John North: Calling on deaf ears

"I believe that people have the right to hear the Gospel in their own language," he says. "For deaf people, that's sign language."

A three day flower festival at St Clare's in Newton Aycliffe has been dedicated in his honour; the Bishop of Durham leads a special Holy Communion service at the church on Sunday afternoon.

He lip reads perfectly and speaks clearly, talking of "Deaf Church" and "Hearing Church" - "the one everyone else belongs to". First impression over the coffee cups, we supposed it to be "Heathen church". The prospect was briefly fascinating.

That it is also St Clare's golden jubilee isn't entirely coincidental, but the Rev Linda Potter - Great Aycliffe's team rector - insists that the flower festival is principally to salute Don, now 73.

"Fifty years of a building is fine, but fifty years of live ministry is quite remarkable. Don is a truly amazing man whose ministry is both pastoral and sacramental. We think it entirely appropriate to build the festival around him."

Formerly employed in horticulture and forestry - "I must have planted most of the trees in Newton Aycliffe, a fair amount of them, anyway" - he was born in Middlesbrough, educated in Stockton and has long been in the once-new town.

He became deaf after contracting meningitis at the age of nine, the disease also temporarily affecting his walking and his memory.

Even then, he went to church. "The headmistress at the school for the deaf would tell me on Monday morning about the service the day before.

"I used to go with my family and ask them what the sermon had been about. They said they'd tell me later; they never did."

His first formal Deaf Church involvement was at Bishop Auckland, where he was park manager and helped at the local mission.

Since then he has ministered all over the region, becoming a powerful and nationally recognised voice for deaf people and, despite his own disability, a ready ear for their problems.

He was chairman of the Council for Communication Among Deaf People, which he helped form; chairman of the Deaf Mountaineering Club, an executive member of the British Deaf Association and has taught sign language to around 200 people a year.

Until a recent illness, he led monthly Deaf Church services in Stockton, Sunderland, Newcastle and Darlington. "Hearing people have the choice of dozens of services," he says. "Deaf people have no choice whatever.

"In the future, more deaf people will go hearing churches, with interpreters."

Sadly, however, his wife Marjorie - who was also deaf - died on Good Friday, less than three months before his big weekend. He led a service on Easter Sunday and realised that he had to carry on.

"Marjorie was really looking forward to it. My ministry had been her ministry as well, I couldn't have done it without her

"I'd tried to look after her for quite some time. When she died I took a deep breath and started to pick myself up again. It was a wonderful service at Easter."

He's driven, he says, by something inside. "I think if I come to a road and there's an easy path and a hard path, I tend to take the hard path. It's so easy to give up, but it's not always the best way out.

"I question the Church sometimes but my faith? No, I don't think I've ever questioned that."

* Called "The church blossoms", St Clare's flower festival begins tomorrow evening and is open to the public on Saturday and Sunday. The service to mark Don Read's 50-year ministry is at 3pm on Sunday.

Teesside Airport railway station, as these columns have observed before, may not be the place for jet setters. Since there's only one stopping train a week in each direction, it's hardly surprising.

Now the down to earth statistics. Of Britain's 2,496 stations, the airport is 2,489th least used.

Put differently, just 25 passengers caught a train there in the financial year 2002-03 - a passenger every fortnight - and 31 got off.

Even those extraordinary figures, recently revealed by the Strategic Rail Authority, may need dumbing downwards, however.

Barry Links, the least busy station, had just three passengers a year but may slightly have been inconvenienced by the fact that it didn't appear in the timetable - neither, on the same Scottish line, did Golf Street which somehow still managed nine passengers.

Gainsborough, five passengers a year, has only a Saturday service - and a much busier station elsewhere in the town. Watford West, up to 2,493rd, had only one train on weekdays and none at the weekend. It left at 6.45am.

Sugar Loaf, the Welsh wayside halt which the column last year supposed to be Britain's quietest, has risen to 2,483rd - almost a passenger a week.

