ALL that unites the subjects in the third volume of Durham Biographies is that, without exception, they are no longer alive.

Only the Durham Ox had four legs, two horns and a tail, however, and only the ox died young and attended by several bloodthirsty butchers.

The Wonderful Ox, as the marketing men branded the beast, became a sort of bull-nosed Beckham, a bovine body beautiful, an ox tale of the century.

He was painted, engraved, admired, cast into life-size pot models and appeared, enamelled, on many a dinner service. Nineteen pubs, when last someone counted, were still named after the heavyweight champion of Durham.

Since the other subjects are in no position to complain, it is the ox and not they which appears on the cover of the latest in the Durham County Local History Society's valuable, diverse and always entertaining series.

He is the only animal thus far featured. A chapter in volume two headed The Fox Family proves not to concern some particularly voracious vulpines but a shipbuilding dynasty from South Shields.

The ox was born on Ketton Hall Farm, near Darlington, in 1796, said to come from stock that was poor but honest. Don't we all.

When only five - big for his age, as they say - he was sold to a Mr Bullimer of Bedale, who saw a fat chance and seized it. A special carriage was built and the ox - these days the Sun would have given him a nickname, Osbert or something - travelled Britain in style.

The beast was barely 11 when he dislocated a hip struggling to get out of the carriage and died two months later. Now the Durham Ox finally takes his place among the palatine's great and good; what biographers probably call a human interest story.

GORDON Batho, the series editor and frequent contributor, describes its subjects as those who have made a "significant but not necessarily high profile contribution" to the life of the region - the real County Durham - between Tyne and Tees.

There's even a journalist, the esteemed Fred Hurrell, properly lauded for his "gentleness and concern for others" but best remembered hereabouts for his wholly wise decision when editor of the Durham Advertiser to decline employment to a wet-eared hopeful from Shildon.

Timothy Hackworth, Shildon lad by adoption, is also featured, as is dear old Don Wilcock - born and raised there - who as teacher, guide, walker, industrial archaeologist and all round enthusiast made friends throughout the county.

"The most innocuous bumps in the ground came to life on Don's walks," it is recorded.

Many, like the Race family from the top end of Weardale, were Methodists, Primitive or otherwise. Among 48 potted biographies in this edition, there's also singer Alex Glasgow, sundry Peases, William Emerson of Hurworth - "mathematician and eccentric" - and Hensley Henson, a man of such humility he entitled his autobiography "A Retrospect of an Unimportant Life."

Henson was Bishop of Durham from 1920-39, possibly more one of the Lords than one of the lads.

"When he heard that Socialist leaders were to dine at Durham deanery," recalls Prof Batho mischievously, "he advised of many respectable ecclesiastical precedents for poisoning enemies."

The most frequently related Henson story, however, concerns an incident on Durham Miners' Gala day in 1925, when a group of pitmen, aggrieved at something he'd said, determined to throw the bishop into the Wear.

Unfortunately, they picked on the similarly clad Dean, Bishop Welldon, who duly underwent total immersion and had to be rescued by one of Brown's boats.

"Bishop Welldon lost his umbrella, his hat and his dignity," records Prof Batho. "Hensley Henson, contrary to popular myth, was unscathed."

* Each volume of Durham Biographies is available for £10, plus £1 postage, from Professor G R Batho, Durham County Local History Society, The Miners Hall, Red Hill, Durham DH1 4BB. Prof Batho (0191-370 9941) would also like to hear from anyone interested in contributing a biography to volume four.

TED Roberts, one of the Biographies' heroes, has also had published the first part of his autobiography - again under Gordon Batho's expansive wing.

Born in 1893 in Mount Pleasant, Spennymoor, Roberts was a miner's son whose parents at great sacrifice sent him to training college in London. He became teacher, headmaster - 15 years at Broom School, near Ferryhill - and inspector.

Visual aids pioneer, film maker and active NUT man, he was also choir conductor, Baptist chapel stalwart and Spennymoor's chief air raid warden. He died in 1975.

Across the Green by Edward Roberts, an account of his youth and childhood, is £6 (plus £1 postage) from Prof Batho.

ANOTHER old school tie, Brian Gardener in Spennymoor, forwards a copy of Parkinsons Scholar's Guide - "a 36-page gem" - issued to pupils in 1948 and rediscovered when helping tidy up for his 84-year-old mother-in-law in Penshaw.

Parkinsons were the pills people, each page topped with recommendations for head and nerve powders or Kilkof Kubes and injunctions to ask mother for Parkinsons - the missing apostrophe is contentious - chocolate laxative.

Within these small pages are everything from Troy weights to table manners, abbreviations to etiquette and from how to measure the width of a river (very complicated) to how to sing (damn near impossible).

"All they haven't included is betting tips," says Brian. Learning its lesson, the class of '48 would have known that 100 links equalled one chain, four pecks made one bushel and that a Sabbath day's journey was 1,216 yards. Perhaps someone even knows why.

BC was short for Before Christ, BSc for Bachelor of Science and BSP (what else) for blood and stomach pills.

Particularly, however, we are drawn beneath this fount of all knowledge to the page on "words frequently misused." Never, it says, use the phrase "nice man" or "nice dress" or whatever.

The correct meaning of "nice", the guide insists, is "fastidious" or "over-particular."

Have an over-particular day.