VALENTINE'S night in East End Workmen's Club: women at one table, fellers at another. His wife, says club secretary Les Bayles, told him before he came out alone that he loved East End Club more than he loved her.

"Pet, I love the Engineers Club more than I love you," said Les - and if the old ones are the best ones, the one liner could have been written for Syd Geddes.

It's 79-year-old Syd whom we've come to see - a member since 1946, committee man 40 years, games secretary for 35 years and concert chairman for 25, he was presented with the club movement's distinguished service award at a big do in his honour on Tuesday.

There were top brass from the CIU and the Fed, three acts, beer at £1 a pint, talk of a strippergram.

"I bloody hope not. I'd rather have the money," said Syd.

They called his job games secretary but really it was fun and games secretary - booking the entertainers, acting as concert chairman, sorting queer turns from turns for the better, keeping best of order among the East Enders.

"He was like the late Tommy Cooper, he could make people laugh by doing nothing and saying nowt," says club president Derrick White.

"You could never ruffle Syd, but he was one of those blokes who if you had a complaint he'd sort it. No one will ever again do 40 years in this day and age."

Syd used also to provide free drinks from the stage for members who had a birthday. "You'd be surprised," he says, "how many had a birthday every week."

Nor has his wit deserted him, particularly when asked what's the closest he's been to packing up.

"Now," he replies, deadpan.

The club's in Darlington, behind the railway station, affiliated in 1914 when there was a bath house ("not many homes round here had baths," says Les) and a library and reading room in the attic for the broadening of working men's minds.

Unlike many other clubs, it thrives still - 1,856 men and women members and fast rising, one hundred new members since Christmas, others waiting anxiously to take their tickets out.

"It's a shame how so many clubs have declined, but if everyone turned up at the same time at this one, we'd never get them all in. We must be doing something right" says Les.

Syd, whose son is steward, stands down at the next half yearly meeting - "early retirement," it says on the notice in the foyer - succeeded, subject to election, by Alan Stobie.

"It'll be nice just to be able to look in for a drink," he says, and he looks in for a drink every night.

Alan says he's looking forward to it but Syd Geddes, a wonderful old stager, will be an awfully hard act to follow.

ITEMS from the last three columns have appeared in the tabloids a few days later - two in the Nigel Dempster column of the Mail, the other over a full page of the Express, and elsewhere. In order to save unaccustomed effort for the parasite who by flogging the stuff lives from others' endeavours, may we suggest that today's best bet is the note at the end - how much for four inches in the Guardian diary?

BREATHLESS only at the stupendous scenery, we wrote five weeks ago about a walk up to Tunstall Reservoir with youngsters - and the rather older chairman of governors - from Wolsingham School, in Weardale.

Toby Beadle e-mailed almost at once. That it has taken so long to acknowledge him in print is because of the large number of unexpected events - births, deaths and not-quite marriages - which have demanded the column's attention.

Tunstall's is up a narrow road three miles north of Wolsingham. The reservoir holds 520 million gallons, serves much of Bishop Auckland and Weardale and is due operationally to close at the end of this year, replaced by a new plant at Wearhead.

Mr Beadle, doubtless only too well accustomed to gags about Beadle being about, lives in the hamlet's former chapel and is concerned about the reservoir's future. Northumbrian Water, he says, won't talk meaningfully to the locals.

Similar to the closure of the cement works at Eastgate, he adds, it is "a case of the failure of remote organisations to take account of the local impact of their actions."

The extensive site, open to walkers and nature enthusiasts, is also leased to an angling club. Mr Beadle believes there are greater possibilities - and not power boat racing, either.

"We have to make the best use of what we've got. It needs to be exploited for the benefit of everyone in the larger community."

The idea's potentially controversial, not least because of the amount of traffic on that narrow, dead end road.

Northumbrian Water says there'll still be walking and fishing and no job losses, that some buildings will be retained and others demolished. "We are looking at recreational uses with other agencies but we don't yet know what the outcome will be," says a spokesperson.

There have been extensive consultation, she adds - "we will continue to keep the residents fully informed."

A COUPLE of calls but maybe not much progress in last week's search for information about the "SD&NY Show" medal which Susan Jaleel bought at auction. The rim was inscribed "Ord and Maddison."

Mrs Bradley in Leyburn believes that Ord and Maddison ran a quarry in Wensleydale in the 1930s - "I think they were taken over by Tarmac" - while Ray Sparks in Darlington believes they made farming machinery, became Ord and Teesdale ("my brother-in-law served his time there") and may eventually have become part of Massey Ferguson.

Whatever happened to the SD&NY Show?

...and finally the bit for the Guardian diary, and we are grateful to Middlesbrough councillor Ron Lowes for details of a public health prosecution - involving 12 offences - brought against the manageress of a takeaway in the town.

The court prohibited her from taking part in the management of any food business.

The premises, the court heard, were discovered on a routine inspection to be infested both with adult larder beetle and with larvae, had "inadequate cleaning" and poor structure. Open food containers were on a shelf directly below a dirty and infested area.

Still, said the defence, there was mitigation. The restaurant wasn't open on the night of the inspection. "Any food prepared was for family and friends."