All is revealed

HE was Durham’s first cricket streaker, a barefaced cheeky beggar who stumped England wicket-keeper Alec Stewart. Though little else was left to the imagination, his identity has hitherto been rather better hidden.

Ten years on, however, the name of the man who got his kit off for the lads – and for the lasses, too – may at last be revealed.

It happened on Saturday, July 15, 2000, when the streaker tried to salute Stewart during the one-day international between England and the West Indies at Chester-le-Street, watched by a capacity 15,000 crowd and millions of television viewers.

Ready for take-off, the Press Association photograph appeared everywhere from the News of the World to The Northern Echo. The hat looked familiar, anyway.

Good nudes week, it can now be disclosed that the man on the silly mid-off chance was Neville Brass – as in brass neck, and probably quite a few other bits, an’ all – and that folk around his native Shildon are likely to be seeing quite a bit more of him.

Complete with Echo cutting and original headgear, Neville turned up earlier this month at a photo shoot for a fund-raising calendar for Shildon Railway Cricket Club.

“We couldn’t believe it,” says club treasurer and retired head teacher John Brennan. “I’d vaguely heard the story but never expected it to be reconstructed here. There’s no doubt that it was Neville on the original.

“Apparently the beer had been flowing, a couple of bets had been made and him and this other feller were off and running. Neville was definitely first.

“There was this rather posh couple and their daughter next to them and Neville, who’s really a bit shy, explained what was about to happen and asked if they’d mind. They not only didn’t mind but they had their photograph taken with him.”

Neville is believed to have told Stewart, the England captain, that he was his hero.

Titfer tat? “I don’t think Alec’s reply was quite in the same vein, in fact I don’t think it was printable at all,” says John.

Thrown out of the ground, the pair swapped a bit of clothing and, unchecked, strolled back in again.

Back in Shildon, Luke Mumford was persuaded to play the part of Alec Stewart – rather less well padded – as local photographer Neil Harbottle recreated the shot.

On a quiet Sunday morning and an otherwise deserted ground, another 12 of the town’s finest also agreed to offer stark contrast to the packed house at Chester-le-Street.

The oldest was 78-year-old retired bookie Jack Wild, second left, who – having declared a divested interest – forgot where he’d left his clothes.

“Everyone was great sports,” says John. “There was really good camaraderie, everything I’d hoped there’d be.”

Neville, who lives in Shildon and is a factory worker in Newton Aycliffe, has been unavailable to make further disclosures. The calendar, for club funds, will be available in October.

ANOTHER winning streak, John Brennan’s son Andrew reached the last nine – the final table – of the English Poker Open championship this week at the Palm Beach Casino in Mayfair.

A former Newcastle University student, Andrew now lives in Startforth, near Barnard Castle, and works in information technology.

“I think it started when he needed to make a bit of money at university.

Now he runs it as a little business.

He’s won all sorts” says his dad.

“I can’t imagine where he got it from. I’ve never got further than snap and my father wouldn’t allow a pack of cards in the house.”

On the way to the final, Andrew beat English Pool Tournament winner Liv Boeree, a lady said to be the very opposite of poker-faced.

“It’s a shame I couldn’t sit opposite her a bit longer. I’ve just been fortunate,”

he said.

STILL on a sporting theme – the Backtrack column overflows – we hear that the original FA Amateur Cup is to make a return to Bishop Auckland, the town which all but owned it.

The Bishops won the trophy ten times, including a unique hat-trick of victories from 1955-57. Because of its value and fragile condition, it’s rarely allowed out of the FA’s corporate sight.

Next Tuesday evening, however, the cup will be on display at Bishop Auckland Town Hall at a talk-in in memory of Bob Hardisty, the most famous amateur player of all.

The venue’s appropriate. It was from the town hall balcony that the triumphant team so often held aloft the trophy as thousands thronged the market square below. The competition ceased in 1974.

That Bishop Auckland is again up for the Cup is chiefly due to Tony Huntingdon, chairman of the Durham Amateur Football Trust which seeks to preserve memories of the area’s football golden age.

“I don’t know how he’s persuaded the FA to let us have it,” says Trust spokesman John Phelan. “It’s costing us quite a lot of money for security and the like, but it’s fantastic to have it back in the town.”

The talk-in, to be attended by several players from the 1950s, marks both a Bob Hardisty exhibition – at the town hall until September 30 – and the publication of Never Again, Alan Adamthwaite’s already acclaimed Hardisty biography.

Hardisty, a PE lecturer and son of a local fruiterer, captained the Great Britain football team in Olympic Games and also played for Manchester United reserves after the Munich disaster.

DAFT hopes that groups and individuals will want to be photographed with the trophy. They’re on 01388-772524, John Phelan’s on 01388-768551.

High church

WALKING taller than ever, that very high churchman Stephen Conway – 6ft 6ins in his purple socks – is to be the new Bishop of Ely.

