She may be a star in the wings, but ice cream maker's daughter Lindsey Drenon feels frozen out

AN enthusiastic email arrives from Dick Fawcett, in Redcar. "Your name is synonymous with good food," it begins, though it's not that about which he waxes lyrical.

Happy landings, Dick was in Redcar RAFA Club last Saturday night. "I've visited clubs for over 50 years, seen names like The Beatles, Gerry Dorsey, Lulu, Danny Williams, Diana Dors and many others.

"On Saturday night, however, we had a little girl who's the finest I've ever seen. A star if ever I saw one. She had traces in her voice and style which reminded me of Jane Horrocks, Eartha Kitt and Edith Piaf rolled into one."

Mavis Kelly, concert secretary, joins the songs of praise. "She's absolutely fantastic, a lot of the Andrews Sisters about her. In the right hands she could go a very long way indeed."

The "little girl", it transpires, is a 26-year-old Sunderland University student whose stage name is Rea and whose real name is Lindsey Drenon. Both rang bells, or possibly chimes.

Rea was her mother's maiden name, one of County Durham's best known ice cream families. "She had the ice cream parlour in Langley Moor," says Lindsey.

Mattie and Tom Drenon, her grandfather and great uncle, were among the heroes when the raging River Browney flooded Littleburn pit, south-east of Durham, on the night of November 23, 1950. Both were awarded the King's Commendation for Brave Conduct.

For all Redcar's raptures - "It's very rare you get a reception like that, it was overwhelming" - the lady sings the blues, however. Many another North-East club singer will echo the plaintive note.

She'd first sung with the Country Girls, a group of Brandon junior school pupils who performed around old folks' homes and the like, was "spotted" in a talent competition in 1998, offered time at a recording studio in Consett - "I had to learn 40 songs in a week" - made her club debut on New Year's Eve that year.

Seven years later, that New Year resolution is being sorely tested. "I don't always want to be a club singer. I want to take it further but nothing ever seems to happen," says Lindsey.

"I just seem to be going around the same clubs, nothing escalates. I go to some places where all they want to do is play bingo. It's just so depressing and disheartening sometimes. My agents have too many people on their books. I'm just another number."

She went to university at 23, reads education, planned to become a teacher and now wonders if that's her forte, either. The amount of paper work, she says, is gruesome.

Her mum urges her to keep at it, still dreams of a number one. Her ambition's to go Nashville and sing at the Grand Old Opry, which may be a slightly bigger stage than Redcar RAFA.

"I try to vary it, I give it everything. I still hope but sometimes it just doesn't seem worth it," she says. We shall maintain the Rea view mirror.

REDCAR RAFA Club should not be confused with Redcar Workmen's Club where still, twice a week, they have men only bingo. "Swines," says Mavis Kelly, cheerfully. "It's because we shout louder than them."

FARE'S fair, last week's column wondered why some train tickets are known as an Elgar. (There's a local link: Edward Elgar frequently stayed with his friend Nicholas Kilburn in Bishop Auckland. There's a plaque in Etherley lane.) Nick Rees, who once worked at the British Rail offices in Stooperdale, Darlington, reckons it acronymical (if not, like the prices, astronomical).

"It might stand for Electronic Gateway for Retailers," he supposes.

John Briggs, also in Darlington, emailed Eurostar's "Elgar Helpline". Nine minutes later, impressively, someone called Joe replied. "Elgar is not an acronym. Many (software) systems are named after classical figures in history like Galileo, Amadeus and Mozart," said Joe (who, even on the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth, may suppose Amadeus and Mozart to be two different people).

Another musical note, Richard Eddowes in Hartlepool has been in touch. "Could they be called the Elgar," he asks, "because the railway ticketing operation is now such a total Enigma?"

A Brief final word on David Sanderson, retired former head of the Middle School at Richmond School, who has died, aged 61.

We'd occasionally crossed paths both educationally and socially, a thoroughly good man with a passion for teaching.

The great thing about Dave, it seemed to me, was that he believed so unshakeably in his charges and in their potential. Very many will repay, and reflect, his faith. His funeral is at Gilling West next Monday