IN his From the Editor’s Chair column (Echo, Jan 31), Peter Barron explained something that I have misunderstood for most of my life – where my father got the term “nig nog” to describe the imaginative writing I did in exercise books as a child.

It led me to the conclusion my parents must have been racist. I am afraid they did not explain that other children had similar fantasies about other worlds and this was recognised by The Northern Echo when a well-supported club, called the Nig Nog Ring, was formed in 1929. I thought that I was regarded as rather odd.

Looking back on other things my parents would say, I think they might have been mildly racist, perhaps no more than most people at the time, but I wish they had explained that what I was doing was not out of keeping with the private writing of many children. It would have made me feel more comfortable As to banter, I think both sexes do it and how it is received has to do with the sensitivities of the people who hear it. With regard to football’s offside rule, it was explained to me most lucidly by a woman.

Geoffrey Bulmer, Billingham.

* Footnote: Nig and Nog were County Durham vernacular terms for boy and girl.