Every Doggarts has its day

A memorabilia exhibition opens on June 23 in the Discovery Centre in Bishop Auckland, across the market place from the family business's former emporium and much missed headquarters. Organisers have also driven to ground a Doggarts Morris Minor van, immaculately restored in corporate green.

"It's part of the family. I even brought my baby son home from hospital in this," says owner Nev Wright, from Cockfield.

"I drive it round the lanes and you can almost hear people asking each other if Doggarts are back in business again."

Led by Bishop Auckland town centre manager Derek Toon, the projects group has contacted more than 20 former Doggarts workers and obtained funding for a historian to interview them.

Nev Wright was one of a car rallying team sponsored in the 1970s by the Doggart brothers. Though both were albino and couldn't drive, they had a "fantastic" collection of classic cars, he says.

"I got on with them very well and one day before the shops closed they just called in an offered me the van."

Always a car lover - "I used to drive me best car in the summer and use an old van in the winter" - he now allows the Doggarts van to hibernate until the spring.

It has won the commercial section of the London to Brighton rally and is reckoned Britain's best example of a preserved Morris Minor van.

"I worked on it for six months solid, every night and every weekend," says Nev. "It was a colossal job but I'm very proud of it now." The aim is to have a permanent Doggarts memorial in Bishop Auckland.

FURTHER to recent suggestions hereabouts that Billingham may not be at the region's cultural epicentre, Pete Sixsmith in Shidon recalls a book by actor and journalist Michael Simkin on the life and times of an itinerant thespian.

No visit was more fearfully recalled, says Pete, than the week Simkin played The Merchant of Venice at Billingham Forum and Billingham - town, not gallant theatre - won hands down.

Unfortunately, he gave his copy to his hairdresser. Does anyone other than Pete's barber own one?

WITHOUT a lot to go on, last week's column examined the curious case of Merry Hampton. It may no longer be a laughing matter.

Originally a Derby winning racehorse, Merry Hampton gave its name to one of the class A3 steam locomotives familiar on the east coast main line from the late 1930s.

Others with a fine equine pedigree included Victor Wild, Isinglass, Gay Husaar, Robert the Devil, Spion Kop, Woolwinder and Neil Gow. Their original nameplates have become much sought after collectors' items, fetching up to £20,000.

Pressure gauges were raised, therefore, when Thomas Watson's auction house in Darlington not only sold a Merry Hampton "sign" - as they called it - for £2,500 but took an advertisement in the Echo to boast about their achievement.

They were raised much further when Watson's admitted that the reserve price had been just £40 and that they still had no idea if the nameplate were genuine or not.

As a railway buff might, John Williamson in Newton Aycliffe was among those who spotted the story. While he thought it was probably a replica, he conceded that £2,500 was an awful lot to pay for one.

We then spoke to Newton Replicas in Nottingham, who for around £375, produce made-to-order nameplates for A3s - and for many other classes.

"It's never our intention to make an indistinguishable replica. In most cases there is something by which you can tell quite easily," said Chris Donovan - Donovan, coincidentally, was also an A3.

"The replicas are probably going to appreciate but £2,500 is a great deal to pay and £20,000 roughly typical for an original."

Thomas Watson's, perhaps with other things on their plate, haven't returned the latest calls inquiring if everything was A1 about the A3. Eventually, therefore, we contacted Ian Wright at Sheffield Railwayana Auctions who confirmed that the Merry Hampton nameplate was an original.

"I know who bought it, probably worth £15,000," says Ian. "I'm afraid that the vendor has been very badly served."

WHILE we know one or two fiendish Roberts, there are neither Victor Wilds nor gay Hussars among the column's acquaintance. Should Mrs Dorrie Hampton be wondering what to buy her ever-genial old feller for his next birthday, however - Gordon Hampton is chairman of Shildon Football Club - details of Merry Hampton and all other replica nameplates can be had on www.newtonreplicas.com

BILL Dixon, deputy leader of Darlington Borough Council, reports much amusement in the town hall car park last week when a visiting rep locked himself out of his van and for 15 minutes, was unable to get back in because of an efficiently wailing security system. The van belonged to the ADT Fire and Alarm Company. "At least," says Bill, "they work."

LAST week's news that the North-East is the country's second muckiest region, after London, may not be particularly startling.

More surprising was that the survey was produced by an environmental umbrella group called ENCAMS, formerly Keep Britain Tidy.

We asked John Briggs in Darlington to suggest other examples where a perfectly good and immediately understandable name had been replaced by something much more obscure. What about Durham Tees Valley Airport, he said.

THE heavier papers also reported that the ptarmigan - "a wild bird of the grouse family" - is in imminent danger of extinction, thus removing from both the planet and the dictionary the only living creature with a name beginning "pt". (The pterodactyl unfortunately pre-deceased it.) It was therefore a great joy to discover at Saturday's match between Easington Colliery and Evenwood that a home defender was called Tom Ptak. He should become subject of a conservation order forthwith.

...and finally, thanks to all those who have inquired about the creeping, weeping progress of the ulcerated ankle. Pauline Hustwick in Scorton, near Richmond, went further. Unable to offer a medical cure, she sent some of her home made tomato chutney and pickled red cabbage as a pick-me-up instead. The good news is that, both physically and psychologically, they seem to be working a treat.