Bill Robinson has overcome his blindness to take on many roles in the community, helped by his wife's unstinting support.

TURNED out in chains of proud office, Bill Robinson was at a cricket club dinner when we came across him, holding court above the hubbub with former Durham County opener Mike Roseberry.

"I think he was a bit amazed at how much I knew about the game and could talk about it," says Bill.

Others might be surprised to learn that he's town council chairman, a magistrate, a former union convenor, who enjoyed the nickname Red Robbo; plays the organ at his Masonic lodge meetings, has three times completed the Great North Run, is an ardent Sunderland fan, rarely misses a day's cricket at the Riverside and has been blind from birth.

"People ask if I've been blind all my life," he says. "I tell them I hope I've a few more years yet."

If Bill Robinson is a remarkable feller, however - and manifestly it is the case - then so is Nora, for 29 years his wife, supporter and unpaid secretary.

"Sometimes, I just forget that he's blind, but then I remember that he's in the dark, as it were, and it must be really hard," she says. "Bill's always running himself down but he's game for anything; quite brilliant, really.

"He always wants to be able to do everything and gets upset sometimes if he can't. He makes light of things, but I would say it's been a struggle, really."

Bill smiles, declares unequivocal admiration for David Blunkett, professes that he's not always the cheerful Charlie. "I get quite depressed sometimes. I think b******* to the council or to hell with the Labour party, but luckily I get over it.

"Occasionally, I also get fed up when I feel I'm failing to make my mark, when people are polite but they're really wishing that I'd go away again. I resent that sort of behaviour.

"Nora's had a hard time, really. She does an awful lot for me, but I think she knows I'm grateful."

Occasionally, too, there are curious little asides. "I've not seen many blind Tories," he says.

He was born in South Hetton, near Easington, lives up the road in Hetton-le-Hole in a terraced house with more steps than the dashing white sergeant - "you get used to it" - and which had been titivated for the occasion. "Usually, there's papers everywhere," says Nora. "Everything he gets I have to read to him."

Almost always, she accompanies him to civic functions, too, though the North-East Showmen's Guild lunch is strictly men only. Had she been a guide dog, even a female guide dog, it would have been different. Bill's never had one, possibly - as they may say in Hetton - because there's no point in having a dog and barking yourself.

"I've nothing against guide dogs or the people who have them, but it's just another pair of eyes, four legs and a tail.

"I like to do things on my own, to make my mark if you like. My belief is that a blind person should be accepted into the ordinary world as much as possible. Unfortunately, they sometimes stand out because of their own attitude."

Hetton-le-Hole Council, which he chairs, is the only town council within the City of Sunderland. "People are quite envious, especially those in Houghton," he says. "I'm a great believer that Hetton should stand out for itself."

Bill attended schools for the blind in Newcastle and York, drifted - he says - and then spent 31 years in "sheltered" employment in Sunderland.

At first they made brushes, then mats. When mat making was deemed too rigorous for HM prisons, the workshops for the blind kept at it.

"Why," says Bill, "ye knaa..."

As union convenor, Red Robbo ("I do have some rather left wing views from time to time") spent much of his time in the manager's office trying to save others' jobs. In 1994, he himself accepted redundancy.

"It was hard to get enough work, I was getting quite stressed out with it all. Now I'm into so many things I wonder how I had time to go to work in the first place." If he takes on anything else, says Nora cheerfully, it's grounds for divorce.

He'd begun running in the 1980s, a single shoelace joining him to the chap in front, and has a two hours, nine minutes personal best for the Great North Run.

The town council followed in 1997. "The chap I followed into the seat had a lot of clout in the area and had also been a cricket umpire," he recalls.

"I asked them if they wanted me to do that as well."

It's been difficult, he admits. Joining the justices last year offered still more challenges, though a remarkable book sized computer which translates the keyboard into Braille has been a £4,000 godsend.

In court, he'd tried to type during hearings - "I couldn't hear what was being said, it was very frustrating" - and municipal life put further obstacles in his path.

"Everyone used to be given a pack of documents before the meeting. I was always playing catch-up. Now they e-mail them and Nora reads them to me in advance."

Nora's other jobs include ferrying him to the cricket - 120 journeys last year, 70-odd this - where a team of 12 offers commentary to the visually impaired.

