GREATLY to her surprise, the extraordinary Vera Selby – Queen of Green – has won a lifetime achievement award for her services to billiards. It was presented last week at the world championships in Leeds.

“I thought I was just going for a day out on the train,” says Vera, 84. “I told them that they’d obviously looked at my age, thought that I couldn’t be much longer for this world and that they’d better do something about it. It does occur, doesn’t it?”

For all that she remains as fit and as enthusiastic, as perfectly groomed and immaculately turned out as ever. Born in Richmond, North Yorkshire, where her father managed the Freeman Hardy and Willis shoe shop, she won the women’s world snooker title in 1976 and 1981, held the British championship five times and was nine times British billiards champion.

All the time she was also winning little victories for equality, like the time that she and partner Ray Lennox turned up at Shiney Row Workmen’s for the semi-finals of the North-East championships.

The doorman wouldn’t let her in. When she protested, he said he’d have to fetch someone from the committee. What happened next was recorded in one of Vera’s many memorable poems:

They took it to the secretary,

His voice could not be clearer;

No women are allowed in here

We only let in Vera.

She became the first female Master in the 400-year history of the Fellmongers’ Guild in Richmond and had been the first woman to pot black, or any other colour, amid the sumptuous surroundings of the snooker palace in Nairobi.

“Good God, it’s the end of Empire,” a male spectator is said to have observed.

She still plays in men’s leagues, still enjoys public speaking – “’Woman in a Man’s World,’ it’s called, I’ve five booked already next year” – still referees at snooker’s top level and is a referee instructor.

“Candidates are coming out of the woodwork at the moment,” says Vera. “They haven’t even qualified and they’re sending off for their white gloves and ball markers. They’re young and they’re keen. It keeps me young, too.”

Billiards remains a poor relation. “There’s nothing really in Newcastle but it ticks along on Teesside and we still play in the league around Ashington. I suppose they must have thought I had something to do with it. The award is lovely.”

COMPARED to Vera, Mick Henderson – the 80-year-old football referee who featured in last week’s column – is nothing but a bairn. The piece reminded Robin Hinds in Witton Gilbert of a Northern League game at Evenwod, 1972-73, when Mick was on the line.

It was during Sunderland’s FA Cup run. Mick, a lifelong Sunderland fan, had his transistor radio turned on near the halfway line.

Unfortunately for him, bulldog Northern League secretary Gordon Nicholson was also on the touchline and turned the radio off again.

Mick looked puzzled, and thus earned a little commentary all of his own. “Just stick to the game, Mr Henderson,” said Nic.

ANOTHER who runs and runs and who fast approaches the same milestone is Darlington Harrier Ian Barnes, 80 in December. We might have tried catching up last weekend but he was running for England – before moving up an age group. More on our old friend Ian ere long.

DRAMA en route to the doms: the 26a is stopped on the outskirts of Darlington, blue lights fore and aft, the constabulary anxious to speak (as they say) to two folk who’ve joined the bus at Richmond.

The initial allegation is of criminal damage: that the suspects are found to be in possession of rather a lot of bottles of alcohol appears only to add to the interest. They’re led off in handcuffs.

A busy evening for the police is almost added to after the match when Mr David Legg, a long time member of the Brainless Britannia B, announces outside the Archdeacon that his car has been stolen.

More observant team mates point out a) that it is five yards behind him and b) parked right beneath a lamp post. Mr Legg is 68 (going on 160.)

IT'S now several weeks since, after a visit to South Shields, we wondered if the miniature railway still ran in summer ran around South Marine Park. Don Clarke is one of several readers who confirm that it is so, though it’s disappointing that he describes it as a “kiddies’” railway. The South Marine Park miniature railway is 124.

OLDIES of all ages are invited to an Auckland and District League reunion next Thursday, December 4, from 2 30pm in the bar of Ferryhill Workmen’s Club. It began a few years back with the Winterton Hospital side, was extended to Bishop Middleham, Black and Decker and Steetley and is now nostalgically open to all.

...AND FINALLY, the cricketer who in 2004 took ten wickets for his country in an Ashes test and was never picked again (Backtrack, November 20) was Andrew Caddick, the New Zealander adopted by Somerset.

Today, since this bit of the column has had a distinctly getting-on-a-bit flavour, readers are invited to name the Italian football club nicknamed The Old Lady.

All that they say about old uns and best uns, the column returns next week.