IT is to be a column, at once to assume the panoramic view, which embraces beck, sneck, peck and Big Eck. Firstly, however to "beck", which is not to be confused with Becks. (It isn't that sort of a column.)

Discussing a few weeks ago the move by Brompton parish council, near Northallerton, municipally to reinvent itself as a town, we talked of the beck which runs through the village green.

Steve Salmon in Darlington swims in the opposite direction. The "beck", he says, is the mighty River Wiske - thus prompting the question about when a beck becomes a river.

Dictionaries are wholly unhelpful, merely offering "brook" or "stream" as a synonym for beck - but isn't the Wiske, for example, merely a beck which flows into the Swale?

Beck and call as always, readers will doubtless be able to walk upon water. Explanations eagerly awaited.

"SNECK" arose last week. Nigel Dowson from Cockfield had asked the chap in Wilkinson's if they sold snecks and - after a suitable pause in which they considered calling the vice squad - was offered a Suffolk latch to put on the garden gate instead.

Martin Snape in Durham reports that his Lancashire mother called it a "snick"; Vic Wood of the Lower Tees Dialect Group believes "sneck" still to be widely used - though now it might mean a Yale-type lock.

A Suffolk latch, says Vic, isn't really a latch at all but the type used on a solid backyard door. "On the outside there is a handle and a thumb lever which goes through the door. This thumb lever lifts a bar on the inside. Originally it was this bar which was known as the sneck."

If anyone's still on the outside looking in, the Norwegian for carpenter is a snekker.

SO if that's the snecking order, what of pecking order? This little office is almost snowed under by an avalanche of arcane dictionaries, none of which offers an explanation.

Mr John Briggs, ever on hand in case of emergency, supposes - not unreasonably - that the answer might lie with chicken, if not with egg. A 1920s study showed that hens - "like many humans" - pecked recklessly at those of a perceived lower order and worse, would freely submit to pecking from those on a higher perch. If that's the pecking order, however, why "bee's knees"? Many might suppose it's because the mid-leg is where the pollen bag is found; Mr Briggs, however, makes a bee-line for the mellifluous Clara Bow.

Reckoned the first "It" girl, the silent movie star was nicknamed The Bee apparently (says John) because of her "bee stung" lips.

"She invented the notion of sex on the silver screen, an icon of sexual freedom for women everywhere," says a biography and - actions speaking louder than words - was renowned, perhaps among other things, for her knees. "They were rather nice," says John, carefully. Hence, it is superlatively argued, Bee's knees.

THE telephone at home rings at 1.30pm on Sunday. It is Mr Andrew Brown, head lad of the award winning County pub/restaurant in Aycliffe Village.

Once Blair and Chirac dined, doubtless debated, there. Now the County set were having a Sunday lunchtime set-to over Big Geordie (which must on no account be confused with Big Eck).

Big Geordie was a vast piece of machinery which worked Northumberland open cast coal sites in the 1980s; Big Eck was a vast piece of machinery - but with rather fewer teeth - which went around pubs in the South Shields area with a collecting bucket.

The pre-prandial argument, at any rate, was over whether Big Geordie was a crane or a drag line - and no matter that Sunderland v Millwall was demanding attention elsewhere. Adjudication was requested but not at once forthcoming.

Big Geordie, it is now clear, was a 3,000 ton "walking" drag line - officially B-E 1550-W - owned by Derek Crouch. Last we heard of it, it had been upgraded for a project which didn't materialise and was parked awaiting action.

An even bigger machine, rather neatly called the Ace of Spades, had taken its place. Like many another of that ilk, Big Geordie is unemployed.

STRUGGLING to understand Scottish - Scunner Campbell and his ilk - last week's column referred to Scots Wa'hay. "Scots wha hae, surely," writes Clarice Middleton from Richmond. Borderline case: she is doubtless correct.

PAT Cariss, in Killerby, near Richmond, raises a philanthropic eyebrow at last week's report which put four North-East towns - Shildon, Stanley, South Shields and Jarrow - among the country's ten meanest charitable givers.

Haven't they seen the ever-enveloping charity shops, she asks? "The high streets and beyond are awash with them. Surely their customers are giving to charity as much as those who put into collecting tins?"

Last week, perchance, the column was at the handing over of a new community bus in Shildon - the long list of local largesse including £7,000 from the town's football club - followed by a splendid spread in the Methodist church hall. No sign of stinginess there.

Pat doesn't know the dear old town - "but if there's not at least one charity shop, it must be the only place around here without one."

...and finally, Clive Sledger in Aldbrough St John, near Richmond, points toward a signwriter who's rather lost his way.

The sign near his home - he's passed it hundreds of times without noticing - clearly indicates Mansfield, where there's a very good brewery and a greyhound racing MP brought up in Newton Aycliffe.

It can't be Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, however, because that's 112.1 miles away and Clive would recognise it because he was at school there. Nor can it be Mansfield in Ayrshire, because that's 151 miles away and full of haggis and mealy puddin'.

It actually leads to Manfield, a small village with a good pub, a tiny school which sailed through its Ofsted and nothing much else. "It's time," says Clive, "that North Yorkshire County Council got the paint pot out."

Feckless, reckless, the column returns in a fortnight.

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