THE editor of this newspaper is a man of passions, among them rabbits and racehorses. His rabbits, generally speaking, run a great deal faster than his horses do.

He was therefore thrilled to learn that leading trainer Mark Johnston has gone into partnership in Race Riders Caf in Middleham, opened six weeks ago in what was Captain Neville Crump's front parlour.

Neville Crump is a Middleham legend, a man remembered not just for training three Grand National winners (Teal, Merryman, Sheila's Cottage) but for riding through that sleepy North Yorkshire town at 6am with cries of "Yoiks" and "Tally-ho" and "Get up you lazy buggers."

It was 7.45 when we both galloped up, in the dual hope of a good breakfast and of what apparently is known as a stable whisper, the place well filled with stable lads and lasses already having done half a shift.

"Arcalis in the first at Thirsk," someone whispered the length of the room.

They were bit bairns most of them, little spelks of things, though there was also Bobby Elliott, who was race riding at 50 and still, within sight of his pension book, rides invigoratingly out each dawning.

Like almost everyone else in the Race Riders Caf, there is more fat on a chip than there is on Bobby Elliott, the curious thing about that weighty matter being that they eat chips with just about everything.

There was pork pie and chips, lasagne and chips, sausage and chips, chip butty and chips. "We started off with pasta and salads and healthy things and they didn't want to know," said Tony Hewson. "Racing people will eat anything, so long as it's with chips."

Metabolism, someone said, but that might have been in the 2.30 at Thirsk, an' all.

Tony and Rachel Hewson, Darlington folk, also run the Stable Door caf in Middleham market place. They and Mark Johnston had originally envisaged an eating place for stable workers only; now it's open to all though - horses for courses - a hankering for the sport of kings doubtless helps.

"We want it to be a centre where those interested in racing can meet with those who work in the business," said Mark.

The walls are hung with racing prints, Racing Post and Thoroughbred Review sit neck and neck in the magazine racks, the racing channel is permanently on the two televisions.

Also on the wall was a picture of a railway engine called Double Trigger, which was nothing to do with Roy Rogers, it transpired, but one of Johnston's better horses. There's a statue of it in the editor's office and a photograph at Doncaster racecourse - or possibly it's the other way round.

You know when you were kids at Christmas and Santa had been as merrily munificent as ever and grown-ups wouldn't let you open your presents until you'd had three Weetabix, two slices of toast and marmalade and a dose of California Syrup of Figs? The editor was like that last Friday.

Had breakfast been a seven furlong handicap he'd have won it by six and a half, so great his anxiousness to be off and up to the rainy gallops above the town. Perhaps he might see a rabbit as well.

A more carefully considered all-day breakfast (£3.50) proved a very good bet - not the biggest ever encountered, but a high quality job with both fried and scrambled eggs, excellent bacon, sausages, beans, tinned tomatoes, mushrooms and lots of toast.

Sadly there wasn't any fried bread. Some people have to watch their weight.

Across the road at Mark Johnston's yard they were getting ready for Thirsk. Arcalis, whisper it, didn't even make the frame.

THE Boss, who must on no account be confused with the editor, has a phenomenal memory. Last time we were at the Devonport, she recalled, the plumbing leaked, the wallpaper was peeling and the bairns played cricket with rolled up napkins. It was probably several landlords ago.

The Devvy is at Middleton One Row, five miles east of Darlington and high above the Tees. Duncan and Joanne Millar, the new licensees, also detected a certain under-achievement about the place.

They lived in Middleton-one-Row, drank at the Devonport, decided to buy the lease.

Though the decor might still benefit from a facelift of Liz Taylor proportions, we had a very enjoyable Sunday lunch there and with the bonus of a young waitress who sounded a bit like Hannah Gordon. Hannah Gordon has the sexiest voice on earth.

Last Friday they were also offering free tasting of Hoegaarden, thus reprising the well known song "I beg your pardon, I never promised you a Hoegaarden."

Main course was £4.95, starter and sweet £2.95 each. The Boss began with smoked salmon and scrambled eggs with what was described as a "dainty" vol-au-vent. Disdaintily, she left it on the side of the plate.

We'd begun with French onion soup - delicious, manifestly home made and so ample that in a previous existence it might have filled a Parisian paddling pool.

She followed with stuffed roast peppers, red and yellow, thought (inexplicably) that they looked like Redcar lifeguards. The roast pork was good, the crackling crisp and the side bowl vegetables so carefully arranged that they resembled a wreath, or perhaps a garland of honour.

One pudding, a distinctive orange and treacle tart, had also clearly from the kitchen and not from Pudz R Us.

Real ales, about which they are commendably enthusiastic, included Golden Gate from Nethergate in Suffolk. One not to be forgotten.

AS they seem to do at least three times a year, GNER introduced a new buffet range - ham sandwiches and things - last week. This one's called Go Eat.

"What's different?" we asked the steward. "Just the focaccio bread," he said, "and I've been on a week's course learning how to pronounce it."

LAST week's paragraph on railway wagons prompted a note from John Winterburn, he whose garden shed in Darlington has been converted into a lovely little outlet for his home brew. (He bakes a canny pie, too.)

Guards vans, it may be recalled, used to have a cosy coal fire with a little pipe sticking through the roof.

Next to the pipe was a sign warning not to lift the chimney pipe because of the danger from overhead live wires. At Shildon Works, fondly remembered, someone had added his own translation: "If you want an electric fire, lift this pipe a little higher."

As a result of featuring in the John North column a few months back, incidentally, John has been invited to lecture to the Workers Educational Association on brewing. Night work if you can get it.

OUR note on Grubbs Diner, opposite Middlesbrough bus station, also elicited a letter from Alfred Lister in Guisborough - "Very well, it ain't the Ritz, but we were famished and for around a fiver the pair of us ate our fill. It must be the best value for money anywhere."

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what you get if you cross a juicy fruit with a sad dog.

A melon collie, of course.

Published 27/08/2002