When four years ago he became Bishop of Ramsbury – assistant to the Bishop of Salisbury – the former Darlington vicar had to travel to Rome to find an outfitter supplying off-the-peg episcopal attire that would fit. “A sort of ecclesiastical Long Tall Sally,” the column said at the time.

It included a ready-made mitre.

“I’ll be 9ft tall in that,” he said.

Now, head and shoulders above the rest, he is to be translated to one of the Church of England’s senior dioceses.

The At Your Service column had attended his Ramsbury consecration, at St Paul’s Cathedral. “I thought at first they must have got the wrong man,” he said.

Though brought up in Brixton, the first member of his family to attend university and also a made-to-measure basketball coach, the genial Bishop Conway spent all his ministry in the Durham diocese before moving to Salisbury.

He was a curate in Gateshead and Sunderland, vicar of Cockerton, Darlington, senior chaplain to the Bishop of Durham and then Archdeacon of Durham.

Long-gone predecessors as Bishop of Ramsbury include Oda the Severe, Sigeric the Serious and plain Aelric, all of whom became Archbishop of Canterbury.

That was 1,000 years ago. “The tradition ends here,” he’d insisted in 2006. Unavailable this week to deny the possibility of yet further elevation, he is still just 52.

Dr David Stancliffe, recently retired Bishop of Salisbury, described his former colleague as lively minded, clear thinking, hard working and great fun.

“While he is wonderful in church, every inch a bishop, he’s equally at home around the kitchen table afterwards.”

IF not quite enthralled by Boring Field, Northallerton mountaineer Alan Hinkes reports that it was by no means the nadir of his upwardly mobile tour of England.

The amiable Hinkes, learning curves usually altogether more vertiginous, had set himself the challenge of reaching – within a week – the highest point of all 39 traditional counties. Boring Field was Huntingdonshire’s, just 263ft above sea level, but still considerably more enthralling than the joy of Middlesex.

“Basically the highest point is a set of traffic lights in Bushey Heath. We went there by car, someone took my photograph and it caused a bit of a hold-up. Several other cars turned around; we were told that they thought there’d been a robbery.”

His highs and lows raised money for mountain rescue. “It was all a bit hectic,” he says. “I’d like to do it again, but next time over a month.”

RECKONED 150 years older than Durham Cathedral, St Andrew’s church in Aycliffe Village was the setting for the season’s final flower festival – or, more correctly, of mine.

“A great success both financially and socially. It really brought the community together,” reports Dawn Herbert, the principal organiser.

Blooming brilliance owed much to the two main arrangers, the ageless Norman Deacon from Tow Law – “I’m lucky to live where there are so many rowan trees,” he said – and Kathleen Edmenson from Chilton, similarly ageless, but now 80.

The splendid Mrs Edmenson was keen to talk about Melanie Attwood, her daughter, at the time close to completing a London to Paris cycle ride on the bike custom-built for Bob, her late father.

Bob raced with Ferryhill Wheelers; Kathleen was more a social cyclist.

The Wheelers helped prepare both bike and rider for the cross- Channel event.

“The bike had just hung in the attic since Bob died 17 years ago. It was a lovely thing for Melanie to do in his memory,” said Kathleen.

Melanie, who lives in Scorton, near Richmond, raised funds for the Great North Air Ambulance. Dismounted, she still hasn’t been round to spin further.

NEATLY headlined “Bovine intervention”, we wrote in September 2008 of a memorable harvest festival service in the hay shed at Marley Moor Farm where Canon David Kennedy had to be interrupted because the cows had got out. That the steps collapsed beneath him may also have left an impression.

“I decided that was definitely the last one,” says Pauline Bowles, who lives on the farm – between Ingleton and Wackerfield, in south Durham – so, of course, there’s another this Sunday.

It’ll be led by Canon David Hinge, retired vicar of Etherley, who now lives in Ingleton, with music by a group from St Andrew’s in Haughton, Darlington.

The service starts at 6pm, proceeds to Ingleton church funds, the supper most warmly to be recommended.

All, save for the cows, are most welcome.

AFEW more church notices with which to finish, and firstly that Reeth Methodists, in Swaledale, stage a harvest concert evening by the Thornton Watlass Choral Group at 7.30pm this Saturday.

Tickets are £6, including refreshments, and are available at the door.

Sunniside, above Crook, hasn’t had a church in memory but the Methodists are organising a harvest celebration – café church-style – in the community centre on Sunday at 3pm. Every house has been leafleted; others welcome, too.

A little further ahead, St Mark’s church in Eldon is hosting an “Images of Eldon” exhibition on Thursday, October 21 from 10am to 4pm and 6pm to 8pm. It features maps and photographs from the village and surrounding areas from 1850 to 2000.

Refreshments available all day.