Gadfly

Mardy - as in mardy drawers, a phrase much used by the lady of this house - is said by the Oxford English to be a dialect term meaning "spoilt, sulky or whining". Though it may emanate from the Midlands, none can divine its provenance.

The Monster has different roots, however, having spent its entire working life at Mardy colliery, the last working pit in the Rhondda. It was a huge steam engine, said to be "capable of strolling away with any load" but jiggered on Weardale's gentle gradients.

Finally closed in Christmas week 1990 - "impeccable British Coal timing," says a village history - Mardy colliery employed 600 men, among Britain's most militant miners.

The pit band played the Internationale, the colliers vowed that the workers united would never be defeated, the village - like Chopwell, near Gateshead - became known as Little Moscow.

Now Mardy has just 2,500 people and a video shop where the last bank used to be. It is a sad but inconclusive story. Why mardy?

SO the Mardy Monster conked out, a term thought to have its origins in the unreliability of First World War aircraft - though some, surprisingly suppose it to have middle eastern origins.

But what, since it is that fruitful time of year, of conkers? What, come to that, of the overwhelming world championships to be held any ropey day now at the Royal in Trimdon Colliery?

Chambers Dictionary suggests that the origin is from the word "conch", meaning shell. The Oxford believes that "conker" and "conqueror" may have a great deal in common.

Trimdon's conkerers enjoy the most convivial of afternoons. Doubtless we shall hear more of the Royal show ere long.

WE can never be too careful with the English language, of course, as evidenced by an instructive little incident last Sunday in the Cart House cafe at Hardraw.

Hardraw, known in the 19th century as Hardrow, is a picturesque hamlet in upper Wensleydale renowned for its spectacular, single drop waterfall and for its annual, recently revived, brass band festival.

The Cart House is a very pleasant, almost vegetarian place with, attached, a little craft shop which sells tea towels replicating an 1885 poster for Hardraw's "Brass band and glee contest".

£42 prize money was on offer for bands, £17 for glee singing. At the close of the contest, it was added, an "efficient quadrille" would play for dancing until 8pm.

Excursion trains would run from Leeds, Bradford, Colne and Carlisle in the Midland region and from Middlesbrough, South Bank and almost everywhere else on the North Eastern. Admission was one shilling, the tea towel £3.

"The bill and a band tea towel," we asked the attractive young waitress at the end of a pleasant little lunch.

She hesitated, seemed flummoxed, fell silent. It was again left to the lady of this house to realise that the waitress thought she was being asked for something from under the counter, forbidden fruit in a vegetarian caf, and that at that moment she was probably about to run out the back to summon the village policeman from Hawes.

All was finally explained. The band, if not the banned, plays on.

SINCE it's conference season, Brian Fiske in Darlington returns whence it came last Wednesday's television guide in which The Weakest Link appears - more inextricable than inexplicable - to be linked with a party political broadcast by the Labour Party. Brian's a Liberal. "Guess who'll be first to take the walk of shame?" he asks.

FROM the Sunday Post, meanwhile, John Scotter - also in Darlington - sends an Apostrophe Avenue aberration that just about takes the biscuit.

Alan Woods in Middlesbrough has also been pottering down that way, drawing attention to a new Boro baby shop proclaiming "Everything for you're babies needs." Everything, adds Alan, except a foot in the door of a decent education.

The Sunday Post's story concerned McVitie's Mini Cheddars Crinkly's. Shouldn't it have been Crinklies, they wondered - unless, of course, McVitie's employs a baker called Mr Crinkly in much the same way that others promote the exceedingly fine Mr Kipling?

The Post asked McVitie's. It was an abbreviation of crinkle cut snack, part of the brand image to give it a "lively and upbeat" feel, they said - not Crinkly's for wrinklies, then?

The company now concedes, however, that the product will be relaunched next year without the offending apostrophe - though whether as Crinklies or Crinklys the great minds have so far been unable to determine.

STILL further to cloud recent issues, Eric Gendle in Middlesbrough supposes the phrase about its being black over Bill's mother's to be one of Richie Benaud's - an Australian weather forecast? - while Mick Hill in Durham confirms that "bottle", meaning bravery, is in indeed from rhyming slang.

Originally a boxing term, "bottle and glass" meant class - nerve or courage. Transparently, a lotta bottle lives on.

THE ever engaging Frederick Stehr at Crombie's restaurant in Darlington rings in high dudgeon about Teesside Airport's nonsensical name change to Durham Tees Valley.

Austrian by birth, 30 years at Crombie's - "I consider myself a local now" - he still has many visitors from the continent.

"Durham Tees Valley might be all right for the people around here but no one in Europe has any idea where it is. It came out of the blue. Who was consulted? Who knows what the repercussions will be?

"It's an excellent little airport which has been growing all the time. When is anyone going to learn to leave well alone?"

...and finally, successive letters in Saturday's Guardian bore a North-East flavour, the first (from Devon) reflecting on the Conservatives' showing in the Hartlepool by-election.

"Traditionally the Tories open their conference with a hymn. Presumably this year it will be Fourth in Thy Name O Lord I go."

The second, from Doncaster, exhumed the old joke about the Geordie councillor invited to a Buckingham Palace garden party.

"Will you have a cake or a meringue, Geordie?" asks the Queen.

"No yer not wrang, pet" replies Geordie, "I'll just have a bit cake."

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