London bridge is the country's most populous station with almost 40 million passengers in either direction during the year; Waterloo, Victoria and Kings Cross filled the next three places. York was the North-East's busiest station, British Steel Redcar - one train a day in each direction - the second quietest.

Already less than ready for take-off, Teesside Airport station may further be affected by the new regular bus service from Darlington - the Teesside Flyer, or some such. So far as regular observation can tell, no-one uses that, either.

THE Lyke Wake Walk, like nothing else on earth, is staggering to an end. A "wake" on October 1, yet more funereal than most, marks the official end exactly 50 years after the Walk's inception.

It was devised by North Yorkshire farmer and historian Bill Cowley, marked from the start by coffin badges and mournful mementoes and stretching 42 rough and tumble miles, rising 4,000ft, between Osmotherley and Ravenscar.

Successful walkers became Dirgers, multiple crossings earned the lugubrious accolade Master of Misery, officials included the Anxious Almoner and the Harassed Archivist.

Yet sadder to relate, the closure decision is being opposed by a group of southern members who plan a new club. "The result was an acrimonious discussion and offence caused to the late founder's family," says Lyke Wake company secretary Paul Sherwood.

"The Lyke Wake Club, the directors of the Lyke Wake Company and the Cowley family are strongly opposed to this action."

At its peak, 15,000 people a year, usually sponsored, completed the crossing. Now there are 32 designated "walks" on the North Yorkshire Moors alone and recent figures have fallen to below 500. The Lyke Wake Club's rented office and paid secretariat are gone.

The final wake, to which all former Dirgers and witches are invited, is at the Raven Hall Hotel - the walk's eastern terminus at Ravenscar - on October 1. Tickets, £25 including three course dinner, from the Lyke Wake Club, PO Box 24, Northallerton DL6 3HZ before the end of June. RIP.

DARLINGTON'S James boys both have pubs called the Hole in the Wall. Greg runs a bar of that name in Tenerife, Steve has the equivalent in Darlington market place.

Next Wednesday, Fergal Flaherty - former owner of the Tenerife bar and one of Ireland's most popular country singers - appears at Darlington's Hole in the Wall in aid of breast cancer research.

Our informant's pretty regular at both ends of the Wall. "Fergal," he says, "is absolutely brilliant."

...and finally, another musical note. Detecting the column's liking for singing - "especially hymns like Thine Be the Glory" - Dave Tyson invites us for some tuition.

Dave's chairman of a new close harmony group called Northern Accord - barber shop, if not cut throat - which is offering a series of free lessons to any interested men.

The cours e starts on Tuesday, June 21 (6.30-7.30pm) at the Masonic Hall in Mill Lane, Billingham. While there aren't enough lessons in the world to make this column melodious, others would much be welcomed. Dave's on (01429) 263943.

ACTION STATIONS: the North-East's ten busiest railway stations in 2002-03, the annual number of "station entries" followed by the number of "exits". Overall position in brackets.

York (38th): 2,500,244, 2,485,152; Newcastle (39th): 2,459,693, 2,409,959; Darlington (186th): 753,895, 755,387; Durham (204th): 684,314, 675,111; Middlesbrough (307th): 445,229, 447,494; Harrogate (312th): 444,915, 442,960;

Scarborough (412th): 336,986, 329,802; Sunderland (549th): 228,864, 235,575; MetroCentre (669th): 170,462, 172,564; Berwick-upon-Tweed (689th): 165,773, 165,335.

INACTION STATIONS: the region's ten least used stations.

Teesside Airport (2,489th): 25, 31; Redcar British Steel (2,469th): 102, 95; South Bank (2,453rd): 187, 243; East Boldon (2,429th): 377, 1,191; Kildale (2,397th): 627, 746;

Battersby (2,396th): 627, 687; Manors (2,392nd): 656, 753; Blaydon (2,357th): 1,066, 1,084; Ruswarp (2,355th): 1,072, 931; Sleights (2,343rd): 1,219, 1,263.