FOR better or worse I have yet to see the Angel of the North. When I do I will have the benefit of the new revelation that Antony Gormley's masterpiece is not the Angel of the NORTH.

It is the Angel of Tyneside, or, even more particular, of Gateshead. At any rate that seems to be the view of Durham County Council. Feeling it needs a striking symbol of its own, it plans to erect a pencil-like tower of steel and glass by the A689 between Sedgefield and Wolviston.

Of course the tower will not mark the border of County Durham. The county border is the River Tees. And if it isn't, in which county, since the demise of Cleveland, does the Stockton district lie? Its official place in Durham for what are called "ceremonial purposes'' is confirmation that the ancient county still exists.

Set to arise in the middle of nowhere, the proposed tower will herald only the area administered by Durham County Council - a poor thing in relation to the real Durham. The county council's adjustment of the boundaries of the Land of the Prince Bishops to its own is a crime arguably more heinous than Cleveland County's theft of the name of historic Cleveland.

With a true county no more than a simple sign, perhaps with an emblem or coat of arms, is needed at its border. The associations of centuries do the rest. Not on any boundary, the Angel of the North is, technically, a Gateshead production. But to Britain south of the Don it symbolises the entire North. Yorkshire takes it as an icon of the rival North-East. There is a pettiness in any authority within the region wanting an equivalent of the Angel.

Responsible for schools, roads, social services, libraries, Durham County Council will not be awash with cash. In common with other shire county councils, its future is overshadowed by further local government reform. Yet it is proposing a vainglorious marker that, in the artist's impression anyway, looks an item of clutter in open countryside.

Perhaps the county council hasn't noticed that Durham, administrative or historic, already has an icon rather more eyecatching than a roadside tower resembling a neon-tube. The spiritual seat of those prince bishops who are now spuriously linked to county hall, it's called Durham Cathedral. And its image is known and admired worldwide.

QUOTING from WH Auden's poem Night Mail, every report of the passing of the Royal Mail's travelling post offices plucked the same items from the mail bag: "Letters for the rich, letters for the poor, the shop at the corner, the girl next door''.

The lines that I carry in my head are these: "Letters of thanks, letters from banks, letters of joy from girl and boy... the chatty, the catty, the boring the adoring, the cold and official, the heart's outpouring.''

And instead of "pulling up Beattock, a steady climb'' - also quoted in the reports - I prefer: "Past cotton grass and moorland boulder, shovelling white steam over her shoulder... In a farm she passes noone wakes, but a jug in the bedroom lightly shakes.''

And to think that Auden virtually tossed this off - a commissioned piece, little more than an unconsidered trifle. Ah well, such is greatness.