Thai to die for

THE Deerness Valley railway was neither very long nor very grand, not in the bad old days, anyway. It steamed five-and-a-half miles westwards from Durham City, pausing only at Ushaw Moor before reaching Waterhouses and deciding that it had run out of puff.

Mineral lines maundered off to several local collieries, a winding engine necessary on the sylvan stretch to Stanley; Crook, getting on three miles south of the terminus. Now, much of the old track bed is a delightful route for walkers and cyclists, most taking a perfect Sunday morning at a suitably contemplative pace.

One gentleman, however, insisted on riding his mountain bike as if the devil incarnate were riding croggy, apparently content that shouts of "Coming through" might render his passage safe.

The law, says The Boss, is that bikes must be sold with a bell but that the machine need not carry one thereafter. If the law really says that, then the law is all that Mr Bumble supposed it to be.

We parked at Stanley, from which the Deerness Valley Way continues southwards towards Crook, walked in the opposite direction to Waterhouses, followed the old passenger line to Esh Winning, explored the Woodland Trust land behind the village and then headed up past Newhouse church - a Catholic stronghold since the 17th century - to the Royal Oak at Cornsay Colliery, where a handsome Sunday lunch cost £3.50. Since there are restaurants which wouldn't so much as wet the bottom of a soup bowl for £3.50, not even on the Sabbath, it may most warmly be recommended.

Cornsay's on a one-in-seven bank with a DLI bench at the bottom - poor strategy that, fellers - and the pub a short stride further up. Its finest hour may have been on February 16, 1958, when a 1,700 crowd watched humble Cornsay Park Albion hold Sunderland Reserves to a 1-1 draw in the semi-final of the Durham Challenge Cup, the players changing in the Oak's back room with only a tin bath for their comfort.

Then the Bank of England team, Sunderland included two Scottish internationals and six men with experience both of the first team and of rather more salubrious dressing rooms.

"Some of the younger Sunderland lads played hell," Mr Eddie Oyston once recalled. "Aa divvent knaa what they expected."

The back room is now altogether more congenial, turned into a bright and cheerful restaurant overflowing with nick-nacks - including a hookah, doubtless happy - and well filled with Durham folk aware of a bargain.

We sat beneath something called "A little dog's prayer". Unlike the rest of us, little dogs don't ask for much.

The table settings indicated nothing for starters. Generously proportioned main courses embraced pork, lamb, beef or turkey with a couple of Yorkshire puddings and abundantly side-dished vegetables, including cracking carrots and marvellous mushy peas.

It was the sort of Sunday dinner a Cornsay collier would richly have savoured, content in the knowledge that if the next week's bait box contained nothing but bread and scrape, he'd still survive another seven-day.

A collier's apprentice could probably have got by on the vast array of nibbles on the bar top, so it was a pity the real ale pump was redundant and also that they couldn't baffle the Monaco grand prix from overlapping into the dining room. The greater bafflement may be why anyone wants to watch motor racing in the first place.

With a jolly jam sponge, a pint and a coffee the bill for two soared to £11.80. The return walk over the high road from Cornsay to Waterhouses - the village boundaries fetchingly marked by wrought iron jubilee signs - was yet more glorious than the outward leg.

In total, it was 12 richly invigorating miles. This Spring in the step continues unfalteringly apace.

ONE of these earlier excursions observed the mysteriously named Jomatt Montbeliarde, a farm in the no less compelling hamlet of Morton Tinmouth, west of the A68 in County Durham.

Tom Purvis in Sunderland points out that the montbeliarde is a red and white cow and wonders if the farm's owners might just be called Joanne and Matthew. Either that, adds Tom, or its an anagram of "jammed Barton toilet." The former appears more likely.

IF the good folk of Thailand had runes or soothsayers or something, it might not have seemed an auspicious time to open a restaurant. It's the butcher of Weatherfield to blame.

The incorrigibly lovelorn Fred Elliott, as Coronation Street dwellers will know, has fallen for a maiden called Orchid, believing her to be a blushing Bangkok bride.

In truth, she sells socks on Levenshulme market, answers to Stacey - Stacey Smurthwaite, probably - and talks like Bernard Manning judging a meat and potato pie competition.

A nation which petitioned Parliament over Deirdre's innocence and which would have hanged that Hillman horror, will now rally as never before around the foolhardy Fred. Some MP - Mr Gerry Steinberg, probably - will any moment now table an early day motion calling for Orchid's ritual deracination.

Thai may not be flavour of the month, in other words, which is a pity because there's an exhilarating place - Chang Thai - just opened in Bishop Auckland Market Place.

This was once the business side of the much changed market place, dominated by Doggarts department store - where a miniature railway of change dispensers whizzed wonderfully overhead - and by the offices of Messrs Hewitt, Brown-Humes and Hare, solicitors.

This very day, it transpires, magistrates are to hear a licensing application which, if successful, will change the old legal fastness into a Wetherspoon's pub. Unusually, however, it'll be simply called Wetherspoon's and not reflect local history.

It seems a pity. It could, for example, have been called the Three Wise Men after the original partners. Harold Hewitt, Arthur Hare and the late Joey Brown-Humes - good eggs all - might well have approved; the Law Society might well not have done.

Chang Thai is officially a couple of doors down but may itself have been full of Eastern promisories. The conversion is opulent and impressive, not least for disabled access, with dining rooms both upstairs and down.

That-type decorations abound, pleasant staff are traditionally dressed, the atmosphere is laid back though may be less serene at weekends, when Bishop becomes a bit bibulous and the market place is the epicentre of attention. This was last Wednesday evening, however, and offered only peace in that time.

The menu is extensive, headed by the traditional Thai homily - "harmony is the guiding principle behind each dish" and so on - and with a lengthy vegetarian section.

Since it seemed to represent a cross-section of what was on offer, we went for the more expensive of the "Royal Thai" banquets - £25.95 a head, including ice cream and coffee - and with soup, four starters and four main courses. Much of the presentation is magnificent.

To start, therefore, we had a skewer of marinated prawns in peanut sauce, a little crispy batter case of stir fried chicken and sweetcorn with finely chopped vegetables, marinated chicken pieces wrapped in pandan leaf and served with sweet chilli sauce, and deep fried fish cakes with Thai spices.

Tom yam koong - sour and spicy prawn soup with mushrooms - followed. They were right about the sour and spicy.

Main courses embraced stir fried duck with seasonal vegetables and sour red curry sauce, fried dry curried king prawns with coconut milk and Thai spices - a personal favourite - stir fried chicken with cashew nuts and things, and deep fried sea bass with chilli and pineapple sauce.

Harmonious? Wholly. Authentic? Absolutely. Enjoyable? Entirely. The music was muted, the Thai beer - one Singha, one song - welcome from the moment the first prawn cracker was dipped into a kick-start sauce.

Whatever the besotted butcher might believe, right up this street, anyway.

* Chang Thai, 7 Market Place, Bishop Auckland (01388) 605011. Business lunches, no smoking, fine for the disabled.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew how you stop a skunk from smelling.

Hold its nose, of course.

Published: ??/??/2004