyers, asks John Maughan from Newcastle? By which, happily, he doesn't just mean the village of that name a couple of miles north-east of Ripon.

If Hutton Bonville warranted barely a graze in the Echo's cuttings library, Hutton Conyers leaves it entirely unscathed. There's Hutton Buscel, Hutton Cranswick and Hutton Lowcross, but not so much as a haystack fire from Hutton Conyers. Yet Hutton Conyers - and Bretton Woods - may be the most memorable of all.

Hutton Conyers and Bretton Woods, insists Mr Maughan, were stage stooges of the legendary Stockton-born comedian Jimmy James.

Bretton Woods, he reckons, was the name of the 1944 talks between the UK, US and Canada which set up the IMF. Hutton Conyers had always puzzled him until, driving near Ripon one day, he noticed a sign to the village.

Jimmy James, who died in 1965 and is buried in his home town, was a puddler's son from Portrack. Twice declared bankrupt, he was said to be everyone's best friend and his own worst enemy. Though his stage act portrayed him in a state of semi-permanent inebriation, he neither drank nor smoke.

His most famous sidekick, however, was the gormless Eli Woods - a relative of Bretton, perhaps? - played by his own nephew, Jack Casey. "Our Eli" achieved celebrity in his own right, not least for the gag involving asking the giraffes to move over so that the elephant could get into the shoe box. His son Mark had football trials with Darlington and now plays in the Albany Northern League.

But what of Hutton Conyers? Why Hutton Conyers and not, say, Percy Main or Chester Moor or Patrick Brompton?

It's asking a lot even of faithful Gadfly readers, but can anyone help unravel this funny old business? Hutton on the style again 'ere long.

DURHAM Cathedral, we learn, is to be the venue next year for a major diocesan youth festival - no hymns, no sermonising, no overt piety. But what's this bit in the diocesan newspaper about "intelligent lighting", a phrase which hitherto has made no great sense. Is this the opposite of dimming down?

A COUPLE of times of late, the column has had cause to report critically on the food at Yates's - formerly Yates's Wine Lodge.

It was the place in Darlington, remember, where almost everything - including the mash - appeared to be instant. Now, however, we hear that Yates's is in a spot of bother for allegedly being too slow off the mark.

The chain's heavily promoted boast is that all food will be served within 15 minutes of ordering, or money will be refunded. At Teesside magistrates court today, however, the company will face a charge under the Trades Descriptions Act of "making a reckless statement" - an allegation that Yates's in Newport Road, Middlesbrough, couldn't make it in a quarter of an hour after all. We have, of course, alerted the newsdesk to this - if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen, and all that. The outcome should be in tomorrow's paper, therefore, and not next week's Gadfly. This is the column that believes in not keeping folk waiting.

A RESTAURATEUR of an altogether different carte, George Pagendam, died last week. He had run the Black Bull at Moulton, near Scotch Corner, since the days of Berni Inns - a pioneer of gastronomic excellence in the North-East as surely as George Stephenson led the railway revolution.

George was a big man in every sense - imaginative, adventurous, generally genial. That the Bull held pole position for so long is testament to his own standards and, during his long illness, to the professionalism and expertise of those around him.

Audrey, his widow, continues to keep a daily eye upon proceedings. Its continuing sparkle will be the old Bull fighter's great memorial.

ALMOST unremarked, though it was on the Telegraph's front page, a report last week claimed that men who are tall, slim and good looking earn up to ten per cent more than their colleagues. Two out of three not being bad, it explains why Gadfly earns 6.6 above the company average.

Still, it pays not to become too introspective. A survey by the Daily Express (under new management) asked readers if they could name any of the paper's star columnists.

"Certainly," one replied. "Rupert the Bear."

THE Telegraph also reports, incidentally, that Peter Mandelson is in a huff after being featured in the caption competition in the parliamentary House magazine. The photograph showed Mandelson pointing at a map. "My word," said the winning caption, "is Hartlepool really up there?"

....and finally, Monday lunchtime's 5s and 3s extravaganza was interrupted when three youths acting in a suspicious manner (as they say in all the best police dramas) were disturbed near the pub kitchen.

They fled, the column followed. Shortly afterwards we were joined by an off-duty polliss from Ferryhill - Graham Hill, almost as fast as his motor racing namesake.

Together we shadowed them up Bondgate, through several side streets, along Duke Street and into Stanhope Park, where they broke into a run and dashed into the Arts Centre. We duly ran after them.

Summoned on Graham's mobile, two more pollisses in a patrol car arrived. Though the four of us searched the Arts Centre, they'd fled through a back entrance.

For that act of gallantry, initiative and rare athleticism (delete according to credulity) we were, after all these years, offered a free drink by Fat James, the pub landlord - and still recovering from the DVTs, had to make do with a pint of lemon water.

It was the moment a grown man cried.

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