Pigeon posts

The War Office, it’s said, visited the village’s countless crees during the Second World War in order to commandeer the birds most suitable for covert operations, often behind enemy lines.

How they were chosen is uncertain, the average pigeon’s knowledge of German being necessarily limited, but the owners, having earned it, were rewarded with extra corn.

Snuggled, smuggled, Skinningrove is a fascinating place. These days there’s even what may be Britain’s only pigeon racing statue, outside the Federation headquarters. The bird, like occupied France, is on the point of liberation.

A small fishing village until the mid-19th century, it became the hub of the Cleveland ironstone mining industry, the hills around said to have been home to 83 mines and Skinningrove’s to have yielded 6.2 million tons.

At the end of the shift, workers would make weary way to Timms Coffee House, not really a coffee house at all, but a pub. Some say that it was in deference to the Quakers, as in Darlington, others that it simply followed the London coffee house fashion of the time.

These days the harbour’s all but deserted, though in 2003 a woman fishing out of Skinningrove caught an 11ft 4in oarfish, described in the subsequent Times report as “a legendary sea monster” and unheard of off the British coast.

Before the marine biologists could lay hands on it, however, the Skinningrove lads were having oarfish steaks for their supper, probably with chips.

Stone Row and New Company Row still stand, though the gasworks opposite is replaced, attractively, by Skinningrove Doorstep Park. Skinningrove also becomes increasing famous for its Guy Fawkes celebrations, perhaps the only bonfire with its own website.

The ironworks is now Tata Steel, involved a few years back when pigeons kept mistaking its oily reservoir for tarmac, landing upon it and meeting a sticky end.

Tata’s response is said to have been immediate, proactive and humane. Skinningrove still looks after its pigeons.

THE first of 45 stages of the Last Legs Challenge, my 500-mile sponsored walk to mark the 20th and final year of Northern League chairmanship, began down the coast at Staithes at 8.45am last Saturday – Yorkshire Day, so they reckon.

Staithes is already stirring, scuttling, scouring – irresistibly reminiscent of the early pages of Under Milk Wood, which could almost have been written there.

The walk’s 12 miles or so to Marske in the greatly agreeable company of Marske United commercial manager and local garage owner Peter Collinson and of Cassie, his cocker spaniel.

Peter also keeps hens and breeds parrots out the back of his house, the former more likely to give him a good breakfast but the latter a better talking point.

He’d planned simply to use the Cleveland Way, along the cliff tops, obliged slightly to detour when reminded that some of us have a head for heights so feeble that we become suicidal on a step ladder.

Wherever else these next nine months may lead, it’ll definitely be by taking the low road.

It’s utterly delightful, nonetheless, save for the ascent of Boulby Bank on the most minor of back roads. “People cringed when I told them I was taking you up Boulby Bank,” says Peter.

There’s a wayside chapel, long abandoned, a Met Office weather station which seems totally set fair. We’re eastward of Loftus and of the North-East’s other Easington, down to Skinningrove’s silent harbour, up for a livener in Carlin How Club and on through Brotton to the Ship in Saltburn, where my brother awaits with a bag of sherbet lemons.

They cost £1, he grumbles, but it’s still 50p cheaper than a pint of orange and water by the seaside in the Ship.

EAST Cleveland’s villages were once strong Northern League territory. North Skelton Rovers, indeed, hold the record for the league’s heaviest defeat – 21-0 against South Bank.

Loftus had two teams, one of them reaching the FA Amateur Cup semi-final in 1921, while still a Cleveland Alliance side, before in turn losing to South Bank. Brotton itself hosted an 1898 semi-final, Middlesbrough v Thornaby, because a smallpox epidemic meant that no one else would touch it with a 10ft goal post.

Particularly, however, we are drawn towards the story of the match between Loftus and Stockton Vulcan, Christmas Eve 1898, abandoned with five minutes to go – or so the poor ref said – partly because both balls had burst and partly because they couldn’t have seen the thing even if they’d had one.

Vulcan, trailing, claimed a replay. Loftus demurred. Besides, they said there were four and three-quarter minutes remaining.

Amid the encircling gloom, none of it seemed especially festive. Where’s Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer when you need him?

SUSTAINED by sherbet lemons and by Timothy Taylor’s Landlord, we head from the Ship past the enormous queue for the pier head fish and chip cafe and down the seaweed-stricken beach to Marske.

The Ebac Northern League champions are playing Shildon, League Cup winners, in the J R Cleator Cup. The day’s pleasant, shirtsleeve weather. “You must be the only Shildon bloke whose forearms aren’t covered in tattoos,” someone says.

I can’t decide if it’s a compliment.

Shildon win 2-0, adding to a considerable trophy collection. Marske give generously. With 44 legs to go, the total’s £3,300 – much of it raised before Saturday, of course, but it’s a great, great start.

LAST Legs has a £10,000 target. Half of whatever is raised will go to the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, a wonderful man and a worthy cause, the other half to community-based charities nominated by Northern League clubs.

This Saturday’s leg is from Darlington to Newton Aycliffe, next Tuesday’s up to Tow Law ere the winter storms begin (ie mid-September.)

A few of us will start Saturday at 8.30am at Café Olympos in Tubwell Row, Darlington – good coffee, brilliant sausage sandwiches – before a couple of miles around the park, a call at the railway station and then a cross-country stroll to Newton Aycliffe – also against Marske United – where we’ll be welcomed by Councillor Mary Dalton, the mayor.

The Tow Law leg begins outside – note, outside – the Red Lion at North Bitchburn at 2.20pm on August 11 and will head for the hills via Crook Golf Club. The game, 7.30pm, is against Darlington RA.

Whether or not bearing sponsorship, readers and supporters would be most welcome to join either – but Saturday sponsorship earns a free sausage sandwich to boot. Cheques can be made payable to the Northern Football League and sent to me at 8 Oakfields, Middleton Tyas, Richmond, North Yorks DL10 6SD or visit www.justgiving.com/lastlegschallenge