ALREADY on a pedestal after her masterwork on netties, Wensleydale author Dulcie Lewis has turned her investigative attention to old cures - alternative medicine, it might almost be said, except that not too long ago there might not have been much alternative at all.

Some mixtures sound familiar - boiled onions, bread poultices, liquorice sticks, nettle water and rather a lot of old socks - other ingredients like prunes and senna pods appear with comforting regularity, too.

Like Jack and Jill, 56-year-old Dulcie has also discovered several claims for the efficacy of vinegar and brown paper. On other occasions a pinch of salt - rather than a spoonful of sugar - might help the medicine go down.

Was it really helpful to pass a child with whooping cough beneath a donkey's belly on Scarborough sands or for TB patients to swallow live snails in order (slowly) to eat the phlegm off their chests?

Some of the most improbable cures of all, however, were propounded by John Wesley, who worked 18-hour days, rode thousands of miles each year and lived until he was 84. The founder of Methodism's less conventional beliefs included swallowing four live wood lice in a spoonful of jam or treacle as a cure for whooping cough and removing warts by rubbing daily with a raddish, mole's blood, fish liver, fasting spittle and one or two things of that wholesome nature. Eating watercress helped, too, he reckoned.

Dulcie, from Carperby near Leyburn, appealed through the letters columns for cures - she won't call them old wives' tales - and has been so overdosed on them she's now working on a second volume, covering all England.

"I try not to poke fun at the remedies, because when you were desperate you'd try anything," she says. She herself believes that the best prescription for a healthy life is a brisk walk and to avoid introspection - "it only makes you miserable".

Since the nights are drawing in, however, we list below ten kill or cure potions from Dulcie's new book. Not available on the National Health, perhaps, but as bedtime reading just what the doctor ordered.

l Curious Cures of Old Yorkshire by Dulcie Lewis (Countryside Books, £7.95)

IT needn't have done, but last week's column made passing reference to Uriah the Hittite, after whose wife Good King David lusted like billy-oh.

He needn't have done, but the Stokesley stockbroker e-mailed to say that his first car was also called Uriah. "The local vicar assumed it was a reference to the Hittite, but actually it was because it was a bit of a Heap."

In any event, adds the stockbroker, the white lettering on the black bonnet of an old Austin looked pretty impressive in Penge. What did you call yours?

A NOONDAY memorial service at the Actors' Church in Covent Garden next Tuesday marks the life and happy times of Muriel Young, the North-East girl who became one of early television's best loved presenters.

As well as the Five O'Clock Club, Clapperboard and Shang A Lang, there were Olly Beak and Pussy Cat Willum, too. The occasion is likely to be a reunion of some of the better-known names of the 1960s, though Mickey Most and Emperor Roscoe have sent their regrets.

"Auntie" Mu, 73, died in March at the retirement apartment in Stanhope Castle to which she had moved with Cyril Coke, her husband, in 1989. She became a member of St Thomas's church council, sang in the choir, avidly painted the dale's abundant beauty spots, preferred it to her second home in Portugal.

Former Stanhope rector Charles Lovell, who conducted her funeral - attended by Cilla Black - recalls someone who loved singing and was content to "knuckle under" in the choir.

"She was a lovely person with no airs at all. She and her husband fell in love with Weardale when they stayed at a farm near Frosterley. We can still hardly believe she is no longer with us."

Only her birthplace remains something of a mystery. The Echo's archives claim it to have been Bishop Middleham, near Ferryhill, whilst others reckon Sunderland and service organiser Sally Pethybridge recalls Muriel's pride at being a Yorkshire lass.

Wendy Buchan, her sister, lives in Marton, near Middlesbrough, but has not been available.

Sally Pethybridge, Muriel's PA when she headed children's programmes at Granada Television, said that no one in the world had disliked her.

"She had time for everybody and a smile for everybody and was particularly keen to help new talent. She was a joy to work for. I never ever saw her lose her temper, though there were many times when she might reasonably have done so.

"They'd always wanted to go back to the North. When they did, and until Cyril died, I don't think they'd ever been happier."

PERHAPS suspecting the column's own ear for music, the Durham Choral Society has sent its 2001-02 programme to home. The season opens in Durham Cathedral on November 30 with a performance - "The first in the new century" - of The Messiah. They've sold two extra tickets already: other details from David Crookes, 0191-384 5515.

....and finally, proof that the John North column remains the technophobes' answer to the World Wide Web.

On August 23 we reported the forthcoming reunion of the Class of '49 at King James I Boys Grammar School in Bishop Auckland and appealed for the whereabouts of some lost souls.

As a direct result, old boys - getting on a bit, anyway - will arrive this weekend from Australia, America and sundry other parts of the globe.

"The effect of your piece has been quite amazing," says co-organiser Neville Kirby, known at school as Rip after a comic strip hero of the day.

They've also tracked to Ireland the celebrated Rex Pybus Dixon from South Church, the boy who took six of the best from the fearsome Neddy Deans without ever once moving a muscle.

Despite the promise of a bottle of whisky in belated recognition of his gallantry, deadpan Dixon is unlikely to attend, however. Also part of the reunion will be the Ven Derek Hodgson, the retired Archdeacon of Durham, who will sing The English Rose from Merrie England just as he did at speech day 51 years ago.

There'll be a meal, a 1950s quiz, a sing-song and an awful lot of reminiscing. It's at Bishop Auckland Golf Club from 7pm on Saturday: the column, of slightly younger King James vintage, will also be in attendance. More on the old BAGS next week.

Published: Thursday, November 1, 2001