IT is to be a catch-up column, the sort which from time to time becomes necessary in a lifetime's headless tail chasing.

There is much to acknowledge, not least a bottle of Yorkshire Relish and a jar of Hoe's fruit chutney from Christine McFarlane in Darlington - available at Fenwick's, she says - and a compilation tape addressed to John North, Music Appreciation Scribe.

It includes such vintage delights as Let's Harmonise by Anne Shelton and Vera Lynn, Perhaps Love by the Hammond's Sauce Works Band and Isle of Innisfree, by Val Doonican.

The gentleman from West Yorkshire who has sent it, clearly believes the column to be even older than the photograph suggests.

We are also very close to an extended caption on that fascinating post-first world war photograph (John North, July 19) of a military style requiem at Egglestone Abbey in Teesdale. That one, however, must wait.

FIRST, therefore, to Aycliffe Village - or such, at least, was last Thursday's good intention until Jackie Coe's funeral claimed proper priority.

St Andrew's church has stood in Aycliffe since the early 11th Century, its tower added around 1210. A sort of pebble flower bed at the entrance to Church Lane - the attractive sort of thing they used to have on railway stations - spells out Aclea, the village name when the church was built, though there have been at least 25 different versions down the centuries.

Its meaning is "A clearing in the oak forest", an awful lot in five letters.

Last Thursday, at any rate, they held a service to mark the completion of a heritage centre to reflect the church's rich history. Further information, it seemed, would easily be available by telephone.

Simultaneously, however, everyone seems to have gone off on holiday. A visit to the church on Tuesday proved little more fruitful - it was padlocked - nor a guerilla raid on the cuttings library.

St Andrew's, it reveals, has had its share of lead thieves - and worse, alas - has had several restoration funds and, in 1976, a rector in whom parishioners passed a vote of no confidence.

The reverend gentlemen was said to be too abrupt, an accusation put to him by one of The Echo's finest. The rector abruptly put the telephone down.

The churchyard is large and meticulously kept, the heritage centre open on Thursday afternoons. More detailed information will follow as soon as things return to normal.

ANOTHER occasion which sadly we were unable to attend was the diamond wedding party last weekend for former Northern Echo Nig-Nog Club member Walter Nunn and his wife Kathy.

"People will be celebrating 60 partners soon," observes Walter. "They're at it like bloody tom cats."

For 47 years a conscientious councillor in Shildon, he is decidedly Old Labour and contemptuous of the new lot. His history of Shildon Labour Party, buried in the millennium time capsule, records that the 1997 Blair administration caused "sadness, anger, frustration and even hatred locally as grass roots members and supporters felt they were sacrificed for the prosperous middle classes."

Kath was the sister of Sid Chaplin, the celebrated author and playwright. Her uncle Jack, Walter recalls, was the lamplighter. They met one Sunday afternoon by the petrol pump at the top of Redworth Road.

Love at first sight? "More or less."

Among those who did make the Civic Hall bash was Viktor Lilakewich, whose mother Walter met in 1949 on an NUR delegation to Germany - "we'd just finished fighting them four years earlier."

The families became friends, nonetheless, Viktor a regular visitor to Shildon. "I'm a great believer in international relations so long as it isn't time wasting, junketing for junketing's sake," says Walter.

Nor, he insists - remembering his Bobby Thompson script - must Viktor be confused with Carl Bach. "That was the council rent collector."

BOB Whittaker, another Shildon lad, e-mails from The Smoke. The note's headed "Whatever happened to the Al Pacino of Tyne Tees Television?" and might usefully have been sub-titled "Who the hell's Al Pacino?"

Little Bob began on the Auckland Chronicle, bless its proggy mat, liked the sound of local radio, became a familiarly bearded front man on Tyne Tees in the late 1980s. Now he's an ITV gaffer, which probably explains the clean shaven look, runs a Granada-Carlton owned outfit which (he says) makes dozens of shows from international travel programmes to "extremely naughty" late night movies.

"One minute I'm trawling through shots of nude women to cut out the really rude bits, then I'm flying off to Cannes to flog programmes. None of it, however, quite matches the thrill of going out filming with Bob Johnston, the Tyne Tees weatherman."

He's also recently signed Alex James (who used to play football for Arsenal but now sings with a bunch called Blur) for a sleazy series on Soho and ex-Newcastle United man Les Ferdinand for a football programme.

Bob and his wife Marisse, a make-up girl turned scriptwriter, retain a flat in South Shields. "Shields," says the Al Pacino of Tyne Tees Television, "still does the best curry this side of Bombay."

SHILDON proves ineluctable, and may for a week or two yet. It's the Shildon Family Fun Run on Sunday, August 26, and self-styled galloping granny Ethel Dobson writes seeking sponsorship. (She shall have it, of course.)

Ethel, a former Bishop Auckland head teacher, coyly describes herself as seventy-plus. She has been given permission to walk the Run in aid of the Butterwick Hospice in Bishop. Ethel's on (01388) 602414.

AReport that Darlington's mayor had been presented with a key from Darlington, South Carolina, particularly interested Charles Durham - he'd brought another key back, 20 years previously, from a Lions International visit to our US namesake.

The "other" Darlington, reports Charles, makes up in hospitality what it lacks in size. "They call it a city though it's not much bigger than Heighington, though they've a golf course and quite a lot of tobacco growing." They are also remarkably God fearing. "They read the bible to one another every morning and pray at other times during the day. We had a bottle in our cases and might have a drink before we went somewhere, but we'd never have brought it out in public."

The key was handed over to Bill Stenson, the then mayor, in July 1981. They've front door and back door now.

....and finally, a note from another occasion we missed, the funeral at Easby Abbey, near Richmond, of former Durham Advertiser and Darlington and Stockton Times editor Fred Hurrell.

Fond memories abounded, not least the tale (told by his son) of Fred's time as a pretty fit captain in the Royal Marines.

Forced to discipline a new arrival, Fred ordered him to report for a five mile run at five o'clock the following morning. The miscreant duly turned up, but within half a mile had left Fred so far behind he was out of sight.

Captain Hurrell had chosen to punish the regimental cross country champion.

Published: Thursday, August 16, 2001