Tony Blair congratulated Ferryhill Town Council for being maned Britain's best and proved as popular as ever with locals.

THE invitation had promised a "special VIP guest". Even before the police dogs started sniffing around the place, few had much doubt about his identity.

"When's Tony Blair coming, I'm sick of waiting," muttered a child of six or so, shifting querulously from one leg to another outside Ferryhill Church Hall.

"Hush," chided the Vicar cheerfully, "I've told everyone the special guest's Mike Amos."

It was the night that Ferryhill Town Council was officially to receive its award for being Britain's best "local" council, the sense of anticipation a bit like being at a play school party before they're invited to welcome Father Christmas.

Whilst few may still suppose that Mr Blair is Father Christmas, he continues to contradict the New Testament notion that a prophet is not without honour save in his own country, and in his own house.

In Ferryhill, as in other parts of his Sedgefield constituency, the Prime Minister's word remains gospel. "They say he's grey-haired, but he has every bloody right to be grey-haired," said the feller behind the church hall bar, apropos of little.

The chief guest was due at 7pm, the buffet demolished twenty minutes earlier as if - another biblical allusion - by the proverbial plague of locusts. The VIP, it was to be hoped, had had his tea before he came out.

He'd been in Rome with Signor Berlusconi, doubtless forewent a couple in the Gladiators Rest because he had to be getting back, had read a story - a fairy story - to the bairns at Trimdon library before rushing off to Ferryhill.

Others present included the grave diggers, the tree planters and local butcher John Allison, winner of more awards for his sausages than most people have had hot breakfasts.

Like almost everyone else, the local police sergeant wore a name badge. The Special Branch men didn't but had polliss written all over them.

The town council, a sort of local government third division, had won it by a mile. "I've seen things change completely in the 15 years I've been Vicar," said the Rev Keith Lumsdon, who nominated them for the award.

"In the past, too many people were involved in councils for their own reasons. Now this town council is really working for the community, and helping to transform it."

The council's motto is "Paraeterita accipimus, futura condimus", swiftly translated by executive officer Jamie Corrigan as "The past we inherit, the future we build."

Mr Corrigan, a former West Hartlepool rugby player, is largely credited with the revitalisation. "Multum in parva", or whatever the Latin equivalent of good stuff in little bundles, might have been as appropriate.

With just 24 staff, they've won Investors in People status and also have the best council absenteeism record - just 0.87 days a year - in the country. The national average is 4.6

They run everything from Ferryhill in Bloom, including a prize for the best back yard, to an informative Town News. They organise galas, fireworks displays, old folks' trips, Internet caf and even, on April 15, a sponsored bungee jump in front of the Trumptonesque town hall.

Mr Corrigan will take the plunge first; the Vicar will keep his feet firmly on the ground. "The doctor won't let me, I bribed her," said Mr Lumsdon.

The special VIP guest finally arrived 28 minutes late, shaking hands furiously as if to make up for lost time, smile fixed permanently on full beam and working the room as effortlessly as a great grandma working a sampler.

"You've done fantastically," he told them, and in practised truth he did very well himself.

After 17 minutes, drawn to the door like Santa with several million more chimneys to see to, he essayed his "Be good boys" wave and was gone.

Special Branch having gone with him, some kids outside began getting a bit boisterous. Some of their elders wanted to get the Vicar to sort them out, others the best bibbed sergeant.

James Corrigan went out and played football with them instead - not just a man of the people but of the little people - returning with his suit covered in clarts. It's what's called building for the future.

FERRYHILL church hall, by humble coincidence, was the venue on the only previous occasion that we'd met Tony Blair.

It was the 1992 general election campaign, when the diary column also ran a limerick competition and proved that the redoubtable Basil Noble in Darlington could pronounce Langbaurgh, if not necessarily the name of the area's Labour candidate:

A would be MP called Kumar

Went calling in very good humour

As he smiled through Langbaurgh

Both near and afar

He never committed a bloomer.

The future Prime Minister had been addressing a meeting with LibDem candidate Gary Huntingdon - Shildon lad - and North Yorkshire landowner Nick Jopling, the Tory.

He looked bright, bouncy and boyish, we observed. "A shadow minister for several years, his shadow grows ever more substantial."

Last Thursday our eyes met again. "Hello, Mike," he smiled, expansively, as if we'd had coffee together that morning.

After the 1992 meeting he'd gone off for a half in the Catholic Club while Gary Huntingdon headed home to Shildon and Nick Jobling stayed behind to debate with the vicar's red-haired daughter the case for legalising prostitution.

She wanted to be a journalist, we said, which wasn't the same thing at all.

JOHN Burton - folk singer, former footballer and the Prime Minister's assiduous agent - is featured in the first newspaper from Sedgefield Community College, the school where he taught for 20 years.

Unfortunately, the photograph is of someone else entirely. "I wouldn't have minded if it had been Omar Sharif or some goal scoring centre forward," grumbles John, "but I'm far more handsome than that."

HARRY Whitton, retired Thirsk electrical dealer but active and incorrigible name dropper, sends details of his new website marking his links with the rich and famous.

Princess Anne's there, Jimmy Savile, James Herriot, a brace of archbishops and his uncle, Thirsk's mayor in 1936, with the King and Queen. "He loved having his own letter box in the town hall door," says Harry.

Though disenfranchised by both wealth and stature, the column is included, too, and Harry also sends a copy of a letter he received in 2001.

"I am writing on behalf of Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum..."

There's also a picture of the four-year-old Jon Snow, now Channel 4's finest, with his father the Rt Rev George Snow, a former Bishop of Whitby.

It was Bishop Snow who, many years ago, told the column that he was giving up picking his nose for Lent...

THE March issue of Northern Cross, the newspaper of the Roman Catholic diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, carries an astonishingly flattering leader column about me - particularly the perceived ability to make gold from lead.

The same page includes some readers' definitions of heaven - "absolute contentment", "complete harmony", "left to soak in a bath of bubbles" and, more surprisingly, one signed "Ashamed 63-year-old".

Heaven on earth? "Total, unobserved freedom to pick my nose."

A PS to last week's note on the "Duke Ellington" tribute in Durham Cathedral. Canon Bill Hall, North-East chaplain to the arts and recreation, reports both that the CD - by Stan Tracey and his orchestra - is still available at the Cathedral book shop and that he hopes to produce something similar in Rochester Cathedral. The concert will also feature jazz tap dancer Will Gaines, turned 70 and still totally on his toes.

A CONCERT in Gainford parish church this Sunday commemorates the life of Percy Clethero who - like all the best - learned life's ropes at Timothy Hackworth in Shildon and at King James I Grammar School in Bishop Auckland.

He was 82, a world travelled civil engineer who back home in County Durham enjoyed woodworking, calligraphy and walking his Scottie, Angus. There were several Anguses over the years.

He died last October, a wonderful eulogy from his son Ian including the recollection that his dad had sometimes to have a stiff drink in order to overcome shyness. On the short flight from Amsterdam to Teesside, however, Percy may have taken Dutch courage too far.

"He got paralytically drunk, failed to see Betty (his wife) at the airport and walked the 20 miles home, arriving at 3am," said Ian. "Betty didn't speak to him for three days."

The concert, at 2pm, features Richard and Ruth Aylwin, principals with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and a choir directed by Sue Hollingworth, a finalist several times in the Sainsbury's choir of the year competition.

It'll range from classics to north country folk songs - they carried Percy out to the strains of Blaydon Races - with a suggested £5 donation at the door to the Alzheimer's Society. All welcome; those who knew and loved Percy most particularly.