How to speak Dalglish

Though the occasion is no longer accompanied by the Skelton and Brotton Silver Prize Band, their carols a blight for sore heads, it is highly convivial, nonetheless.

Officially it's a dominoes match, England v Scotland, the tartan army represented by Mr Ian Nelson - formerly the Echo's esteemed reporter in East Cleveland - and by his son John, if out of bed in time.

Every year they talk mysteriously about firkling; every year we're no wiser.

It is perhaps in a spirit of cross-border communication, therefore, perhaps because the column's been full of North-East dialect recently, perhaps as a beginner's guide to understanding the Darlington-bound Mr Kenny Dalglish that Ian's daughter Nicola sends a glossary of Scottish terms.

Some will be familiar to Oor Wullie readers - a jeely piece is a jam sandwich, "fair drookit" means soaked to the singlet - others have been smuggled into this country by Mr Bob Johnson, the Tyne Tees Television weatherman.

The greyest of dullards can have no doubt of the meaning of dreich, but may wonder - i before e? - at its spelling.

In an attempt to improve Anglo-Scottish relations therefore, or to understand them when they come calling, readers are invited to translate the following ten sentences into Queen's English. (Firkling may disqualify.)

1. It's an awful boorach.

2. The sky is full of laverocks and paitricks.

3. Put the snitchers on him.

4. Her skirt is right jimp.

5. What a stramash.

6. The wean's spauchled over the cairpet.

7. I'd jalousie that.

8. There must be hundreds in that clamjafrie.

9. I got a right flegg.

10. It's all glaury.

Answers at the foot of the column.

CHAMBERS Dictionary reckons that "sneck" is Scottish and northern. Since he was north of the Tees, Nigel Dowson probably felt quite comfortable going into Wilkinson's in Darlington and asking if they sold snecks.

Maybe because he'd misheard - "Do we sell WHAT?" - maybe because he was from somewhere southerly like Great Smeaton, the lad on the enquiry desk looked perplexed.

Patiently, Nigel explained that he wanted it for the new gate he'd made him mum back in Cockfield. Finally the lad caught on, and returned with the appropriate, proprietary item.

Whatever the sneck's appeal, in Wilkinson's it's called a Suffolk Latch.

EARLIER columns have mused upon the great dialectal divide, why - apparently - they plodge on the north bank of the Tees but splodge on southern shores, why Co Durham fingers get spelks in them but in Yorkshire they have spells.

Once more unto the beach, Peter Sotheran in Redcar seeks to add his twopennorth.

As a youngster in the 1950s, Peter earned his pocket money working on the sands for Stan Winskill's fairground. In his innocence, he'd always thought that they were swings; when the coaches decanted from Durham, he realised they were shuggy boats.

"Living near the traffic lights on the main road in and out of town, I used to count the fleets of Durham and District, Venture and OK buses lumbering their sandy, beer soaked and spent-up loads back to the pit villages of Co Durham."

Ah, yes, swings and roundabouts. Whatever happened to the club trip?

FURTHER revelations, alas, about the Echo's continuing confusion over the word "bare".

"MRH" in Durham returns whence it came the headline about Tony Martin's new city council expose - "Cobbler bears his soul with controversial book" - while retired teacher Chris Eddowes in Hartlepool discovers yet more crossed lines on the homophone.

"I just grin and bare it," best selling children's author Jacqueline Wilson apparently told the paper last week, while discussing how she reacted to rudeness.

Chris wonders if, after all these years in the classroom, she's simply been getting it wrong. "I should just have used shock tactics."

FACING the North-East press for the first time last Friday, the incoming Roman Catholic Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle was asked how he would like to be addressed.

Since other questions included whether he liked curry and if he supported Aston Villa, it may be considered among the more profound.

Ambrose Griffiths, the outgoing bishop, was entitled to "My Lord" but preferred the humbler "Father". Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham, likes to be called "Bishop Tom", although it is a bit too reminiscent of David Bowie's Space Oddity.

"This is ground control to Bishop Tom..."

Bishop Griffiths admitted both that "My Lord" sounded outmoded and that people were frightened of bishops. Canon Kevin Dunn, his successor, asked for time to consider the style file.

He could do much worse, however, than to follow the advice of the late and much loved Cardinal Basil Hume. "I'll answer to anything," insisted Cardinal Hume, "except 'Hey, you'."

Another journalistic note, if not necessarily the definite article, Dr Win Stokes gives a local history lecture at Bishop Auckland Town Hall tonight (7pm) called Can You Believe What You Read in the Papers? Unfortunately, she hasn't disclosed what the answer is.

...and finally, a survey at the weekend revealed that Shildon was the tenth meanest place in Britain, based upon charitable giving. Save for Dumbarton, in Scotland, none of the most open-handed ten was north of Bishops Stortford.

Readers expecting an extravagant case for the defence may find it similarly parsimonious, however.

Many a time in Shildon have we opened Christian Aid envelopes and grown excited at the sight of a 5p piece, many a time been in the Friday night back room of the Red Lion and wondered how the valiant Salvation Army collectors could make twopence rattle, many a time sat in the church vestry and thought that the widow's mite might have been just a little more generous.

They remain, of course, the salt of the earth - but where canny Shildon folk are concerned, charity begins at home.

Scots wa'hay

1. Things do seem to be in rather a muddle.

2. What a glorious array of skylarks and partridges.

3. Cuff him!

4. That skirt may offend common decency.

5. Oh dear, the uproar.

6. The child is sprawled over the carpet.

7. That would be my guess.

8. What a mob.

9. Goodness, what a fright.

10. It's clarty.

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