John North: Prince Philip: as nice as pie

The pie maker - "Everyone calls me the Mad Pieman, but it sometimes seems I'm the only one that's sane" - is Ian Grainger, who runs North Country Lass on an industrial estate near Durham.

Last week he was manning a stall at the food and drink festival held as part of the Royal Windsor Horse Show when the Queen strolled by, murmured something about "Oh, pies from Durham" and went about her business.

Next day, a chap dressed (says Ian) in Andy Capp headgear and jumper came into view, accompanied by several other men.

"I didn't even recognise the Duke at first until I realised that the others were his minders," says Ian.

The prince stopped, asked if there were any pies indigenous to Durham - Ian asked him what "indigenous" meant - was told that there was Prince Bishops' game pie but that it was in a refrigerated trailer elsewhere.

Instead, His Royal Highness asked for a "Grunt, gobble and zoom coo pie - wild boar, turkey, hare, pigeon, red wine and brandy" - and, having been sent out without any money, got one of his protection officers to stump up the necessary £6.50.

The Duke clearly liked his crust; the feeling's mutual. "I'd love to think that the Queen sent him out especially to get one of our pies, though he didn't say as much

"Prince Philip gets a bad press sometimes, but he was absolutely charming and we must have chatted for five minutes. Effectively, we were in his back garden, and it looks an awful lot better than mine in Ferryhill."

"Afterwards he was zooming round on a little monkey motor bike, amazing for a chap of 85, though I think he did have a few words for a policemen he nearly hit."

A Londoner and Tottenham Hotspur fan, former navy chef Ian retains his accent despite 33 years in the North.

Mad for it? "I'm hoping I'll get a letter telling me how much they enjoyed my pie. Maybe I'll have a long time to wait."

LT Col Sir John Miller, Crown Equerry from 1961-87 and a close friend of the royals, died last week, aged 87. While the bells tolled at Buckingham Palace, they rang here, too.

Sir John's chief responsibility was for the Queen's horses and carriages, much involved in events like trooping the colour, the state opening of parliament and in four royal weddings.

It was he who introduced Prince Philip to carriage driving - if not to monkey motor bikes - when polo proved precarious and who (for some reason) blew the hunting horn when Charles and Diana returned from honeymoon to Windsor.

The Times obituary recorded a rider or carriage driver with "an amazing disregard for his own safety", the Telegraph described a man who was "effortlessly polite" to his sovereign but who was "rather less genial to those whose social position was unclear to him." It all stirred memories of a long gone day in Barnard Castle, early 1970s, and would have stirred them yet more greatly had the editorial library kept the wretched cutting.

Doubtless with total regard for his safety, Sir John was driving his car through Barney when in collision (as they say in Her Majesty's law courts) with a young girl on a push bike.

Goodness knows whose fault it was, but the senior courtier - educated at Eton and Sandhurst - acted like an officer and a gentleman thereafter.

A present and a charming letter arrived at the little girl's house soon afterwards. When someone whispered the story - and it was a very good story - we rang Buckingham Palace for a comment and were amazed to be put through to Sir John himself.

He was both effortlessly polite and admirably talkative - but the column's social position may have been clear right from the beginning.

ON the day that the Queen toured an exhibition of classic newspaper front pages, Paul Dobson returned to Bishop Auckland from a Western Isles holiday with news that the splash story in Mull's weekly paper - Am Muileach - was devoted to an in-depth report of the annual plastic duck race. "I didn't buy a copy," he adds.

Noblesse oblige , we turn again to the indefatigable Bob Harbron, the Norton-on-Tees historian who in last week's column claimed direct links between that Stockton suburb and America's Washington family.

Further plodging on the Internet reveals not only that Roger de Blaykiston married Christiana de Wessington in the 14th century but that the Wessingtons had direct links with the early kings of Scotland.

Now Bob also discovers that the Queen Mother was a direct descendant of the Blakiston family, as by then it had become.

The Blakistons were Norton folk. "We could be," says Bob, "the best connected village in Britain."

BACK to the Prince Bishops, or at least to Auckland Castle - where a drunk-dry beer festival earlier this month was one of many successful recent ventures.

The castle, still home to the Bishop of Durham, is now so commercially vibrant that it's advertising for a deputy manager.

"We're being used as a blueprint for Church Commissioners' properties across the country and setting a very enviable trend," says communications manager David Fryer.

Within those hallowed walls, says David, they now use terms like sweating the asset. "It may sound a bit unchristian, but it's absolutely crucial."

Dr Tom Wright, the present bishop, will tomorrow evening be principal guest - with his wife - at the Arngrove Northern League's sell-out annual dinner. Mr Brendan Healy, the turn, has been implored to think on higher things. Healier than thou? The league chairman sweats accordingly.

Going dotty about an old dance advert

DISMANTLING an old picture frame, Colin Hurworth in New Marske, Cleveland, discovers a stiff cardboard "Durham, Bishop Auckland and District telephone directory holder."

Advertisers include the Jesmond Preparatory School in Spennymoor ("personal supervision"), the Wear Valley Hotel in Bishop Auckland - "hot and cold water in all rooms" - and Brotherton and Son's music shop, Bishop Auckland 137, established in 1842 and hitting the right notes to this day.

Particularly, however, Colin is taken by the ad for the West Hartlepool High School of Dance, principal Miss Cora Tucker.

Whatever, he wonders, became of the Dainty Dots?

MIDDLESBROUGH football fans safely touched down from the UEFA Cup final, the director of Durham Tees Valley Airport reported its busiest day ever.

Malcolm Priestman, an airport worker in the 1960s, seeks permission to doubt it.

One Spring morning, he recalls, a call came from Leeds Airport that all their flights would have to divert to Teesside because of fog. Five minutes later, Newcastle announced a similar diversion.

"You can appreciate that with one set of aircraft steps and one baggage truck, they were pretty much in demand," says Malcolm, now retired to Hartlepool and writing his autobiography.

One particular Leeds captain, with a reputation for being troublesome, started demanding the steps - even though his turbo-prop 748 had them built in.

Malcolm recalls that as the steps were finally being pulled away, the captain got his fingers caught in the door. "I don't know whose fault it was, but I do recollect that he never diverted to Teesside again."

NOTING comedian Jimmy Cricket's appearance at the Whitby Gospel Music Convention, last week's column reported that thereafter he was off for a summer season in Clacton.

The Rev Graham Morgan asks us to point out that, between the two, Jimmy - son of an Irish undertaker said to have had a wonderful sense of humour - will be appearing for one night only at Northlands Methodist Church in Darlington on Thursday, June 8.

Tickets are £5, the box office is on (01325) 244776.

...and finally, an e-mail arrives on our new media desk from Max Tickner, in Australia.

Max, a sub-editor here in the 1970s, had with some incredulity discovered on the Internet that Mike Amos was "an award winning journalist."

"I always had a mild belief in his talents," says Max, encouragingly. "The rest of the team," he adds, "thought he was crap."

More of the same next week.