From the chapel to the clarts

Did his maiden House of Commons address really dwell upon the shortage of dum-tits at Meadowfield Co-op? Were his speeches, like Co-op dum-tits, severely rationed thereafter?

Though we'd supposed the story apocryphal, readers little doubt its veracity. Jim Faulkner, from Spennymoor, like J D Murray an Independent Methodist minister, remembers Murray from his childhood.

"He was a well loved MP who did a lot of work for his constituents, but I don't think he was renowned for his oratory," he says.

Murray was born in 1887, educated at East Knowle Elementary School - do the record books perhaps mean East Howle? - and by the WEA, becoming a miner, miners' union official and Durham County councillor.

When the Murray Independent chapel at Browney closed, Murray himself collected round the doors to build another on the Sawmills Estate in nearby Brandon.

Jack Davies, a steward of the Brandon chapel, recalls that his mother gave half a crown in the belief that it was a one-off payment. The following Friday night, Murray was back for another installment.

"You've had your half crown," said Mrs Davies indignantly. "I could have had a Doggarts' club for that."

The church survives, and Jack's mother eventually became a member. "That half a crown went a long way," he muses. "I think it bought intervention from on high."

DOGGARTS', of fond memory, was a handsome department store on the corner of Bishop Auckland market place. Probably there were branches elsewhere.

When Bishop Auckland and Crook Town reached numerous FA Amateur Cup finals in the 1950s, it's recalled, supporters would get a Doggarts' club out and then sell it on at a loss, in order to afford the train fare to London.

The old emporium is remembered with such affection that south west Durham lads full of beer or bravado still threaten to bare their backsides in Doggarts' long gone window if proved to be mistaken.

In Darlington they're more discreet. In Darlington they do it in Binns.

IN asking why a Kerryman wears two condoms - "Ah to be sure, to be sure" - last week's column supposed that the put-upon Irish make jokes about Kerry folk in the way that the English pull the legs of the Irish.

From Gavin Ledwith, in West Rainton, who himself has Irish blood, it prompts the story of a conversation between a Kerryman and a son of Sligo.

Second man: "Is it true that Kerrymen never give a straight answer to a question?"

Kerryman: "Who told you that?"

FOREVER exploring life's darkest recesses, the column last week also wondered about the various terms for what County Durham folk call a passage, in most of Yorkshire is a ginnel and in York, apparently, is a snickleway.

The response has been illuminating, not least from Paul Dobson, June Prested and Martin Snape, who all direct us to a Durham city centre caf called Vennels, so called because a vennel - or to be precise, two vennels - is exactly what it's up.

(Those inveterately opposed to sentences which end in propositions are invited to propose an alternative structure.)

We looked into Vennels last week. The board outside calls it Vennel's and advertises tea's and coffee's. Nice place, shame about the punctuation.

Charles Shelton, now in Stockton, recalls that in Nottingham they were known as jitties, though his spellcheck will have nothing to do with such things; Wendy Akers, in Darlington, believes that in her own Notts foray "passages" were called twitchells.

(Wendy's mum, Darlington born and bred, knew them as snickets - another largely Yorkshire usage. "I always thought that the County Durham and North Yorkshire accents were very closely related," says Wendy.)

The Bloody Woman, as one of our more reserved correspondents prefers to be known, says that in Liverpool they're jiggers - hence the glorious Scouse term "jigger rabbit", meaning a cat.

The Bloody Woman was raised in the East Midlands. Like all the best folk, down there they knew the straight and narrow as a passage.

THE Bloody Woman reckons that in the East Midlands there wasn't much dialect at all - "only a slightly whiney accent". Among the dialect exceptions was "dockey" - "you'd call it bait, I think, and there's another regional can of worms".

Well we might if going fishing, of course, but we'd also call the day's packed lunch "bait" and carry it in a bait box, formerly with an Oxo advert on the side. A Yorkshireman might believe it to be his snap, a Scot would look forward to his piece.

Susan Jaleel, in Darlington, similarly offers a Cheshire variation on the word "slutch", which Collins Scrabble dictionary - responsible for starting all this - defines as a cross between a slut and a bitch.

"In Hyde, slutch means boggy land, muddy puddles or soft garden soil," says Susan. "As kids we were admonished for coming home covered in slutch."

Here there'd simply be clarts. Though Gadfly must not itself become bogged down, there may be regional variations on that one, too.

We'd still welcome them: all good men must come to the aid of the clarty.

...and finally, Charles Allenby from Malton, North Yorkshire, was heading on the train to Birmingham when he turned to last week's column.

At Birmingham New Street station, we'd reported, W H Smith's bookstall was inexplicably alive with picture postcards of Barnard Castle.

Not that he was of little faith or anything, but Charles decided to see for himself. "It's amazing, a whole rack overflowing with them," he reports. "I don't know how Smith's hope to sell them in Birmingham."

They've got shot of one, anyway. Sent first class, Charles's card arrived within two days. Lest any be unsure, there's even a little sketch map on the back indicating Barney's whereabouts.

Why, though, should they be trying to promote Barnard Castle in Birmingham? As before, answers on a postcard.

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