Hullo everybody, hullo everybody,

Hullo Nignogs, hullo,

The Nignogs say each morning

When daylight is dawning

Hullo Nignogs, hullo.

LAST week, in the front row at Leyburn Ladies Probus Club, was Pat Harrison.

Proud to be in her nineties, she told me how, before the Second World War, she had been a Nignog. In these politically-sensitive days, I hastily started to explain. But there was no need. “I was, too,” said chairwoman Betty Fraser, “and I’ve still got my badge.”

To my surprise, hands shot up around the church hall. I was surrounded by Nignogs.

In last Saturday’s paper, there was a picture of a splendid purple-and-gold Nignog Ring banner which had been found after 78 years in an airing cupboard in Hilton, near Staindrop. It had been awarded to Hilton’s Nignogs for raising £22 during a three-day Nignog Bazaar held in Bondgate Methodist Hall, Darlington, in April 1931.

“Nig and Nog” was County Durham vernacular for “boy and girl”. Therefore, the Nignog Ring was a children’s club which first appeared in the Echo on October 21, 1929.

Nig and Nog were “two little imps who live in the land of the moon, their chief occupation being to keep the Man in the Moon awake”. They were occasionally joined in their cartoon adventures by Japhet, but it is difficult to say what kind of creature he was.

The “Chief Ringers” were Uncle Mac and Uncle Ernest. The latter was Ernest Noble, the cartoonist from Darlington, and the former was the BBC broadcaster Derek McCulloch who hosted Children’s Hour on the wireless.

He was a proper bow-tie BBC type who had lost an eye on the Somme and a leg in a motorbike accident. He was the assistant commentator on the first broadcast FA Cup final in 1927 and provided the baa-ing vibrato voice of Larry the Lamb for 30 years.

Nignogmania swept the North-East. More than 50,000 children joined within the first 11 weeks, each receiving an enamel badge.

Every community had its own Ring where children gathered to be kind to animals and to raise money for charity.

An 80-strong Nignog Troupe toured the Rings with a gangshow entitled Nignogs Ahoy! – “lilting tunes, dainty songs (like the one above), vivacious dances, plenty of fun”.

Other newspapers introduced Nignog Rings. In the Bradford Telegraph and Argus’ Nignog Troupe, an Ernest Wiseman made his stage debut. He found fame as Ernie Wise.

The high water mark of Nignogism was May 1933 when a splendid fundraising effort sent hundreds of children from deprived Durham industrial areas to Cober Hill Guesthouse, near Scarborough. Prince George, son of George V, visited the holidaymakers where he was enrolled as an honorary Nignog and given a gold Nignog badge.

Then war clouds gathered. The last Nignog was No 138,057 – Ivor Postgate, from Upsall, Thirsk. On September 1, 1939, the day after he joined, the Nignogs’ space was dramatically cut from half-a-page to a small corner.

On September 2, Nig and Nog did not appear at all, and on September 3, the Nignogs’ childhood was blown apart. War was declared, and the Ring never returned – although it lives on in many people’s memories.

■ For more Nignogery, see Chris Lloyd’s Echo Memories blog on the Echo website.