DR DUNCAN Bythell, that great Swaledale historian and author, has given what he vowed would be his last public lecture – the history of Keld from 1870-1970. As usual, Reeth Museum sold out.

Keld’s a bonny hamlet up yon end, greatly more populous in the 19th Century than it is today.

Duncan recalled a Home Guard detachment that paraded in the village hall basement, a male voice choir that broadcast on national radio – something to do with Wilfred Pickles having been to Muker – and a wartime female equivalent called the Blackout Belles.

It was again in wartime that locals saved food coupons in order to buy ingredients for the potted meat sandwiches for which village teas were near-universally renowned. “I still have the recipe,” someone told him.

Inevitably, the retired Durham University lecturer also recalled the Cat Hole – the village pub which closed abruptly and forever in the 1950s after being bought by one of the Rechabite rascals – but merely alluded to the Great Dance Hall Scandal of 1913.

The Great Dance Hall Scandal, said Duncan, would make a talk in itself. If they wanted to hear it they’d have to ask him back. His audience applauded invitingly: there may be a song in Sinatra yet.

TEAM work, it was Sharon who attended the talk while the column took a stroll in the sunshine. Thus is it possible to report not just that the Scenic View Art Gallery had several notices warning of wet paint, but that Reeth fire station retains the notice “Bay 1, front”, notwithstanding that there only is one bay and that there’s no vehicular back entrance.

There’s now a second notice. “No smoking,” it says.

Thereafter we recalled that – beneath the headline “Dancing with the devil” – the column had told of the Great Dance Hall Scandal in 2013, when visiting Keld to plug the 60th anniversary of mains electricity’s arrival.

Goodness knows, there’d even been dark rumours of dominoes, and of whist games at twopence a time. Enough said. Duncan will tell it much better. He can have the headline for free.

A COUPLE of sunny days later, we’re on the lilac-lined Wensleydale Railway from Leeming Bar to Redmire, and with the prospect of a beer festival – Wensleyale, what else? – at journey’s end.

Bolton Castle, that great 14th Century fortress, is a gentle mile further across the fields. The lady hoped to visit, but found it impregnable, a wedding party having bagged first dibs.

The train westwards had been topped and tailed by vintage diesels, hauled homewards by D9523, the sort of locomotive which looks like it was designed by a sub-committee.

While the beer fest overflowed, the trains didn’t. Possibly it’s because the Wensleydale still hasn’t regular steam. While they await the return of Joem, 69023, but world No 1, the website talks also of a guest visit by Jennifer, from the Llangollen Railway.

Joem and Jennifer: a bit of conscious coupling, perhaps?

THEN there’s bad news. Not only is Joem in bits at the North East Locomotive Preservation Group’s depot in Darlington, but Jennifer’s conked out, too.

“Couldn’t stand the pace, needs major repairs,” reports NELPG man Fred Ramshaw. Joem, adds Fred, may be steaming again by the summer of 2019 – “if finances and manpower allow”.

In the meantime, NELPG’s class J27, 65984 – built in Darlington 95 years ago and still steaming – will move from the North Yorkshire Moors Railway to work the Wensleydale from the end of July and throughout August.

“It’ll be the first time that a J27 has worked the line since the end of steam in the late 1960s,” says Fred. The column, very likely, will be hitching a ride.

A BENCH between Redmire and Castle Bolton – the name of the village – is engraved with the French 'Devant si je puis,' for centuries the Bolton family motto and translated as “Forward if I can”.

The gold-lettered notice board outside the castle advises that it’s open every summer's day – except, of course, when it’s not – and that the castle survives pretty much intact despite being “slighted” by Cromwell’s lads in the Civil War.

Whatever could they mean? Doesn’t the verb “slight” mean to snub, usually with an element of contemptuousness? Having marched all that way, it’s doubtful if Oliver’s army would want to snub the place.

Chambers Dictionary, suggests an “archaic” definition of to level or raze to the ground, a theory expanded by the Oxford which tellingly reckons that the meaning was particularly common between 1640-80.

The castle website attempts qualification. The castle, it says, was “partially” slighted. While it’s possible to be partially sighted, may something be partially slighted? Isn’t that like being a bit dead?

Whatever the rights and wrongs of that particular gilt-trip, it appears a remarkable etymological evolution. The castle signwriter should also be advised that “seige” is not thus spelt.

I before e except after c, your lordship. Forward.

SIMILARLY sans steam – the website promises it “soon” – the Weardale Railway is in turn gathering pace for the summer.

In the meantime it’s using a “heritage diesel” unit, marking its diamond jubilee and said to have been bought for £1 by semi-retired Spennymoor GP and ardent railway enthusiast Mike Wood.

Dr Wood amends the figures. He bought the unit he calls the bubble car for £12,000, he says, and in total has spent £90,000 restoring it.

“I love it, it’s big boys’ toys really,” he admits. “It was in the depot at Thornaby being used for fire training and if I hadn’t bought it, it would have been scrapped.

“There were no windows, the floor was rotting, the ceiling had gone. It was just a wreck.”

We went last Wednesday, school holidays. If not quite crawling with half-termites, the train was agreeably full. Agreeable corned beef and tatie pie in the station café, too.

The lady of this house thought that she hadn’t been on the Weardale for getting on 25 years, on the last occasion in the company of a clergyman friend whose children were, shall we say, a little obstreperous.

“I’m taking them out for a day from the orphanage,” said the venial vicar.

More or less following the river, the line now runs from Stanhope to Witton-le-Wear, where the platform’s hung with knitted owls and pussy cats and things, but hopes soon to get back to Bishop.

The uniformed guard, more scrambled egg than Betty’s café, offered snippets of information – the propeller of the Mauretania, for example, had been made in the shed at Wolsingham now used by the railway.

“The U-boats got it first time out,” he added, lugubriously.

The return journey lasts an hour-and-a-half. Another return ere long.

...AND finally, wandering Whitley Bay a couple of weeks back, the column confessed to foregoing breakfast at the otherwise inviting Metro station café because of the menu’s vulgar fractionality.

Where a meal might (say) have cost £7.50, it was listed as seven-and-a-half.

North of Potters Bar, the first recorded example of such daftness was at Middleton Lodge, near Scotch Corner, a particularly pretentious absurdity because owner James Allison has his family roots in Shildon.

It was thus a real pleasure to take lunch a few days ago and discover that decimal coinage has been restored to the menu.

The occasion proved greatly enjoyable. Civilised? Stylish? Creatively cooked? Not half.