There being no room at the in-tray, the charming little story which follows may be considered as an overflow - overmatter, as proper journalists say - from the John North column.

It makes an increasingly forgotten point, nonetheless. In an age of ten-second communication, e-mail and text message, it's about the pleasure - the treasure, even - of receiving a real letter.

The John North column two weeks ago was chiefly an appreciative obituary of the Rev Professor John McManners CBE, a Ferryhill miner's son who became Regius professor of ecclesiastical history at Oxford University and one of the country's leading theologians.

He died last month., aged 89. His background, said the Telegraph's obituarist, had been "unexpected and unpromising."

Joe McManners, his father, was a tub thumping atheist who'd been converted by Canon Thomas Lomax, Ferryhill's vicar for 45 years, and who himself became curate and then vicar of the Co Durham town and later a canon of York Minster.

His son John, known as Jack, graduated from Oxford, became a major during wartime service with the Northumberland Fusiliers, entered theological college after the war, was ordained in 1947 and after a year's curacy in Leeds returned to Oxford, and to academia.

His father, as we had noted, would frequently use young Jack as an assistant priest during holidays back home - not least in the "Tin mission" down at nearby East Howle.

That's when, in the summer of 1951, Joe Stephenson and his fiancÉe Joan come onto the scene. Joe McManners was to marry them but was ill and couldn't get out of bed bed. Young Jack stood in for his first-ever wedding.

"My wife was quite worried that we weren't properly married. She thought he might still be a student and not qualified," recalls Joe, now in Newton Aycliffe.

They'd known one another from village dances, both joined the Army - he was REME, she ATS - met again while on leave at Christmas 1950. Four letters later, they were engaged.

It was in 1983, again in the Echo, that they spotted another story about Jack McManners's extraordinary accomplishments. Joe wrote to ask if he remembered that wedding day, back in August 1951.

"I recall that in the vestry after the service, you remarked that I seemed nervous. I said I was because I'd never done this before. You said 'No, neither have I'.

"I doubt if you will remember this minor incident in your life, but after 32 years of very, very happy marriage, you will understand that we do."

Prof McManners replied at once - his hand best described as professorial, his style intimate and affectionate. Of course he remembered, he said.

He assured them that he was fully qualified, that there really was no just cause or impediment why they hadn't been lawfully joined together, but added that he'd only conducted two weddings since coming to Oxford.

He talked modestly of his achievements and proudly of his sons, both safely returned from front-line action in the Falklands, explained why he'd be staying in Oxford.

As well he might, Joe Stephenson kept the letter. Fifty five years after they became man and wife at All Saints church in Ferryhill, he and Joan remain blissfully happy - "probably more than ever," says Joe, known to his wife (as he had been to his comrades-in-arms) as Steve.

They are a delightful couple who help make a point for our times. For Joe and Joan Stephenson, today's a red-letter day, too.

ends

That there is standing room only in tomorrow's John North column is because of the reunion, at Trimdon Village Labour Club last Friday, of former Trimdon Motor Services bus company staff.

TMS was a company run for its passengers, the occasion a reminder of the days when bus travel was a social occasion and not a necessary endurance. It was also a reminder - something else to put in writing - that not all today's newspapers are tomorrow's fish and chip wrappings.

We were approached by a chap who, 29 years ago, had been a driver with the United. Then as now, all sorts of strange vehicles were being brought from elsewhere in order to keep the show on the road.

This was the interminable 213, Darlington to Peterlee and Sunderland. The bus was an elderly, protesting relic, a sort of school-knicker green. The journey may best be described as difficult.

"From somewhere in the midst of that green goddess," we wrote in 1977, "came the utterly inappropriate sound of Glenn Miller playing In the Mood."

Affably, eternally, the former driver quoted it verbatim. In the mood? "Bloody hell," he said, "I didn't have get bollocked for that."

ends