Gadfly: Politeness is next to godliness for guides

For 38 years, Mrs Shaw-Hall was an unpaid guide or steward at Durham Cathedral, working up to 12-hour days. It was a truly thankless task, she says - particularly amongst the senior clergy.

"In the days before the advent of package tourism from the world, one can testify - working under four deans and more bishops - to the un-Christian manners of most (clergy)."

The exceptions, she says, were the courtly Michael Ramsey, who always exchanged kindly greetings - "the very last Prince Bishop" - and Dean Weston, who was so revolutionary, he even allowed them tea breaks.

Many of the guides travelled long distances in all weathers. Unacknowledged and now unrestrained, Mrs Shaw-Hall guides Telegraph readers to the third chapter of the second epistle to Timothy.

"For men shall be lovers of their own selves," says verse 2 of the Authorised Version, "covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy."

Verse 6 goes further: "For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts..."

Divers lusts in Durham Cathedral? Whatever can it all mean?

OTHERWISE employed, Janet Murrell in Durham sends a half page feature from The Independent headlined "Ecologists hail victory over Galapagos invader."

The upshot, readers everywhere will be happy to hear, is that the uninhabited island of Santiago in the Galapagos chain - "like a jewel set in the azure expanse of the Pacific Ocean" - has been rid of the "destructive" feral pig.

They're doing something about the goat problem on the island of Isabella, too.

This remarkable if somewhat expansive revelation appeared on Monday June 3, the day after England's World Cup campaign began and at the height of the Golden Jubilee euphoria.

Immediately above the headline was the category "Home News". Clearly, says Janet, not much going on in the UK that weekend.

WHOEVER it was who cleared the Galapagos Islands of goats might be relocated to Durham city centre where, amid Monday evening's student revelry, we saw several rats scuttling about the litter bin at the Market Place end of Framwelgate Bridge.

PERHAPS it is to be Durham Day, as they used to call the Big Meeting, since it is next to the new University Hospital of North Durham (nee Dryburn) that Paul Conroy in Consett directs us.

Amid all the privately financed, high falutin' and occasionally malfunctioning technology Paul was delighted to observe a touch of the old fashioned vernacular on a sign in a corridor.

"This door," it said, "opens out over."

IN the University Hospital of North Tees, as properly we must call it, the bairn had a problem - as last week's column noted - over a question about passing a motion.

If it loses something in the translation in Stockton, how much greater is the medical language barrier in Glasgow, where Ian Andrew's number one son is a casualty doctor?

Properly trained, Ian's lad usually proposes the motion first, swiftly followed by the less formal "Have you had a **** this week?"

Ian himself is presently traversing the wondrous West Highland Way, but lives in Lanchester. "Because of the Glasgow diet, fry everything including Mars bars, the answer is usually no."

IF bibles are being dusted down, as we supposed at the top of the column, could it be so that thirsters after knowledge will be able to dust up?

We mention it following a note from Chris Greenwell in Newton Aycliffe who's been struggling with conversational Spanish but supposes our mother tongue to be trickier by far.

"What other useage has to slow up meaning the same as to slow down and a slim chance meaning the same as a fat chance?" Chris asks.

Gadfly readers may be able to suggest other examples, he supposes - like an uphill struggle equating to things being down hill all the way, perhaps.

What, also, of the term "downtown", as still remembered in Miss Petula Clark's number two hit - "Downtown, where all the lights are bright" -from November 1964?

In America, it means "town centre". Billy Joel's Uptown Girl, a number one 19 years later, was probably about being in love with a lass from the suburbs.

So why does almost every Englishman suppose "downtown" to be in the sticks?

AMID all these ups and downs, at which end of Darlington is the Wheatsheaf, a familiar roadhouse closed for what probably is termed re-branding?

The pub will shortly re-open as a "sport and entertainment" bar. A recruitment ad last week described it as in the "heart" of town.

Locals will confirm, however, that it is a good mile and a half from the centre on Yarm Road, far closer to the countryside.

Darlo may indeed be big hearted, but claims like that risk cardiac arrest.

ELSEWHERE in uptown Darlington, as the observant George Howe points out, a sign near the Texaco garage on Neasham Road refers to Garbutt Sqaure.

GRATIFYINGLY, several readers were taken by the put-down, reported a couple of weeks back, of the lateral thinker in the go-faster braces who'd apologised for keeping the column awake.

"Not at all," we'd replied, "the exact opposite is the case."

Harry Watson in Darlington recalls F E Smith, a lawyer who became the first Earl of Birkenhead, concluding the case for the defence.

At the end of the summing up, the judge complained that he was no wiser than when Smith had begun.

"Possibly not, my Lord," replied the lawyer, "but far better informed."

Somewhere there may even be a book of put-downs. Others - not to be confused with put-ups - most welcome.

...and finally, the day after Nexus revealed that many Metro services had been cancelled because of the need to recruit and train extra drivers, the column took its first trip on the new extension into Wearside.

Whilst cynics might suppose that the staffing problem should have been foreseen, the familiarisation exercise appears at least to be working.

"This train," announced the driver, "is for Sun'lan'."