AS if being exposed under the 30 year rule weren't embarrassment enough, poor Lord Lambton - Chester-le-Street lad made off - is also caught with his trousers down in one of the column's Christmas presents.

It's fortunate that he is, because the region fares but poorly in Brewer's (Dictionary of) Rogues, Villains (and) Eccentrics.

Paul Gascoigne features desultorily, there's a half-hearted reference to Paul Daniels' son - charged in 2001 with cultivating cannabis in Hartlepool - and perfunctory acknowledgment of Mary Ann Cotton, the West Auckland murderess.

Even then, we hear, our old friend Dr Bob McManners is turning his prodigious energies from prosecuting the Campaign for Real Authentic Puddings to a patient compilation of the lady's somewhat posthumous defence.

Sadly, it must be admitted: the North-East doesn't have a good class of villain at all.

AS usual, of course, the Shildon lads are doing their best to help. Dr Keith Hampson's entry is cross-referenced "Cabaret dancers: for Luscious Leon, the undercover policeman."

Born in 1943, Dr Hampson was a village headmaster's son and Bishop Auckland Grammar School boy who became Conservative MP for Ripon, and later for Leeds North West.

In 1984 he pleaded "not guilty" at Southwark Crown Court to an indecent assault charge involving fondling the thigh of Luscious Leon, who was posing as a table dancer at the time. The incident was said to have taken place in the Gay Theatre Club in Soho, which may not have been well lit.

Then parliamentary private secretary to Michael Heseltine - the Defence Secretary - Dr Hampson had downed five pints of something called "Brain damage" while writing one of Mr Heseltine's speeches.

He denied brushing Luscious Leon's thigh, or that he was homosexual, an argument supported by his wife. When the jury failed to reach a verdict, the Attorney General decided that there would be no retrial.

He lost his seat in 1997. Who's Who neither updates his biography nor includes an address, but we haven't seen him in Shildon for ages.

BREWER'S great delight is in its cross references, its great hope in the sagacity of its lawyers. Thus we have "Chelsea FC shirt, making love in a: see de Sancha, Antonia"; "Cricket bat murder: see Sarah, Duchess of York"; "One legged prostitute has sex with pizza delivery man: see David Mellor."

The unfortunate Mr Ozzy Osbourne earns several of these obscure acknowledgments, including "Alamo Building: putting on your girlfriend's dress and relieving yourself on" and "Betty Ford Clinic: asking the way to the bar in."

Another cross-reference reads: "Bear: a microphone concealed in the nose of a teddy" - but that's back to the downfall of the unfortunate Lord Lambton.

EVERYONE else for Christmas was given Eats, Shoots and Leaves - Lynne Truss's top selling book on punctilious punctuation - and seems without exception to have enjoyed it.

The likely upshot is an orgy of similar grammatical self-gratification. From Redcar, for example, Peter Sotheran points out that in his two-page policy statement in The Times, Michael Howard persistently uses singular subjects with plural possessive adjectives - as in "every child wants security for their parents".

Paul Dobson in Bishop Auckland discovers on the Teesside-based Bells Stores website the chance to "win a staring role for your pet".

On a new year stroll through Catterick Garrison, meanwhile, we learn that the downgrading of the Duchess of Kent Military Hospital is proceeding yet more swiftly than had been feared.

Just up the road from the signs to the "Materiel depot" is another indicating the "Officer's mess". Whatever happened to the Education Corps?

PROUD as the Palladium, Jack Amos rang a few hours before the New Year Honours were announced to reveal his MBE for services to North-East workmen's clubs. It's a medal hugely deserved. Jack, who once persuaded Princess Margaret to attend one of his "Command performances" - that she stayed for several hours drinking whisky and ginger was purely for medicinal reasons - is not only a tireless club man but has had more illnesses than Black's Medical Dictionary.

Despite his own journalistic background, notwithstanding occasional confusion, we are unrelated. What may particularly have marked his pass card with the Honours Committee, indeed, was that those who put him forward had the good sense not to seek a testimonial from the column.

Though also deserving, the nominees whom we have supported go shamefully bare-chested to this day.

MIKE Corner, who died over Christmas, had won the OBE for services to journalism and hereabouts is particularly remembered for one of them.

As a young reporter on the Echo he once wrote 32 stories in a shift - "including re-writes from the Despatch", concedes a former colleague. As the 26-year-old news editor he was scimitar sharp and going places faster than the Tees Tyne Pullman.

I was the innocent abroad, cutting 1960s teeth in the carbon copied Bishop Auckland office of the Northern Despatch - Darlington's former evening paper - and convinced after three months that there was little left to learn.

One morning, however, the Echo - rivals, then - broke the story that hundreds of jobs were coming to West Auckland.

They'd got it because Mike, driving to visit his parents in Bishop, had noticed initial building work where last time there'd been a green field.

The age old questions - What? Who? Why? When? - engaged him at once.

Mike had one of his many exclusives, the Despatch (RIP) was left with the pickings from a richly talented table.

He became a multi-award winning editor in Sheffield and a national figure in the once inky trade. He was also a thoroughly nice feller - and in this lark, Mike realised, you're never, ever, off duty.

HARRY Evans, made Sir Harold in the Queen's latest list, is perhaps even better remembered for his contribution to The Northern Echo in the 1960s. In last weekend's Independent on Sunday, however, he recalled his first venture into journalism - a milk toothed cub, 60 years ago, on the Ashton-under-Lyne Reporter.

Asked by the editor what his first week's expenses were, Harry replied that since he'd walked everywhere, he didn't have any. The editor muttered, scribbled something on a piece of paper, and told him to take it to accounts.

It was an expenses claim which added just threepence to his basic weekly wage - "but for me," wrote Sir Harold, "it was an early example of corruption".

...and finally, what with crowded hours and cradle attitudes, we had never until the post-Christmas holiday set foot in the village post office. Clearly recognising an epochal occasion, the sub-postmistress offered a sweetie from the big tin on the shelf. It was marked "Heroes", of course.

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