DANCING to the music of time - that is to say, surfing the Net for some Superbrain answers - John Briggs makes a remarkable discovery: the tune of Waltzing Matilda, Australia's unofficial national anthem, was written by a Shildon lad.

Pom and circumstance, or what?

Thomas Bulch was born in New Shildon in 1863, joined the town band when he was 12, served his time at the wagon works and emigrated when just 21.

"That'll be right, my Donald's side of the family were always very musical," says 87-year-old Winnie Bulch, the only family member still in the old home town.

Though accounts vary slightly - musically, there may be something of a Battle of the Bulch - Thomas continued his career down under, took over the 3rd Battalion Band in Ballarat and won first prize at Creswick Miners' Sports, a sort of antipodean Big Meeting.

Before proceeding, however, some explanation may be necessary lest any of this is lost in the translation.

A swagman was an unemployed drifter, a Matilda a bedroll, a billabong a watering hole and a jumbuk a sheep. A billy and a tucker bag can probably be imagined; "waltzing" simply meant walking along a bush track.

The marching tune, Craigielee, was written for brass bands by Bulch. The words were added in 1895 by a feller called Banjo Patterson.

Bulch's tune, it is recorded, may also owe something to the earlier and quaintly named melodies Go to the Devil and Shake Yourself and When Sick Is It Tea You Want.

Waltzing Matilda was first performed at a banquet in honour of the Premier of Queensland. An instant success, it became still better known when adopted in 1903 as the Billy Tea Company's advertising jingle. Patterson sold the rights for a fiver.

John Briggs wonders about blue plaques ("not many of those in Shildon") and about royalties; Winnie Bulch is just glad to be singing from the same sheet. "I've not much need to worry about royalties now," she says.

We have been unable to discover much else about old Thomas, but his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong...

CONCERNING music and Australians, why on earth do Hartlepool United football fans sing "Two Little Boys" - arguably Rolf Harris's greatest hit - whenever two or three are gathered together?

Theories abound, the most plausible - says club press officer and former fanzine editor Paul Mullen - that it began in the 1970s at an away match in London.

An occasional Pools fan admitted he didn't know many of the fashionable chants but professed to be able to sing all the words to Two Little Boys.

"Go on then," said Hartlepool. They've been trotting it out ever since.

Paul Mullen confirms that the wooden horse of Hartlepool is still a favourite, if rarely in its entirety. "It is," he says, "far too bloody long".

THOUGH maybe not Waltzing Matilda, many a tune has been played on the magnificent organ at Hartlepool United Reformed Church these past 100 years.

On Saturday evening they're throwing a party to celebrate its centenary - the first of a year of events - and doubtless to toast John Ross, the organist since 1946. John's 83. "A wonderful, wholly dignified little man. You could imagine him on top of a wedding cake," says Chris Eddowes, one of the church elders.

The organ's a Binns, no relation to the House of Fraser folk. "A wonderful church organ, you can really give it loads of welly," adds Chris, though it is not, she supposes, how Mr Ross would describe it.

Nor does he. "A splendid instrument, an organ with character and a sound that is both strong and noble," he says.

Originally a Methodist, he was invited to play the organ at the Congregational Church - as then it was - on a three month trial. Fifty seven years later, the trial continues.

His mother had sent him to piano lessons at eight - "something for which I am eternally grateful" - but practising on the Methodist organ cost sixpence an hour. "At the end of some months I just couldn't afford to pay," he recalls. "I didn't even know what the Congregationalists did in their services, but they surprised me by having chants, introits and anthems. It was quite a major job."

He married a chorister, finally capitulated (he says) to the Congregationalists, has no plans to pipe down.

"I'm very fortunate, I have no aches and pains. The only problem now is that the fingers work faster than the brain does."

Saturday's celebration, an evening of music, hymns and 100th birthday cake, is open to all. They give it welly from 7.30pm.

Fond memories of the Fiesta

WHEN last the column peered above the parapet - four weeks ago, let it shamefully be admitted - it was with memories of the Fiesta Club in Stockton and of the brothers Lipthorpe, who ran it in style.

A few years either side of 1970, the Fiesta was the North-East's top nightclub. Everyone played there; most of us went there.

Jim and Keith Lipthorpe subsequently opened a yet bigger, still bolder, venture in Sheffield and other outlets on Teesside. Then the chips ran out.

That last column wondered what had happened to them when the music stopped. The question was answered at once.

Keith Lipthorpe made contact the same morning - alive and well, back in Norton-on-Tees and still working from home. He would be "delighted", he said, to have a chat.

Colin McCulloch e-mailed even earlier. Jim Lipthorpe, he reported, was back in Hartburn, Stockton. Though suffering long term health problems he is a regular Rotarian, enjoys the odd jazz night and "if the mood takes him can talk of the old days without apparent regret for their passing".

A couple of beers were arranged for Tuesday this week, but at the last minute Keith called the meeting off. "We feel it better to let old dogs lie," he said. The old dogs still have fond memories, though.

BERT Draycott, the former world champion spoons player from Fishburn, recalls the formative 50s when the Lipthorpes' band played Fishburn Welfare Hall every Saturday night.

"They used to roll up in a bus which was filled up with supporters and for half a crown you couldn't go wrong. They were good, just a shade better than Fearnley Mitchell and his band, and they used to have the place lifting, as they say around here."

Steve Harland from Stockton was moved to memories not just of the Fiesta but of the Rock Harden in Middlesbrough - "another legendary music venue".

In truth, he says, it was a 40 square metre garage with a bar. "It had previously been a club called the Marimba, but when punk happened the owners decided to cash in."

The Rock Garden had plastic glasses, a giant teddy bear above the bar and tables and chairs spot welded to the floor.

It was, says Steve, some garage.

MR Allen Nixon, Stokesley Stockbroker and chairman of Darlington-based Alpha Radio, was 60 on December 27.

It was the same day, guests at his splendid birthday bash were reminded, that the world's first cat show was held (1871), that National Hunt trainer Michael Dickinson saddled a record 12 winners in a day (1982) and that Richard Trevithick took his steam powered Puffing Devil on its second ever run.

Unfortunately Trevithick went to the pub and left the engine running. It blew up in his absence.

...and finally, if only on the grounds that the old ones are the best ones, we are delighted to report a story from the Richmond Roman Catholic church newsletter - spotted on the village noticeboard at Tunstall.

All excited, little Jimmy comes up to the priest after Mass. "Father," he says, "I'm eight years old next week, my dad says I can have pocket money but I'm going to give it all to you."

The priest is touched but seeks an explanation for such generosity. "Well," says Jimmy, "my dad says you're the poorest priest we've ever had."