LIKE the mucky bits in Lady Chatterley, Sir Paul Nicholson grumbles - grumbles affably, it should be said - that everyone laying hands on his autobiography turns at once to chapter ten. It's the bit about the failed battle for Vaux Breweries, the loss of hundreds of jobs and the destruction of a refreshing part of the North-East heritage. If not necessarily salacious, Sir Paul - 23 years the Vaux Group chairman - clearly regards it as pretty sordid.

The book is ripe with phrases like "smashed asunder", "corporate vandalism" - a favourite - "the grubby altar of spurious shareholder value" and "the gang who destroyed Vaux."

In conversation he talks frequently about the "Vaux tragedy" - and as D H Lawrence might have said, it was a pretty dirty business.

The autobiography, Brewer at Bay - Brewer's Droop might have been considered inappropriate - was launched last week, three floors up at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland.

"You can almost see from here how they destroyed the brewery," says Sir Paul, pointing over the river towards the now derelict site, though from there it is only visible in his still anguished mind's eye.

"They were terribly, terribly wrong," he adds over a glass of born again Double Maxim. "The evidence is over there."

There is much more to tell about Paul Nicholson, of course - old Harrovian, former Guards officer, Grand National jockey, pilot, field sports addict, Lord Lieutenant of Durham and high profile fighter for the North-East economy. "A more prosperous North-East would have meant a more prosperous Vaux," he admits, candidly.

The brewery, founded by Cuthbert Vaux in 1837, had previously been run by Sir Frank Nicholson, Paul's grandfather, and by Douglas Nicholson, usually known as The Major, his "formidable" father.

Everyone had stories about the horse loving, if not necessarily galloping, major. Almost all Vaux tenants claimed to have met him, to have shared a joke and a pint of Samson with him and to know why he, alone, remained unknighted.

Paul was born in 1938, attended Miss Derry's school in Durham - "I didn't learn much" - followed by Ludgrove School in Berkshire and then Harrow, where his head of house was Mark Dundas, now Lord Zetland.

Head lads were allowed to cane fellow pupils, though the young Dundas only twice tried it, twice swished the lampshade in the fearful descent and thereafter, apparently, decided to spare the rod.

Lord Zetland was also at the launch. Had we read the book at the time, we'd have sought punitive chapter and verse.

Whilst at Harrow, Paul was also a footman at the Coronation, his father coachman to the South African president Dr Malan in the sovereign's parade.

Many of the horses had already been scared off by the Metropolitan Police's familiarisation process of banging bin lids at them; the spectators were no more civil towards Dr Malan.

"He was the only person who was booed and every time it happened, he'd slam the coach window up again," recalls Sir Paul. "South Africa wasn't very popular, even then."

His own love of horses included riding Sea Knight in the 1964 National, 15th and last among the finishers and more remarkable yet for a man of 6ft 2ins. He'd wasted to 10st 2lbs, spent hours in Turkish baths and in the 24 hours after the race regained a stone.

"During the years 1958-70 I was very lucky to enjoy fast horses, fast cars and fast planes, if not fast women," he concedes, though there is a nudge and a wink that, before marriage to Sarah in 1970, he might have been a bit of a ladies' man, too.

He became a Vaux director at 29, chairman in 1976, oversaw the expansion of the Swallow Hotel group and of the company into 180 off-licences, 30 convenience stores and 22 nursing homes. He resigned in March, 1999, after a long and appropriately bitter battle failed in the face of opposition from new directors to secure a management buy-out for the brewery.

"My biggest mistake was in choosing my successors," he says.

The Swallow group was sold to Whitbread, the brewery - and Ward's in Sheffield - closed and finally demolished, though the city centre site remains undeveloped. The famous Vaux horses went to Beamish Museum, from where in this week once a year he takes them back on parade to Royal Ascot.

It's a long and eye-opening story, told engagingly, honestly and with manifest affection for the workforce. He was approached by the Memoir Club based at Whitworth Hall, near Spennymoor, just three miles from the family home in Brancepeth.

Sir Paul still holds "one or two" non-executive directorships but is open, he says, to other offers. "I don't think I'm too old at 65."

We stayed for a couple of glasses, maybe three, reminded irresistibly of a Vaux advertising campaign in the 1980s. "When you want good beer, make the V-sign," it said. The chairman makes it most effectively.

* Brewer at Bay by Sir Paul Nicholson is published by the Memoir Club at £17.50, or £15 for former Vaux employees. Details from the Club on 01388 811747. Sir Paul, who intends to give any profits from the book to community foundations in areas affected by the Vaux closure, will be signing copies at Sunderland City Library between 6-7.30pm on Monday.

A COINCIDENTAL note from Ken Stoves in Ormesby, Middlesbrough - "ex-belligerent linotype operator," he says - draws attention to some more recent printing mistakes among the classifieds. The most memorable he ever saw, says Ken, was for a "Vaux wagon" among the second hand motors. Some form of beer tanker, he supposes, and beetles off again.

AFTER months of searching, last week's column brought news of Leslie Melville, best remembered in the North-East for his act with Charmaine the Clairvoyant Hen. Though you'd never have foreseen it, he's cropped up again.

Nineteen years ago, former Durham polliss and FA Cup final referee Peter Willis became national president of the Referees Association, intending to hold office for two years. Leslie Melville provided the cabaret at the RA dinner that night.

Last Saturday, Big Peter - from Meadowfield, near Durham - finally stood down. The cabaret at the dinner in Coventry, booked then as in 1984 by Northumberland Referees Association official Len Hayden, was again Leslie Melville.

"D'you know a feller called Mike Amos," asked Leslie.

"No one better," said Len, who remembered Charmaine from her days at Whitley Bay Playhouse.

Though the hen has long gone to the great scratching shed in the sky, the show goes on. "Leslie was absolutely hilarious, there's a great trick about tying people's thumbs together," says Len. "It was the perfect way for Peter to go."

...and finally, having scrounged a lift from Mr Patrick Conway - Durham County Council's urbane director of culture and things - we can report a familiar sticker in his rear window. It says "Dum-di-dum-di-dum-di-dum, dum-di-dum-di-dum-dum" and proclaims affection for a well known radio programme. Like so many more, the director of culture is an Archers Addict.

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