Postie’s fresh delivery

It sounds like a perfect place to be stuck, with plenty of warm luxury and fine food.

But this was not the case — far from it.

His emergency refuge for this wintry spell was the Bowes Moor Hotel, beside the A66, after his mail van was trapped in a drift.

“The problem was that there was no food at all in the place,”

said jovial Harry, who is now a lively 78-year-old great grandfather.

“The only thing I was offered was a mouldy peach melba, which was found at the back of a cupboard. It was uneatable.”

Luckily another traveller marooned with him was a chef from Scotch Corner Hotel. The pair raked around the kitchen and found a large supply of sweet mincemeat, plus some flour and fat.

The chef baked a pile of mince pies with a little help from the postie. Then he rustled up another heap, and another, so they lived on these festive treats for the three days.

“We ended up with a great mound of mince pies, so when I left I took home a biscuit tin full of them,” added Harry.

He had a part-time job as a bingo caller in the Victoria Hall, in Barnard Castle, so when he went on duty there that night he took along an array of the pies, and gave them out as extra prizes to those who had winning lines.

The hotel was owned then by a man who didn’t give them much help and neither did his lady friend.

Another postman, Harry Raw, was stranded at Langdon Beck Hotel for a week around that time and was treated royally, with a full English breakfast, tasty lunch and threecourse evening meal each day.

“He was treated as a prince, but I was dealt with like a pauper,”

said the mailman who came off second best.

He was also unlucky in another way. He was technically on duty all the time he was stranded, so he had visions of his overtime pay clicking up steadily. But he was given only his normal wage.

The hotel bill, which came to £2 10 shillings, was paid by postmaster Frank Warwick, however.

Harry also had a memorable adventure during his retirement.

He was in the Disney film The Spaceman and King Arthur, which was filmed at Alnwick Castle.

He started as an extra but played a chicken seller, wearing an apron smattered in fake blood.

During several weeks of filming he was told not to shave or have a haircut, so his appearance became rather wild — just right for the scenes he was in.

An acquaintance met him in a street one day, chatted for a few moments then told a mutual friend: “Poor old Harry’s gone mad. He looks rough and has a ridiculous idea that he’s working on a Disney film.”

Later, a policeman arrived at his home in Sunderland, where he moved to from Teesdale, and said they had received a report of him going round wearing a blood-stained apron.

This had to be checked in case a crime had been committed, the bobby explained.

Harry told him about the film and then mentioned his postal career in the dale. It turned out the officer had spent some years in Staindrop, so they had a good old chinwag about days gone by.

An internet description of the film lists cast members including Ron Moody, Kenneth More, John le Mesurier... and Harry Maddison. What a lineup.

IT was a sight that must have made women and children scream as they ran for cover – a vast army of rats scurrying through a town centre. The vermin wriggled out of Woodifield Colliery, at Crook , after it closed for several months in 1884, and squirmed their way along roads in an enormous flurry. It was like a scene from Hamelin, but without the Pied Piper.

Edward Lloyd told the story in his 1916 book on the history of Crook and its Co-operative movement. “All the rats in the workings came out together and journeyed down Commercial Street in an almost solid mass of thousands upon thousands,” he reported.

Imagine the television coverage, newspaper headlines and demands for action if there was such an invasion today.

Families back then probably spent sleepless nights fearing the horrible creatures would gnaw a route into their homes.

Miners may well have been used to them in the pit, but no one could blame others for being scared and sickened.

The rats eventually disappeared into sewers and down other mines, but there was always a feeling that they might return. Perhaps some of them went back to Woodifield when it restarted.

The mine was opened in 1843 and closed for good in 1909, when 158 men lost their jobs.

THE railway arrived in Crook in 1843, but Edward Lloyd’s book says the poor service was the despair of townspeople and visitors.

The first rail excursion was to Redcar in carriages like cattle trucks. The journey took over five hours, so there could be little time for weary passengers to relax on the beach.

Crook was given its first lock-up in 1851. It was needed as the population, including many miners who liked to sink copious pints of ale, was said to be not the most orderly.

Thirsts could be quenched in six hostelries – Bay Horse (landlord John Robinson), Crown (John Dickenson), Horse Shoe (Eleanor Linton), Queen’s Head (Thomas Bell), Railway Tavern (Mary Hope) and Royal Oak (John Botham).

Commercial Street, Crook

Until the lock-up arrived, prisoners nabbed for drunkenness or other offences had to be taken six or seven miles to Bishop Auckland or Wolsingham, so the new cells were a great convenience.

An outbreak of cholera caused many deaths in 1853. It was blamed on the lack of lavatories in houses.

People often carried human waste out in buckets and dumped it on the v i l l a g e green, a custom that was not in the interests of public health. An official report called for all new houses to have lavatories.

There was a good mail service in 1855, with Ralph Dickenson in charge as postmaster.

The town cemetery opened that year, with John Jordan the first to be buried. It was a busy place with two sections.

Between them they had 13,700 burials up to 1915. The total was more than the population of Crook and nearby Billy Row that year.

ONE of the regular sporting events in the dales over a century ago were handicap foot races.

Men would train hard, running on their own or with a few friends, on quiet roads or pastures, in the hope of winning money. If they got lucky at a meeting they could take home enough to feed their families for weeks.

In times of a shortage of work, the entry for races tended to rise sharply, as some runners saw it as their only hope of a jackpot.

An example was a handicap promoted by Isaac Hodgson on Bishop Auckland running ground in 1872. No fewer than 65 men put their names down for the 100-yard sprint, so it was split into 16 heats, with the winner of each one going into the final. The handicap system meant each of the 65 had a chance of a prize.

It all depended on a committee which decided the starting position of all of them.

It was up to the pistol firer, R Cranson, of Crook, and referee, R Rogerson, to ensure nobody jumped the gun or got up to any trickery.

A large crowd gathered for the heats on a Saturday and the runners had supporters cheering them home.

The heat winners were given two days to prepare for the final, which attracted a huge Monday crowd.

Fred Bainbridge, of Bishop Auckland, triumphed to take first prize of £7, which could be close to two months’ wages.

Second was John Coates, who pocketed 30 shillings.

Third was L Kipling, whose prize was £1. Fourth was G Pears, who got ten shillings.

That didn’t seem much for all his effort. But imagine the dismay of the other 12 finalists.

They would have dreamed how they could spend any winnings, but then went home with nothing.

• Readers have asked why violin maker Cliff Tunstall was wearing a dressing gown in last week’s photograph. I should have mentioned that he was recovering from a back operation and was not long out of hospital when I called on him.