WHEN last we visited Barningham, that delightful village on the Durham/North Yorkshire border south of Barnard Castle, it was the local hedgehog population that was deemed to be endangered. Hence the novel road signs indicated a slow-go area.

Now, two months later, it’s the 200-year-old village pub that’s said to be at risk – prompting concern from the Georgian Society, the Campaign for Real Ale and the parish meeting.

Camra’s particularly worried because the Milbank Arms is one of just eight pubs in Britain without a bar. “The pub we all love will be lost forever,” says a piece in the Darlington branch magazine, though estate owner Sir Edward Milbank insists that – save for the addition of a bar – the real ale men are going to love it.

The pub, a Grade II listed building, closed at the end of March after being run by the Turner family since 1939. Retiring tenant Neil Turner, 83, has moved elsewhere in the village.

Neil was particularly noted for his cocktails, dispensed from a little cellar cubby hole at the foot of a short flight of steps and, like the beer, brought from below on a Charles and Diana tray.

Though the pub will undergo major improvements, Sir Edward insists that the little cubby hole is one of many features which will remain when the Milbank reopens, probably in the middle of next year. “We hope to have six or eight seats down there,” he says.

After Durham County Council approved the plans, the Milbank estate is now seeking grants in recognition of the anticipated impact on local jobs and tourism. Though extra letting rooms may eventually be added at the back, the front will change little.

“We’ve also found a lot of pub and village history which will be going on show. In an ideal world we wouldn’t have to make changes, but that there are only eight pubs in the country without a bar tells a story in itself,” says Sir Edward.

“We’re delighted that planning permission has been granted because only a very limited amount of work has been done in the past 200 years and a lot needs to be renewed. We wouldn’t have been able to get a tenant after Neil left.

“In some ways very little will change. I’m sure it will be a pub that Camra will love.”

Barningham parish meeting chairman Jon Smith says that he regrets the loss of part of the pub’s character by the gain of a bar. “That said, I understand that the plans are generally very sympathetic. I look forward to a pint next year.”

AS ever waiting for a bus, the column shelters in the Pennyweight in Darlington Market Place. It’s quiz night. “Name the city,” they ask, “from which the world’s first steam passenger railway began.” In order to help Darlington folk, choice is offered between London, Manchester and New York. The bus goes before the answer comes, but they’d all have been wrong. The city in question is Shildon.

THE Durham Age UK men’s breakfast, at which the column claims senior citizenship, had a very interesting session on scams. Scam and eggs, as it were.

Though world-wise to a man, many around our table admitted to having been had, though this appeared chiefly to have been by dusky Mediterranean maidens on dusky Mediterranean nights.

George Barber spoke mainly on telephone scams, the Asian gentlemen claiming to be from Microsoft among the most prolific offenders.

An astonishing 53 per cent of over 65s are targeted every day by scammers, the estimated cost to the national economy in 2016 between £5-10bn. Chiefly through embarrassment, only five per cent of victims report the crime.

George, who works for Age UK, told of a vulnerable lady in a village near Durham who’d been persuaded to spend £3,000 on a bed she didn’t need, saw the cost rise to £5,000 when a finance scheme was suggested and until Age UK became involved had only sleepless nights as a result.

The charity offers a free call blocking device to the elderly in the Durham City, Spennymoor and east Durham areas. For details of that – and, indeed, of the ever-convivial monthly men’s breakfast – ring 0191-386-3856.

FREQUENT traveller Alan Hamilton notes that on the central refuge of the A1 motorway, north of Coatham Mundeville, the workmen’s portable netties are now called welfare stations. Further to complicate the welfare state, they’re labelled No 1 and No 2.

AT the end of March, the column noted the 50th anniversary of the death on the high Teesdale fells of Ken Brown and David Vaughan, walking with friends from St John’s youth club in Shildon.

The tragedy led directly and almost immediately to the formation of what is now the Teesdale and Weardale Fell and Mountain Rescue Team.

Last Wednesday, Canon Vincent Ashwin – St John’s curate half a century ago – was joined by rescue team leader Steve Owers in again walking the route, though the weather was altogether more clement than on that terrible day in 1968.

Vincent built a 50-stone cairn near the spot where Ken Brown was swept away as the party tried to cross the swollen Swarfe beck; Steve believes he has pinpointed the area – several miles west – where David’s body was found the following day.

“Vincent could hardly believe it. We could have crossed the beck without hardly getting out boots wet,” says Steve, a retired senior officer with Durham fire brigade. It’s a very appropriate little cairn. I left him alone for a few minutes once he’d built it.”

Canon Ashwin, now 75 and in Nottinghamshire, felt no physical after-effects from the strenuous 12-mile walk. “It’s a very long time since I’ve been hiking in upper Teesdale and it reminded me of just how lovely it is up there.

“In some ways it was quite a cathartic experience, but it was very enjoyable, too.”

A memorial service for the dead walkers, and to mark the rescue team’s anniversary, was held in St John’s church on March 24.

THE Times reports that a humanist has been appointed to lead an NHS chaplaincy team, prompting a letter from the Rev Ray Morris, a former Teesside Hospice chaplain.

Ray, still in Middlesbrough, had visited a hospice patient who professed himself an atheist and said that all he wanted was for someone to fix his telly.

A strategic thump did the trick – as it does – the patient duly grateful. “He said I was the answer to a prayer.”

STILL with the health service, on one of last week’s hottest afternoons patients in the waiting room at Dr Piper House – a clinic and walk-in centre in Darlington – were serenaded on the music machine by Silent Night, followed by White Christmas. Among those not wholly reciprocating the greeting was Darlington Snooker Club owner Peter Everett. “Humbug,” he says, unseasonally.

...AND finally, the Stokesley Stockbroker, a Guardian man, emails about his unsuccessful on-line research to discover more about a lost medieval servant boy. The computer responded: “This page cannot be found.”