Easington may be County Durham's most populous district but it has a dearth of decent pubs. The column visits the only two with official endorsement.

EASINGTON Council, presiding over the most populous district in County Durham, has a logo of what appears to be a running man. Such is the Easington effect, he's probably running away.

The district stretches from just south of Sunderland to just north of Hartlepool and inland to Trimdon Station - yet manages just one entry in the 2004 Good Pub Guide and one more in the Good Beer Guide.

The wretched thing is that neither publication appears to have underestimated.

Stranded two Sundays ago amid Easington's infertile acres, we vowed to test both entry qualifications - beginning at the Stapylton Arms in Hawthorn Village, east of the A19 near Easington Village and with splendid walks down to the sea.

Once there was a railway station, and a pumping station, too. One of the Stapyltons was the Victorian church's first rector.

In Brian and Linda Davies, says the Good Pub Guide, the Stapylton has a "chatty ex-miner landlord" and a wife who produces good food from sandwiches to steaks.

Brian spent 11 years down Murton pit, where probably there were rather a lot of cuddies without hind legs, and has been at Hawthorn eight years. "Linda does the graft, I'm just here for the social side," he insists.

The GPG's right about the pub, too - a splendid, cosy, community-conscious local, overflowing with a wide range of ages and conditions and all (it seemed) in high good humour.

There was a very pleasant pint of Marston's Pedigree, at least two sittings for Sunday lunch but best to book for both. We set sail instead for the Ship - ship of the desert - at High Hesleden.

WE'D previously docked at High Hesleden in December 2001, just a few months after Peter and Sheila Crosby had themselves tied up. The pub had been closed for two-and-a-half years and shone, we reported, like a diamond in a three foot seam.

"The cooking is imaginative, the flavours boisterous, the ingredients manifestly fresh and the portions enough to feed a sea dog for a six-month."

Two months ago, Peter had what he calls a massive heart attack - "I was dead really" he says, cheerfully - but is now back running the bar.

Overwork? "Well," concedes the former Bearpark newsagent, "probably."

High Hesleden's between Blackhall and the A19. The bar was busy without overflowing, the counter full of excellent Sunday best nibbles, two fellers talking of Hesleden's best known sons.

One's the former Manchester City and England footballer Colin Bell ("squawky kid, mind") the other George Bowes - they pronounced his surname like cows - who fought for the British bantamweight boxing title.

An old chap in a jaunty hat, muffler wrapped around his chest like swaddling bands, sat alone with his lunch and looked forlorn when he'd finished it, as if there mightn't be another for seven days.

We glanced towards him with an expression of fellow feeling. He got up and sat elsewhere.

Sunday lunch is fairly traditional, though The Boss's salmon came with "Mediterranean cous-cous" - she thought it a bit strange - and starters included a very jolly cauliflower soup with a swirl of mint on the top like an outline of Pitman's shorthand.

It proved illegible; shorthand usually does around here.

The pork (£5.95) came plentifully, the vegetables - very good mushy peas - similarly generous. Fower taties more than a gis, as probably they say in those parts.

The service was informal and efficient, the coal fire blazing, the music machine played songs from the shows at an acceptable level, the rooms seemed immaculate. "I always tell people that they'll never catch nowt here," said Peter.

With the help of volume nine of an aged Waverley Encyclopaedia, on the shelf all these years, we were also able to resolve the one clue in the previous day's Times crossword which had hitherto eluded joint efforts. It is for the quality and quantity of its real ales, however, for which the Ship is most remarkable.

There were five sparkling hand pumps, mostly from seldom encountered micro-breweries like Jarrow (the malty Old Cornelius), Fyfe Fire (Kirkcaldy, heady) and the pale and fruity Yankee from Rooster's Brewery in Knaresbrough.

The Boss closely read the label of her sparkling mineral water, discovered that it was from chalk hills deep beneath Hampshire and not - as in recent scandals - from a tap in south London - and approved.

The mineral water was called Hildon, near enough to Shildon to make the utmost integrity guaranteed.

l The Ship, High Hesleden, Peterlee. Variable opening hours, but closed Mondays. Telephone (01429) 836453.

AMONG County Durham's eight local authority districts, Teesdale has ten entries in the 2004 Good Pub Guide and two - the Coach and Horses in Barney and the Kirk at Romaldkirk - in CAMRA's 2004 Good Beer Guide.

Durham has eight in the Pub guide, 17 in the Beer guide, Wear Valley two (ten), Sedgefield two (seven), Chester-le-Street one (six), Derwentside two (two) and Darlington none in the GPG but ten, including Binns off-licence, in the Good Beer Guide.

Then there's Easington, the original go-by desert.

SPECIAL offers on membership at Blackwell Grange Golf Club in Darlington just now, and if last week's black tie dinner with the Inner Wheel is a guide, the catering may be an added attraction. Just a pity the speaker played off so great a handicap.

AS leisurely as always, we reported a couple of months ago that Morley's fish and chip emporium in Bondgate, Bishop Auckland, had been included in the 2004 Time Out Eating and Drinking guide.

"A better reputation than the local council and considerably easier on the pocket," said the Guide, mysteriously.

We looked in last Friday lunchtime, a place as cheerful and as friendly as Time Out supposes but still humble enough to acknowledge requests for a few scrapin's.

("A few scrapin's" is a County Durham euphemism meaning as many as it is possible to get onto the tray without the recipient dropping dead on the spot from clogged arteries.)

A large cod, chips and mushy peas were £4.95 with a can of Coke. They were all right, particularly the batter, but on the evidence of that one visit there may be plenty more fish in the sea.

RECORDING the funeral of Brian Skipp, esteemed landlord of the White Swan in Stokesley, last week's column noted that the band had played St James Infirmary - apparently to the tune of Streets of Laredo.

Bill Taylor has sent the suitably morose words, though the last verse would particularly have appealed to poor Brian:

Well, now you've heard my story

Well, have another round of booze

And if anyone should ever ask you

I've got the St James Infirmary blues.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what you call a group of people who dig for fossils.

A skeleton crew, of course.

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Published: ??/??/2003