REPORTS of John Short's death were happily exaggerated, though they came quickly to the ears of his mate Bill McInnes.

"It was Durham Regatta day, " Bill recalls. "The news just about flew up and down the Racecourse.

There must have been thousands knew about it." Bitterly appropriate for an oarsman, John's stroke had been massive but not fatal, nonetheless. "I lost my memory, everything, " says John. "I was just out of it for two years really." Then someone suggested he returned to the river, where he'd rowed for almost 40 years before the illness, in 1986. At 79 he's still out there three times a week, the oldest active member of Durham Amateur Rowing Club, duck to water.

"In Durham we think of rowing as a religion really, " says John.

"We're searching for our holy grail, which is the perfect stroke, and after all these years I'm still looking for it." Many other tales of the river bank, of merry crew and some boat, were floated on Wednesday morning when we met some of the club's older hands - among them Gordon Terry, consultant cardiologist.

"So long as they don't fall in, I'd recommend rowing to any of my patients, " he says. "It exercises every muscle group there is.

There's really no age limit at all and you don't have to be very good to get a lot of satisfaction out of it." "The great thing is that it's not weight bearing, " says Peter Stavers, 67. "You don't knacker your knees." Rose Hill, a bit bairn of 62, partners 77-year-old Peter Burdess in tomorrow's Head of the River event in Durham, introduced to rowing six years ago after her husband had died.

They told her Peter would be a good coach; now they're very good friends, as well. An item- Pulling together, anyway.

"It was terrifying at first, a bit scary when the boat gets wobbly and you've every chance of falling in, " says Rose. "You're always trying to improve it, it's just that some of us haven't got very far. We can't all be Mr Pinsent." She and Peter train six times a week, recently completing a 31 mile marathon from Lincoln to Boston in just over five hours, including lochs. "The great thing about rowing is that it can be as hard or easy as you want it to be, " says Peter, one of a group known affectionately as the Bus Pass Boys.

Boathouse and clubhouse are down Green Lane, past cricket and rugby clubs. There's also a gym - with rowing machines, of course - which serves additionally as disco, restaurant and meeting room.

Among many craft is an eight bought from Brown's Boathouse down river on the day that Clive Hole's Auntie Betty died, and thus named after her.

It has long been supposed that everyone in the North-East has an Auntie Betty. Durham Amateur Rowing Club proves it.

Most of the older members are out in the mornings, when the river's a little less turbulent. It's reckoned that 26 different rowing clubs use the Wear and that after the 2000 Olympics, a third of all Durham University freshers joined up.

"It's so exhilarating. When you get it right you can feel it doing you good, " says Peter Stavers. "On a clear day and a good river there's nothing to match it, except perhaps cross country skiing in the mountains." The friendliness and sociability are another key aspect, he says.

"There's nothing elitist about rowing." Rules of the river require keeping to the right and not stopping unless unavoidable. Occasionally they might fall out, of the boat or with fly-by-day fishermen, and on one memorable winter's day were snowballed by Kevin Keegan and his Newcastle United team, passing on a training walk.

"It's why I support Sunderland, " someone says.

The joys of rowing may best be summed up, however, by 52-yearold Carolyn Edwards who took up the sport three years ago - "my 13year-old son was coming down here" - and last month became British champion in her age group.

Ineluctably boat hooked - "She even gives it everything on the rowing machine, " say admiring colleagues - she talks about the river with all the come lately passion of Ratty, save that Carolyn is altogether more attractive and more eloquent and that, unlike Mr A A Milne's bumptious water rat, she is regrettably camera shy.

"The beauty of rowing is that there's nothing to prove to anyone, except yourself. It's a sport in which you will never be perfect, there's always something else there. You always think you can do better next time.

"There's a stirring to it, a feeling, nothing better than an eight coming out in the dark with lights on and all you can hear is the swishing.

"You can go out in a boat, thrash it up and down and maybe win, but it's about caressing the boat, about having an affinity with it.

"You also have to be mad, of course, going out at eight in the morning in freezing temperatures and with ice on the blades, but that's why we love it, I expect."

The Head of the River race, against the stream, starts from Prebends Bridge at 9am, 11am, 1pm and 3pm tomorrow - "quite a sight, all sorts of little duels going on, " says Peter Stavers - with the best viewing from Elvet Bridge.

New members of all ages are welcome at the Amateur Rowing Club, either simply by turning up - almost always someone there - or ringing 0191-386-6431 after 7pm.

PERHAPS presciently labelled "Advance promotional copy", a CD called Whole Lotta Poolie has arrived from the Hartlepool United Disabled Supporters Association.

It's by the Dean Crimdon Dimension, a band which includes Chas Groovy, Buddy Awful, Courtney Cod and Eddie van Throston and which reworks familiar tunes with a Hartlepool twist.

"HUDSA is hoping the album will echo the success of the team by rising up the charts, " says Association chairman Neil Appleyard. "It'll maybe get off to a slow start but quality always rises to the top." The 12 track CD includes versions of Ding a Dong, Tower of Strength and the naughty French record Je Taime mixed (the mind boggles) with Wild Thing. A fiver from the club shop or other top outlets in the area.

MONKEY BUSINESS, the Hartlepool fanzine, reproduces a Daily Mirror report from 1982 on the contrast between ontheir-uppers Pool - a 1,202 crowd for the defeat of Tranmere - and Kevin Keegan's Newcastle, whose 24,511 gate was the day's fourth biggest. Monkey Business hits the nail: "The current generation of moaners should read this before opening their mouths."

...and finally

THE British professional football team with the highest goals to games ratio over a season (Backtrack, February 1) is Aston Villa, who in 1930-31 hit 128 in 42 matches - an average 3.04 - and still didn't win the league.

That was Arsenal, who scored just one fewer and finished seven points clear. Man United, bottom by nine points, scored 53 but conceded 115.

Fred Alderton in Peterlee today seeks the identity of the English side in European football which has never lost at home.

More winners, with luck, on Tuesday.

Published: 04/02/2005