"I'm entirely aware of what's going on. Obviously, you can't tell which way the ball's turning, but for blind people, cricket is a fairly static game once you know if the batsman's right or left handed," says Bill.

Football's different. "It's mainly the camaraderie," he says, though there's commentary at the Stadium of Light, too.

His ambition is to travel. "From time to time, I have this dream that I'm on a ship going somewhere - sometimes America, sometimes Australia.

"I think I'd like to see America, just to see if things are as I imagine them to be, wide streets and noisy people."

Closer to home, there's a call from the town clerk about the official opening of Hetton wildfowl park, known thereabouts as Joe's Pond. "Every kind of wild bird you could imagine," says Bill.

The interview, he hopes, is a way of thanking everyone who's helped him. "It's far more than me. I couldn't have done a thing without them."

LAST Thursday may have been Frosterley's night of the year. In the village hall, both leek club annual meeting and autumn fair were being held; in the Frosterley Inn, a darts match against the Cowshill Hotel and in the Black Bull, it was quiz night.

"What does a silkworm become?" asked the question master.

"A scarf," replied one of those questioned.

Around the Weardale village, hand written posters also proclaimed "A night with Mike Amos", which wasn't quite how we'd expected a talk to the Methodist church fellowship to be billed.

"None of your jokes, either," the minister's wife had warned. Not even the one about Fred and Ginger.

Bridge End Chapel, as locally it's known, is a splendid building with warm and welcoming folk, a magnificent supper - "noted for it," they said - and in the Rev Les Hann, a minister renowned for far more than this week's appearance on The Weakest Link.

Some also recalled days when Methodism was more abstemious and the Frosterley organist would pop into the Bull - opposite end of the bridge - on his homeward journey. Finally, they gave him the choice between organ stool and bar stool. He chose the demon.

Slightly late, we arrived half way through the wonderful Methodist hymn To God Be the Glory - on cue for the line about "the vilest offender."

"Perfectly timed for you," said the delightful Jill Hann. Memorable, indeed.

THE ladies of Hutton Magna Church, a foot either side of the Durham/Yorkshire border, have produced Foods of the Famous - a book of celebrities' favourite recipes.

There's tombstone pudding from the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, tuna steak from I T Botham, steamed treacle spong e from the next leader of the Conservative party.

Suspicion suggests that the column was, for some reason, also asked to contribute and neglected to do so, though there's a limit to how much you can dress up banana on toast. The book's a fiver plus postage from Marian Lewis, Plum Tree Cottage, Hutton Magna, Richmond DL11 7YG. Much more of St Mary's 125th anniversary celebrations last weekend in the At Your Service column on Saturday.

LAST week's musings on the late author J L Carr, and on his no less extraordinary brother Raymond, supposed Ray's station in life to have been Hayburn Wyke, between Whitby and Scarborough.

Kath Jackson in Stapleton, near Darlington, points out that it was in fact Staintondale, three minutes down the line, which station master Carr loved so greatly that he bought the lot when he retired.

Kath and her family would use Staintondale halt when on holiday there, and since it took the ticket office two months to accrue a fiver, may not have been crushed in the stampede.

Trains are long gone, of course. Now, says Kath, those thus inclined can walk llamas along the trackbed instead.

NO longer able to append the initials WCSP after his name, our old friend Bert Draycott, from Fishburn, still provides a lively exhibition of what the cutler saw.

Until recently, he was world champion spoons player, the title usurped by a Gateshead rattler at last month's Trimdon Folk Festival. Last Friday, he launched his comeback at Bishop Auckland Cricket Club.

"He was brilliant," reports club chairman Keith Hopper. "There was a chap with an £8,000 keyboard and Bert with two twopence ha'penny spoons. World champion or not, he'd bring a smile to anyone's face, would Bert."

...and finally, a dander around Durham reveals that Tony Martin - the hell for leather cobbler, not the one cheered so egregiously by the Conservative party conference - plans before Christmas to publish a book about "corruption, sex and violence in the city of Durham."

Extracts posted in his shop window in Claypath are unafraid to name names. It seems entirely, appetisingly, readable.

There's also the old joke about two pollisses meeting at the start of the shift. "I hear Tony Martin had the lights kicked out of him last night," says one.

"Really," says the other, "I didn't even know he'd been arrested."

Provisionally, the book's called Cobblers to the Council, though he's inviting alternatives. The second word might be awl.