NEIGHBOURING vicars Bill Simms and Ann Chapman will both be absent from their pulpits on Sunday - wished God speed on the Great North Run. Running mates as well as fellow clergy, they've also been training together on the rolling roads of Wensleydale.

"We have deep and meaningful discussions on theological issues as we go along," insists Ann, 49, a former Yorkshire schools hurdler.

She's Vicar of Askrigg, tackling the 13-mile course to raise funds for the parish church and for a new boiler for the glorious, Swiss chalet-style daughter church in the hidden hamlet of Stalling Busk.

"It's still going, but creaking away," she says.

Bill, a former Darlington council personnel officer, is Vicar of Hawes and a veteran of nine London Marathons for local charities. Both are members, down dale, of Richmond and Zetland Harriers.

"I'd originally intended to run with my dog, but he's a bit of a sniffer and one arm was getting longer than the other," says Ann.

"I'd met Bill but didn't know he was a runner until I went down to the Harriers and found him there as well."

He has the greater stamina, she suspects; she might get round more quickly. "If we get split up, we've promised to wait for one another at the end."

Her replacement for Sunday's services is already lined up. He is the appropriately named Rev Alan Sirman.

BILL Simms is 61. Whilst it is to be hoped that he will run and run, he is unlikely to be Vicar of Hawes for as long as Canon James Llewellyn Grice Hill.

Canon Hill, who held the Military Cross - though he insisted that he couldn't remember what he'd done to deserve it - arrived as the church's man at St Margaret's in 1929, intending to stay for three or four years. He retired in 1980, when he was 90, and died the following year.

"I think the Church has forgotten what it's there for," he once told the column. "It just seems to get up to all sorts of stunts. I wouldn't care if it filled the churches."

Canon Hill, who complained that the man who emptied his bins earned more than he did, was also organist and choirmaster. Part of his retirement deal as Vicar was that he could continue in his other roles.

The Rev Arthur Officer, long time Vicar of Rookhope, in Weardale, was also almost 90 and almost blind when he died in office in the 1970s.

These days Church of England clergy must retire at 70, usually 65, unless - like the Rev Edward Underhill at St George's, Gateshead - their tenure dates back to the 1950s.

Now 78, Mr Underhill came to St George's in 1957, still uses the 1662 Book of Common Prayer for all services - "like entering a liturgical time warp," the At Your Service column observed - and when not about his pastoral business writes generally aggrieved letters to The Times. His wife does, too.

"It has been said by a source close to him that he can do two things well - dig over a kitchen garden and write a letter," said St George's centenary brochure.

A source even closer to him insisted they were going nowhere. "If the Lord wanted us to move, He'd have moved us."

AN unexpected little windfall for that remarkable chap John "Basher" Alderson, the Horden miner's son who became a Wild West star in Hollywood.

The BBC, presently planning a ninth series of Dr Who - a woman is tipped for the Timelord's temporalities - is releasing a video of two 1967 episodes in which the Horden Cowboy appeared.

"It's their idea of Gunfight at the OK Corral set to music," says Basher, still in Hollywood and expecting a royalties boost to his pension.

So what was he doing in Dr Who? "I played Wyatt Earp," he says.

THE piece a couple of weeks ago about the joys of a Scottish highland holiday - and the former Middlesbrough pub landlady who found paradise in Achnasheen - prompted notes from John Harrison in Darlington and Chris Greenwell in Newton Aycliffe.

Mr Harrison recalls a visit to Moniack Castle, west of Inverness. "On entering the castle shop, you are immediately encouraged to help yourself to a seemingly unlimited supply of samples from their superb range of home-made liqueurs, wines and jam."

Having fancied a little, they left laden down, pondering on the train south that they had an at-source bargain, nonetheless.

It was mildly irritating, therefore, to find the same stuff, same price, at Lewis and Cooper in Northallerton.

Mr Greenwell is briefer. "Ye gods," he writes, "yet another attempt at getting the holiday, Mrs McCready's oat cakes and the Bonnie Prince Charlie shortbread on expenses."

HAVING pressganged us onto the Liberty and Livelihood march two weekends ago, Shildon Countryside Movement chairman Mike Hardy now offers a sitting-down role.

Mike, an Independent member of a largely Labour town council, plans to occupy the Town Square stocks to raise funds for Shildon's Drug Awareness Week.

He'll be joined from 11am-1pm on Sunday October 20 by two local pollisses ("I'm not sure they know yet") and, he hopes, by the column.

"You'll be like me, a lot of people in Shildon won't like you," he cajoles. "If the Labour Party turn up they won't just be throwing sponges, they'll be throwing the bucket an' all."

Drug Awareness Week has become an annual half term event in Shildon. "Last year we took the kids ferreting," says Mike. They used to make do with picking taties.

THAT other big hearted Shildon lad John Robinson - he whose 20-mile barefoot walk on August 26 has helped raise over £5,000 for breast cancer charities - plans a yet more heroic effort.

Next up, if he can get a place, is the 2003 London Marathon. "It's only another six miles, there shouldn't be any problem," says John, a 55-year-old martial arts expert.

There is one possible problem, however. He plans to run that barefoot, too.

...and finally, we shall be at Cobblers Hall, Newton Aycliffe on Saturday, officially to open a "Welcome Day" for the Co Durham and Cleveland branch of Mencap.

Cobbers Hall - interesting name, perhaps someone will explain it - is a "pioneering care centre" run by Mencap.

The day's main theme - "Behind closed doors" - is to highlight the problems encountered by vulnerable adults who have suffered physical and mental abuse, and the obstacles encountered in getting justice.

The CPS and other agencies will be present; the informal day also offers reflexology, aromatherapy, a display of mobility equipment, respite and short breaks information and (happily) refreshments.

Cobblers Hall is in Burn Lane, Newton Aycliffe. The day runs from 12-6pm, all welcome, though the opener has been given a 2pm pass out - off, of course, to the footy.