We have been discussing appropriate headlines. Arthur Lightening, as might be supposed, was a banner simply waiting to be unfurled.

Whilst no quickfire sub-editor was likely to write "Greased Lightening" - nor even "Lightening reflexes" - over an account of his brief and ignominious exploits as Middlesbrough FC's goalkeeper, old Arthur swiftly left his mark, nonetheless.

Dave Dale in South Bank, Teesside, recalls the Daily Mirror headline on Thursday, August 30, 1962 after Boro's 6-1 second division defeat at Newcastle. "Lightening thunder struck," it said, and well it might have done.

The Echo's effort - "Harvey's half time changes produced the thunderbolts" - was longer winded, though on similarly meteorological lines.

Lightening was a South African, signed on the morning of the match for £10,000 from Coventry City after regular Boro goalkeeper Bob Appleby had let in five, home to Huddersfield, in the previous game. Magpies' centre forward Barrie Thomas hit three, Ken Hale two and Dave Hilley his first goal for the club.

Ligthening made just 14 more Football League appearances, interrupted by a Quarter Sessions appearance for receiving stolen beer, wine and spirits at his room in the Royal Hotel, Redcar.

Though found guilty, he was given an absolute discharge after the judge described him as "honest, truthful and manly."

Ligthening, the court heard, earned £25 a week with an extra fiver for first team appearance money.

In May 1963, he was given permission to attend a family wedding in South Africa, sailed off and never returned. "I though it strange that he only booked a single ticket," the travel agent told the Echo's investigating reporter.

Lightening - honest, truthful and manly - had bolted.

THOSE who believe in checking their dates may like to know that on August 30, 1962, The Northern Echo also reported increasing opposition to Dr Beeching's plans for massive railway cuts, the death at 66 of Giovani Gaggia, inventor of the espresso coffee machine, and that the Caricaturists' Association had drawn up a list of the world's ten most beautiful women.

Brigitte Bardot was included for her "arresting" chin, Princess Margaret for her brow and Grace Kelly for her lugs. (That's lugs, incidentally, not legs.)

Meanwhile, back in Richmond, North Yorkshire, opposition was mounting over plans to convert The Cinema into a bingo hall. "It is a terrible menace," observed recently retired Methodist minister Shirley Redfern.

Every reasonable thinking man, he added, would agree that it was a corruption of moral life.

Forty years on, was the minister mistaken?

FLUSHED With Pride", as last week's column observed, was the unoriginal title of the biography of Thomas Crapper, the man who perfected the WC.

John Pattison, from this company's maintenance department, has now loaned a copy. "I'm a plumber," John explains. "No self-respecting plumber would be without the story of Thomas Crapper."

The book is angry, however, that Crapper's legacy may be a little flippant. Never has the saying "A prophet is not without honour except in his own land" been more appropriate, it adds.

"Is his name revered in the same way, for example, as the Earl of Sandwich?"

Then there's Mackintosh, Macadam, Bowler, Gladstone or even Mrs Amelia Bloomer, whose name survives, eponymously, in the plural.

Crapper, bottom of the heap, even became court plumber to Edward VII. "If he didn't walk with kings," adds Flushed With Pride, "he certainly discussed sanitary arrangements with them."

RETIRED head teacher Ethel Dobson from Bishop Auckland recalls, meanwhile, that the firm which supplied all her school's toilet needs was the Yorkshire Wiper Company. Ideal for keeping a clean slate, presumably.

A HAPPY case of mistaken identity, Doug Porthouse in Ferryhill not only writes about tiger nuts but encloses a packet of the wizened little things.

He should not therefore be confused with porterhouse, a cut of steak named after the New York porterhouse restaurant in which it was perfected, nor with Chateaubriand, carpetbag and tartar, which are also steaks - the latter served rare.

Chateaubriand was a French count, carpetbag is an Australian steak filled with oysters and the Tartars were a rough lot - hence the column's old mother's familiar observation: "He's a bit of a tartar, that one."

(The column's old mother had many familiar expressions, among the best remembered but least printable a paraphrase of the saying about kettle and pot.)

Tiger nuts, at any rate, were subject of one of David Simpson's recent Burning Questions columns.

Doug bought them from a shop in Moffatt, Dumfrieshire, which also sold old favourites like locust beans - "just like I remember them from childhood".

Tiger nuts were 50p a quarter - great value for money, says Doug, though his wife thought them revolting. Mrs Porthouse seems to be a very perceptive lady.

IN the matter of unfortunate names, it should also be recorded that the Pratts - that is to say, the members of the exclusive Pall Mall club of that name - stood looking down from the balcony, drinks in hand, as the Shildon Countryside Movement shuffled past on Sunday's Liberty and Livelihood march through London.

It should further be added that the Shildon lads, no class warriors here, looked up and cheered them.

Much more about the Freedom Shuffle, and the Shildon Rat Pack, in the John North column tomorrow.

HAD it not have been caught up amid 400,000 marchers, tomorrow's John North would also have offered a home to a note about Thomas Allen, the world renowned opera singer - a Seaham lad, like Denis Weatherley, his mentor.

When Denis became headmaster of King James I Grammar School in Bishop Auckland, he lived in a flat at Auckland Castle - where young Tom travelled to continue his musical education.

As extravagantly attired as a bright star of the opera might be supposed to be, he also flew back from Germany to St Cuthbert's church, Darlington for Denis's funeral - one of life's most memorable.

This Friday Sir Thomas, as he has been since 1999, returns to Auckland Castle for a concert - long since sold out - for a concert organised by Bishop Auckland Music Society.

"Britain's most eminent singer," they say, not unreasonably, and Mrs Gadfly will ecstatically be in attendance. Prior engagement, the column sings for its supper at East Rainton Cricket Club instead.

Published: ??/??/2002