A planning saga, an amorous grocer and true love?

As we were saying, the first planning dispute in Barnard Castle was between the council and fishmonger John Harris, of Horsemarket. After having three applications for permission to install a new window rejected, in February 1904, Mr Harris went ahead and built the window (it can still be seen, now part of Victoria Wine).

The council gave him 14 days to remove it, or else… On the morning of his deadline, Barney wags rolled a Boer War cannon in front of his shop and hung from its barrel the order: “Surrender or Die”. Mr Harris replied by painting “No Surrender” on his shop window.

He didn’t lie down and the council stuck to its guns. The case rumbled through the courts, reaching the King’s Bench Division of the High Court in London, before no less a figure than the Lord Chief Justice, on December 20, 1905.

Sitting with two fellow judges, the Lord Chief Justice dismissed the council’s case and said that Echo Memories recounts the story of Barnard Castle’s first planning dispute, examines a withdrawn offer of marriage and looks back at the life and loves of one of Darlington’s first glamour girls BARNEY WAGS: John Harris’ shop with the Boer War cannon pointing at it “the matter was a very trumpery one”.

What a word! (“Foolish talk or actions…a useless or worthless article,” says the dictionary.) Costs were awarded against the council – meaning that the ratepayers of Barney eventually footed the bill for the wrongful persecution of the fishmonger.

The ridiculousness of the proceedings was enjoyed throughout County Durham, and was captured in a verse entitled Barney’s Fishy Tale, which was to be sung to the tune of The Old Grey Mare. Barney historian Alan Wilkinson has kindly sent in a copy.

These Justices three, without much ado, Said the case was trivial and trumpery too, So giving decision, of course, Barney lost, And in the New Year will be paying the cost.

When the news came to Barney before you could sneeze, The flag ‘No surrender’ was free to the breeze, And the Marketers gazed, with wonder amazed, And ’twas said that the council were nearly all crazed.

I now friends, have got to the end of my story, And can’t, for the life, say whether Liberal or Tory Has landed poor Barney in for the lashing, But think you’ll admit, ’twas a really good thrashing.

ON the same day – Thursday, December 21, 1905 – that The Northern Echo reported the Lord Chief Justice’s decision, only a column away was an even better story from the London Sheriff’s Court.

It is a story concerning Edward Mantle, a grocer who had three shops and a cafe in Newgate Street, Bishop Auckland.

When Mr Mantle’s wife died, in August 1904, he rekindled romance with an old flame – Miss Emily Hammond, a milliner of Brierley Hill, London. “Miss Hammond,” said the Echo, “had reached that stage of life when she should know her own mind, and when she should be glad to settle down.”

In September 1904, after barely a month of widowhood, Mr Mantle visited Brierley Hill, no doubt seeking consolation. The Echo said that he “stayed from Saturday to Monday” – a line that suggests a degree of intimacy in the rekindled relationship.

On October 2, back in Bishop Auckland, Mr Mantle wrote to Miss Hammond – “Emmie”, as he called her.

He wrote: “Now, my darling, I am coming to the object of my letter. Will you come at the expiration of the usual time in such cases to be my darling, sweet little wife?

“I am sure I can make you happy, and I am certain you can make me so. I love you – and I can give you no higher praise – because you are so like my darling Annie – a sweet, devoted, unselfish little pet.”

Being “a little wife” who was reminiscent of the late wife must have appealed to Emmie, and on October 5, she sent a letter accepting the proposal of marriage and a date was set for the following August.

Mr Mantle informed his children that they were to gain a step-mother. But rather than being happy for their father, they became so “antagonistic” that Mr Mantle – labelled “the artful widower” by the Echo – tried to wriggle out of his proposal.

“He began to detract from his own attractiveness by telling Emmie that he had ‘got a lot of boils’,” said the Echo, “and that he really was not so nice as she thought he might be.”.

“On April 12, he wrote from Harrogate saying definitely he was not able to marry her, and adding: ‘May God bless and keep you in His everlasting arms’.

“That, counsel commented, in view of the way in which this amorous grocer had acted was as blasphemous a thing as he could possibly write to a woman whose life he was spoiling.”

He was spoiling it, the London Sheriff’s Court heard, because Emmie had made plans.

“Miss Hammond, an attractive- looking lady, wearing an astrachan coat with black hat, gave evidence,” said the Echo. She said that so she could move north to be with her beloved in Bishop, she had put her millinery shop up for sale. “In consequence, the takings fell off to the extent of £3 or £4 a week,” she said.

Knowing that it would be inappropriate for her mother to continue to share her house, she had splashed out £450 on a new home for the old dear.

“That house was still untenanted, and represented a considerable loss.”

So she was suing Mr Mantle for breach of promise. The court agreed that when she said “I do”

she had entered into a contract with the back-sliding shopkeeper, and he was awarded to pay the unlucky woman £400 damages.

“Love romance terminates in sheriff’s court,” said the Echo’s headline. TALKING of love and romance, we have been on the trail recently of the beautiful Edwardian actress Maud Darling, who is said to have had an affair with Signor Rino Pepi, the wonderfully flamboyant founder of Darlington Civic Theatre and hippodromes in Bishop Auckland, Shildon and Middlesbrough.

With the help of reader Dorothea Raper, whose late husband was Maud’s great-nephew, the trail has become warm again after 100 years.

Maud was born Olive Watson in 1881, the eldest daughter of William Watson whose saddlery shop was on the top corner of Tubwell Row for most of the 19th Century.

William, who died in 1915, was a great sportsman. He was secretary of Darlington Cricket Club when it played on the Park Street ground on Bank Top; he was a director of Darlington Football Club. Hare coursing was probably his greatest love, and he attended 52 Waterloo Cups in Liverpool.

He wasn’t, though, a fan of the stage. “My grandfather didn’t think it was the right kind of life for a young girl, so he went with her when she first went to London to see everything was all right,” remember Maud’s niece, Mollie Watson, in 1991.

As Olive Watson wasn’t a proper thespian’s name, Maud adapted her hometown to create a romantic nom de tèâtre.

Aged 19 in 1900, she was appearing as Princess Aurora in a Humpty Dumpty panto in Protheroe, Bristol. In November 1901, she headlined for a week at the Theatre Royal in Northgate, Darlington, in two plays: The Belle of New York and Fifi.

Where her career took her next is unknown, although family legend suggests she toured America.

Family legend also supports theatre legend which says she had a liaison with Sr Pepi. He was in Darlington from 1907 to 1927, and was a single man after the death of his wife, the Countess de Rosetti, in 1915.

However, when Maud attended the funeral of her father in that year, she was listed in the local papers as “Mrs LB Holford”.

Mr Holford was an Army officer, and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission records the death of only one First World War serviceman called LB Holford.

He was a second lieutenant who died in Liverpool in 1919.

So Maud was free, either to see Sr Pepi – and/or someone else.

The Watson family bible says she died aged 46 on November 12, 1927. The Northern Despatch a few days later carried a short obituary which said: “A Darlington woman, Mrs Maud Selkirk, who a number of years ago was a well-known provincial actress, has died at the Knoll Cottage, Walberswick, Southwold. She was the wife of Mr FC Selkirk of Walberswick, the daughter of Mr William Watson (remembered as “Saddler Watson”) of 2 Trinity Road, Darlington.”

And so the trail runs out in one of Suffolk’s most desireable seaside villages – a suitable resting place for the adorable Maud.

By coincidence, Sr Pepi died only five days after Maud.