THE replacement of local telephone contact points by the roundabout circus of call centres is a phenomenon only too familiar to journalists as well as Mr and Mrs Public.

One of Spectator's colleagues rang an O845 number to ask the Press office of BT about a fault which, it transpired, affected 17,000 customers in North Yorkshire, County Durham and Teesside.

A Press officer who couldn't have been more helpful, friendly and efficient rang back within minutes with a list of the affected areas. All went smoothly until he mentioned some obscure place which sounded like Eastern Grange.

It was probably just a minor matter of pronunciation but Spectator's colleague established that this was Eston Grange, between Middlesbrough and Redcar.

The Press officer indicated that he bowed to local geographical knowledge and then revealed: ''I've been talking to someone in Cambridge and I'm based in Leicester.'' And to think that the fault which caused all the disruption was at the exchange in Middlesbrough.

Making good

THE minutes of a recent Aiskew Parish Council meeting record that someone in the public gallery asked, with some humour, whether members would be organising a celebration to mark the completion of the Persimmon housing development.

Local people with memories going back almost three years will realise that the gentleman was referring to that part of the Aiskew Bank estate where a newly built end house collapsed in a blaze of publicity and which has since resembled nothing so much as a bomb site.

Celebrations may take place sooner than anticipated. The missing dwelling was never replaced, but when Spectator drove past the other day he saw that after months of earth moving and other remedial works worthy of the Royal Engineers, Persimmon had finally got the area into something approaching an acceptable condition.

It still seems to need a few final touches, which Spectator suggests should involve planting or landscaping, but at least visitors to Bedale need no longer get the idea that they are passing a corner of a war zone.

Not forgotten

DURING Wendy Robertson's speech at Darlington Soroptimists' recent Literary Luncheon at the Blackwell Grange, the Bishop Auckland novelist took a moment to consider what would be the luxuries she would take to her lonely island if she were to feature on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.

Top of her list would be a bookshop and one bookshop in particular - the now-closed Dressers on Darlington's High Row.

The murmurs of assent from the audience suggested that would be many others' choice too.