AN all-too frequent foray to the capital, we have been dining at the National Liberal Club, hung with portraits of great leaders down the ages. Almost coquettishly, Mr Jeremy Thorpe half hides behind a pillar.

It's very grand, said to have Europe's largest unsupported marble staircase, possessed of a handsome and leather bound library, of a chef who does a very canny magret of duck and of tranquil views across the Thames. Those who toil in cold hearted committee rooms or knock endlessly on unrequited doors should seek an invitation forthwith - though it would never do, of course, to divulge the identity of the leading North-East member who played host.

Within this gigantic pile of Victorian masonry lodges, self-contained and secret, the Savage Club, access gained only by those who can press the right buttons. Mr Arnold Ridley was a member but may from time to time have had to be excused.

Formed in 1857 and named after Richard Savage, a "thoroughly disreputable" actor and playwright, it has moved around London before landing among the Liberals.

Through the door might be glimpsed what appears to be African tom-tom, beneath it seeps the wilful whiff of expensive cigar smoke.

Thanks to this liberal Labour government, the club's very private members will be allowed to continue polluting themselves and the environment. Savage amusement, indeed.

IF music soothes the savage breast, as Mr William Congreve long since supposed, what now will assuage our old friend George Reynolds? A call from a retired police inspector of the column's acquaintance insists that George's behaviour in Durham prison has been so tempestuous, they've taken away his Nicorettes.

A COUPLE of streets away from the National Liberals, the Wolf Club gathered in a pub called the Coal Hole, in The Strand.

Founded by Edmund Kean, a Victorian actor who may have borrowed his script from Richard Savage, it was officially for oppressed husbands whose wives forbade them to sing in the bath.

In reality, says a board outside, it was an excuse for heavy drinking and associating with loose women.

London's funny like that. As might have been said by the bathtime baritones, Kean of a treat.

WELL known Darlington Liberal Brian Fiske, coincidentally, was invited to the EU in Brussels as a guest of MEP Fiona Hall. He rang the insurance company to seek holiday cover.

The young lady said it was politics, and that they didn't do politics. It was only after much persistence, and a call to the underwriter - "I told them that it was simply a sightseeing visit," he says - that he finally got his quote.

"Clearly," adds Brian, "they consider a visit to the EU to be in the same category as white water rafting."

LAST week's note about the last train from Morpeth to Darlington, four and a half hours late, reminded Bill Wood of a homeward journey one wartime Christmas. He recorded it in his memoirs.

Bill - now in Shadforth, near Durham - was a Queen's Own Cameron Highlander, stationed in northern Scotland, kilted and exposed to the elements. The freezing train left Inverness at 7pm, the journey a nightmare.

"All the seats had been taken in the first few seconds of people boarding and the corridors were jammed with travellers, suitcases, kit bags and rifles."

It was smoky, too, but at least the smoke masked the smell, and it was almost impossible to reach the toilets. The "express" finally reached Edinburgh at 1am.

Two hours later they left for Newcastle, the overcrowded train spending two hours in a siding near Morpeth before proceeding. They reached Durham at 8am.

Sixty years later, Mr Martin Birtle from Billingham had a letter in last Saturday's hear All Sides about his daughter's journey from Darlington to Oxford and back. No working toilets, severe overcrowding, no-one allowed to board after Birmingham and a physical struggle just to get off at Oxford.

"In this country," wrote Martin, "we have legislation which attempts to look after the welfare of animals being transported. It would appear that we need similar laws for humans."

Sixty years after the night train from Inverness, have the railways come very far at all?

RECENT columns have been having fun with the word game which seeks to marry place names with people. The idea is to provide an imaginary place name, preferably with a North-East flavour, and to define its characteristics - Stephenbyers Green for example, was said to be a village on the road to nowhere. Among many others, Bill Pearson suggests Crampleforth and Sebchester - "used to be famous for fast feet but now more for marathon mouths" - and, neatly, Saddampleforth, where folk are despondent about the state of Iraq.

Mary Armstrong in Crook proposes Thornleybush ("a country with a prickly problem") while Ian Andrew in Lanchester ventures north of the border with Harry Lauder ("keep right on to the A68"), Rupert Bearsden ("a place for posh ursines") and Mother and Baby Bothwell, a town with a good maternity home.

Bill Pearson may sign this one off with Tedraby: "Used to be good for a laugh, as I hope these have been."

GAVIN Hay in Darlington returns whence it came a Guy Fawkes week report that "Cleveland police are to start issuing £80 to those lighting fireworks after 11pm."

This illuminated, Gavin claims to have been stockpiling hundreds of bangers and intends taking full advantage. Another fines mess, alas.

...and finally, an extraordinary welcoming committee stood also on platform two when - late, almost inevitably - we alighted at Durham railway station last Sunday lunchtime.

There were cheerleaders in mini-skirts, brass band in best bib, sundry wild spirits dressed as if fled from The Jungle Book and the cream of the region's newspapermen, Sunday pressed.

Though briefly it seemed that the column had arrived at last, the mini-skirts remained cheerless, the brass band oompahsive, the press ganged up.

Five minutes later another north bound train rolled in, from which stepped Mr Bill Bryson, celebrated author and Chancellor of the University of Durham - so rapturous the reception that it could have been the last night of the pom-poms.

We both write notes from a small island. Perhaps, like the trains, there's some way to go yet.

Published: 09/11/05