Princess Margaret's sharp sense of humour was recalled in a magazine at the weekend, and I can endorse what was said.

When she spent a few days in Teesdale, relaxing at Holwick Hall, I had a chance to go there to take her photograph.

Naturally I made an effort to look presentable - suit well pressed, shirt and tie chosen with care, shoes highly polished. The princess was charming and chatty, sipping a large gin and tonic and puffing an extra-long ciggie before we got round to taking the snap.

A couple of days later I was in Cotherstone picking up the Sunday papers and looking a real scruff with ragged trousers, crumpled pullover, muddy boots, dirty hands, unshaven chin and uncombed hair after squelching around in a garden.

Told the princess was about to leave the parish church round the corner, I got the camera from the car. I stood partly hidden in a small bunch of onlookers and clicked a few times as she strolled to her limo. She was about to get in when she spotted me and came over to murmur with a smile, "I see you've got dressed up today."

The South of France has sun-kissed beaches, film stars' villas and topless lovelies, but it also shares an unsavoury problem with Teesdale.

Alistair and Sheila Brookes of Mickleton, just home from there, brought me the glossy local paper, the English-language Riviera Times.

The main front page headline is, "Take a stand - Fed up with dog mess? Then run for election."

Inside, along with reports from St Tropez, Cannes, Monte Carlo and other classy resorts, there's a reader's letter protesting that the elegant city of Nice has disgusting pavements. The peeved reader calls for poop scoops and doggy bins. Sounds familiar.

John Pinkney used an expression I'd never heard before as he was standing down after his wonderful 68-year stint at Middleton mart.

Things were improving at last after foot and mouth, he said, with prices rising and farmers more contented. With a wry chuckle he added, "And a contented farmer is like a dead donkey".

He told me this is an old dale saying. Presumably it means you don't see either of them very often. But most farmers must surely be content with the meticulous service given over the decades by Gentleman John, who will be 90 in January. The term straight as a die suits him perfectly.

An admirable job has been made of renovating the village hall at Copley, built in 1898 and looking its age wearily before the facelift.

This week when I called, four jocular senior citizens Dorothy Bell, Amy Walton, Irene Lowe and Leaman Kipling were engrossed in carpet bowls. But they took a breather to speak admiringly of the crisp new look.

A gleaming kitchen and lavatories have been added along with a general spruce up. A new floor in the snooker room replaces a wobbly one worn down by a century of shuffling boots.

The cost was £60,000, of which £50,000 came in a National Lottery grant.The bill would have been higher but for the services of a kindly local architect, Paul Docherty, who gave his services free.

David Whitfield and Jeanette Lee, who do a mountain of work for the hall, hope a lot more use will be made of it now. A relaunch concert is being held on Saturday, June 21.

I've been chided for seeming to think Tumbledown Dicks was in or near Middleton. I know I was miles off at Harwood but a sentence missed from the column made it look otherwise. But it did set off debates about old drinking places. For the record, those in the village in the early 1890s were the Foresters Arms, King's Head, Talbot, Rose and Crown, Cleveland Arms and Bridge Street Beerhouse.

* I can be contacted at the Echo office at 36 Horsemarket, Barnard Castle, on Mondays and Tuesdays, tel 01833-638628, or mobile 07986-459320.