MR Thomas Aquinas Taylor, familiar in church and musical circles around Darlington but known more familiarly as Tommy, celebrates his 75th birthday on Sunday April 21.

On the same day, the Roman Catholic church of St Thomas Aquinas in the town will mark the exact 75th anniversary of its opening.

"They named it after me," he says, and if they didn't, they could have done.

Though good Catholics cannot (of course) plan these things, the arrival of baby Thomas was a blessed and a quite remarkable coincidence, nonetheless. His parents attended the mother church of St William and his father had helped dig St Thomas's foundations.

Tommy became altar boy, chorister and eventually choirmaster at the church on Harrowgate Hill, dedicated to a 13th Century Dominican monk whose own parents imprisoned him in a bid to prevent his joining the order.

"He memorised The Bible in those three weeks and was to become indisputably the greatest theologian of all time, I'm enormously proud to be named after him" says Tommy, who has not only several times visited the saint's birth place at Aquino, in Italy, but also learned Italian.

(The saint, who died aged 49, was also said to be great in girth and may have born some resemblance to Friar Tuck. "Physically we're totally unlike," says Tommy.)

He later became choirmaster at Holy Family church in Cockerton, for 20 years has been choirmaster at St Augustine's in the town centre and 18 years ago this Sunday formed the Meltone Singers, principally from the men of St Augustine's choir.

The Meltones, as generally they are known, will entertain at a social evening on April 20 to mark the church's anniversary. It cost £3,000, could accommodate 400 and had 100 priests at its opening by the Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle.

Delivering the sermon, the Very Rev Fr Wheatley, from Stella, on Tyneside, lambasted the Church of England.

"The poorest and meanest of our (Catholic) churches are greater than even the greatest (Anglican) cathedrals because of the perpetual presence of God in the tabernacle. The cathedrals, even Durham Cathedral, are empty."

Though April 21, 1927, was a Thursday, the Echo also reported a veritable blossom of clergy weddings, including the Rector of Staindrop ("the church was filled with a fashionable congregation") and the Baptist minister of Spennymoor.

Tommy Taylor's folks lived in unfashionable Shildon Street; his arrival not even warranting a classified birth announcement. The double celebration may have a higher profile. "We both," he says, "have much for which to be thankful."

BOB Jones writes of a "clutch of clergy" though there may be more appropriate collective nouns. "Chapter" is the authorised version (as it were), but what of a cloth of clergy, or a quire or, rather appealingly, a confession?

Bob's clutch, at any rate, will be at Darlington Gaelic Society's Burns Supper on Saturday - Peter Sinclair, curate of St Cuthbert's, in the chair and toasting the lassies, United Reformed Church minister Val Towler, responding. Val, until recently in Barnard Castle and now helping lead centenary celebrations at St George's in Hartlepool, has been doing her homework. "Robbie Burns," she concludes, "was definitely not politically correct."

The Rev Sandy Mailer toasts the Immortal Memory, Dr Peter Murray - wife of Darlington's URC minister - addresses the haggis, the Rev Robert Williamson from St Cuthbert's and his wife the Rev Sheila Williamson from St Columba's will join the singers.

The Gaelic gathering is at The George in Piercebridge, on the Yorkshire bank. "The guests will be hoping that bad weather doesn't prevent them crossing the Tees at the end of the evening," adds Bob, "or there'll be a few empty pulpits the next morning."

BURNS Night is actually tomorrow, when the column - unless, as the lad himself observed, the best laid plans o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley - the column will be at the Lord Provost of Glasgow's supper in the Hilton Hotel.

More of that kill or be kilt little affair in next week's John North.

The following evening, while the Gaelic Society pledges the Immortal Memory, we shall be attending the swansong of Cockfield Male Voice Choir after 54 years under Edwin Coates's indomitable leadership.

"It'll be packed to the rafters," says Neville Kirby - Edwin's nephew - who sat with his mum for the inaugural concert in 1947 and will be in Cockfield Methodist church with her, now 92, for the final bow. Much more on that sad note in next week's column, too.

FOLLOWING the magnificent Messiah in November - the one at which The Boss fainted - Durham Choral Society will again be in the Cathedral on Saturday evening for a performance of works by Mozart, including the Requiem Mass. Again we have had to apologise for absence - a last posting in Cockfield, of course. Others can obtain further details from Kathleen Hamilton, 0191-386-8825.

A LETTER from America - an e-mail, anyway - maintains the musical theme. It's from Tantobie Records, Azusa, California.

Tantobie's better known as a little place near Stanley, Co Durham, and that's the trans-Atlantic connection.

The pit village was home to North-East folk singer Jez Lowe's parents when they arrived from Ireland and also to Tommy Armstrong, the great Durham troubadour of the 19th Century. If that's not enough explanation, says Andy Smyser in California, he once had a dog named Obie - after Old Bones, a Jez Lowe tune - and he was very fond of his aunts. We all know the French for "Aunt" - "a little private joke," says Andy.

Jez, at any rate, has written a song called I Saw Hands which has a chorus dedicated to John Alderson, the Horden miner's son who became a Hollywood actor and now lives in the Motion Picture Actors' Home.

Andy's visited him several times ("an absolute delight") and plans to take him to see Billy Elliot - a taste of the old county - and maybe to persuade him back when Jez's new CD is launched in Newcastle on March 16.

For years, it transpires, he believed Horden to Hollywood tales to be wildly exaggerated. John North readers know better.

DOG collared yet again, we continue to receive enquiries about A Book of Laughs, a collection of humorous, church related tales compiled by Darlington Methodist minister Graham Morgan. It's published to help NCH, the Methodist children's charity, with a recommended donation of £3. Details from Linda McDonald, 01325 308180.

...AND finally, last week's tailpiece repeated a claim by John Burton - the Prime Minister's constituency agent in Sedgefield - that by omitting that crucial three letter word 'not', the Echo's Northern People magazine had stood on their head his views on devolution. "It should be another tier of government tacked onto existing councils to satisfy councillors who have failed to become MPs," quotes Northern People.

The compilers have now sent along John's original form - reproduced exactly as he wrote it. A slip, undoubtedly, but our fault? Definitely not.

Published: 24/01/02