Whether they termed it lunch or dinner, generations of good Co Durham folk have regarded the Sunday midday meal as precisely that, have washed up by 12.15 and by half past three are wondering what's for tea.

Once there was no need to wonder at all. It was always John West salmon (and a tin of pears when there was company) but now tastes have changed and there could be posh nosh like egg mayonnaise.

Thus as we arrived at 12.45pm at the Daleside Arms in Croxdale, an elderly group was already homeward, and with every appearance of satiation.

"See you next week," they called to the pretty young waitress, and innkeepers walk on coals for implicit testimonials like that.

Croxdale's between Spennymoor and Durham, the Daleside - formerly the fondly remembered Nicky-Nack Guest House - run by Michael Patterson, whose parents were well known licensees in the area.

Quite which the dale and what side it's on we have not been able to discover.

Two OAPs eat Sunday lunch for a fiver, the first 30 Sabbath pints are poured for £1. A bit too young for one and much too late for t'other, we supped a pint of Hill Island Festive (£1.80) and ordered.

There was pork, beef or shepherds pie, small, medium or large. Real men don't eat medium shepherds pie, they worry over where the apostrophe should be.

The restaurant is traditional, nicely furnished, pictures of Spennymoor railway station and other steamy nostalgia on the wall. The meals arrived swiftly, vast Yorkshire puddings wholly covering everything else, like a seven and five eighths cap on a seven and a half inch head.

The puddings also had a little tump in the middle, so that when the gravy jug was emptied into the moat they resembled a Lord Snooty sand castle.

It's good, old-fashioned, full-flavoured Sunday grub, more frills on a flannelette nightie and all the better for that. Even the mushy peas taste like they did when first some wayward genius invented them.

The Boss, medium beef for £4.50, had been apprehensive but considered her meal first rate, though the Yorkshire pudding defeated her.

She did, however, devour several gallons of the mint sauce topped up with bits of cucumber and onion and things.

"Mint," as younger members of the family might have said.

The large pork (£5.50) was equally impressive, the meat from George Bolam's in Sedgefield, the quantities so huge that puddings, even the chocolate lumpy bumpy, were out of the question.

From 1pm they also do Sunday takeaways, a bit like the old bottle and jug, for which customers are invited to bring their own plate - "any size" - and something in which to carry the gravy.

There may no longer be salmon sandwiches still for tea, but readers may care to see them next week.

HILL Island Brewery, aforesaid, is recently established in Fowler's Yard, Durham, next to the Half Moon.

Mike Griffin was good at biology at school, gained a biology degree at Sunderland University, did a 12 month work placement in the University Brewlab, worked in the microbiology lab for Cameron's, applied science for three years at the Durham Brewery in Bowburn and became brewing manager at Cathedrals in Durham.

When that food and drink enterprise failed - it's now reborn - he decided to brew it himself. "Cathedrals was a roof over my head but unfortunately it fell in," says Mike, 29. "There's not many people employing brewers at the moment."

Largely he remains a one-man brand, though - since he failed his driving test last week - his dad helps with deliveries.

Brews so far include Gala Bitter for the fairly dramatic theatre, Dun Cow Bitter for the lovely old pub near the prison and Penny Ferry Porter, runner up in the best beer category at Darlington CAMRA's last festival.

He's looking (07740 932584) for more customers. The Festive, light and refreshing, may exuberantly be recommended.

SO to the annual meeting of the Wear Valley sub-branch of Camra, held in the recently reinvigorated Plantation at Howden-le-Wear. There are 39 members; five turned out.

Among the ales was Green Goddess from the Durham Brewery, named not after the elderly fire tenders but the nubile lady, probably now of similar vintage, who led the keep fit sessions on TV-am.

Belonging to Wear Valley Camra is a bit like trying to irrigate the Sahara with a watering can. They persevere cheerfully, some might say heroically, and have a formidable champion in Alistair Downie.

Alistair's a Scot, a cross between Giant Haystacks and Rob Roy McGregor, and has facial hair of the sort once addressed by Mr Edward Lear:

There was an Old Man with a beard,

Who said 'It is just as I feared! -

Two Owls and a Hen

Four Larks and a Wren

Have all built their nests in my beard!'

He lives in Frosterley, works at the Timothy Hackworth railway museum in Shildon, commutes by bus between the two and carries at all times a proper passion for real ale.

Though the going can be hideously Smooth, they press on courageously. The Burn in Willington is now reported to have three hand pumps, Jennings have bought a couple of pubs in Weardale, the fifth beer festival takes place in Bishop Auckland Town Hall from February 12-15 and is backed, not drinking and driving, by Arriva.

The arrangement, apparently, owes less to Alistair Downie than to an Arriva driver called Tony, who probably has a surname somewhere but is known universally as Tony the Bus.

The Plantation was warmly welcoming - evening meals from £3, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday - whilst Alistair had persuaded the Charles Wells brewery to donate a couple of mini-casks of Bombardier and succoured them like a maternal grandmother. He was last seen at 10 15pm, heading for the last bus to Frosterley.

l Even later news: Goodnight Vienna will no longer be available at the town hall beer festival. It is replaced by Liquid Lobotomy.

NO real ale, sadly, but clearly there are other good reasons for the popularity of the Top House at Coundon Gate, between Bishop and Spennymoor.

We lunched there with former Newcastle United forward Alan Shoulder, who gets his petrol across the way. "Ten minutes before opening time it's like St James's Park on a match day. They're queuing with their handbags half way down the road," he reported.

Handbags at ten paces, presumably.

It's another of these places, latterly much appreciated hereabouts, where meals - corned beef pie, mince dinner, liver dinner - come in at fifty bob. The steak and mushroom pie (£3.95) was good, the chips even better. Sirloin steak top scores at lunchtime, £6.50 the lot.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what you call a mad young octopus.

A crazy mixed up squid.

Published: 28/01/2003