When you just can't beat a bit of batter

Chiefly they were fascinated by the Eating Owt column, widely regarded as the cushiest number since Fergus McDoddle kept goal for Arbroath on the occasion of their 36-0 win over Bon Accord on September 5, 1885.

We protested (perhaps, like Ophelia, too much) that there was a weekly danger of over-indulgence, of too much of a good, bad or oft-indifferent thing and - voting with the surfeit - went out that night for a bag of fish and chips instead.

Not any old fish and chips, of course. "The best in the North," Mrs Edith Elliott-Sunter had written from Richmond with the authority of one who's had a fair few sixpennorths in her time.

She meant Bradley's of Blackhall, which should not be confused with Blackpool. Blackpool, said Mr Stanley Holloway, was famous for fresh air and fun. Blackhall is famous for a colliery.

It's on the coal-fired coast road from Hartlepool to Peterlee, named (so local legend has it) because of the black holes eroded into the magnesium limestone cliff face by the relentless action of a grimy sea.

Families, it's said, used to camp for the weekend in the caves whilst the pitmen went off fishing; folk in places like Tow Law swear that on a clear day they can see Blackhall cliffs which is curious because, unless on the once-blasted beach, you can't even see them from Blackhall.

The Bradleys have been there for generations. The family had a familiar motors business, changed gear and bought the Hardwicke Hall hotel up the road, had adapted well until the night that Ernest Bradley slipped in the kitchen and banged his head on the bain-marie.

For two months he thought little of it, until one or two niggles prompted medical intervention and the diagnosis that he had a cerebral haematoma - a condition every bit as alarming as it sounds.

"I wasn't very well for a while," says Ernest with great British understatement, and for nine years he wasn't allowed to work at all.

In 1994 - when he was 61 - he was finally given the all-clear. Batter late than never, Ernest and Joan Bradley and their son Christopher bought the fish and chip shop instead.

"I wanted something a bit less stressful," says Ernest.

Though the evening was grey and gruesome, the atmosphere inside was manifestly cheerful. "Relax, God is in control," said a sticker next to the range, reprising the very old joke about the piece of cod that passeth all understanding.

The family is Methodist, though not tub-thumping English evangelicals. Rather the avuncular Ernest resembled a gentle American pastor, come over to say Howdy to the folks.

The restaurant was full, taken over for the night by the Methodist ladies of Easington Colliery, though not in some re-enactment of the feeding of the five thousand. Small and cosy, it has just 18 covers. "You should have joined us," they said later.

Instead, we ordered cod and chips twice (£3.15, including the insulated box in which to carry them) and headed down to the cliffs, turning the tide beach and picnic area, where we sat and watched the mist.

Though the picnic area didn't run to a litter bin - a minor municipal absurdity - The Boss considered a few scattered chip boxes an improvement. Last time she'd been there, she said, they were throwing cars over the cliffs.

The Queen had stopped by last month, too, and is likely to have been impressed.

Supper had kept remarkably hot. "You could take it to Seaton Carew beach and still burn your tongue on the first chip," said Christopher.

The portions were huge, the batter crisp and dry, the fish - "Icelandic, we find it's the best quality" - succulent.

The chips, we supposed, were as thick as a grown man's thumb, prompting the recollection that in Victorian times a grown man was allowed to beat his wife, so long as the stick or other implement was no thicker than that digit.

Hence, of course, the phrase about rule of thumb.

They may not, who knows, have been the best in the North. They may not even have been the best in the column's unfathomable experience, though they came pretty close to it.

Afterwards we went for a walk along the well defined coastal path, read the information boards about smugglers, pirates and shipwrecks - another local legend has it that the crew were all drunken sailors - and supposed that, had the weather been brighter, it would have been the perfect way to spend a summer's evening.

Blackhall, and Bradley's, warrant further exploration - and that's the newspaper talking.

l Bradley's, Coast Road, Blackhall, Co Durham, (0191-5872055.) Restaurant and shop open Tuesday-Saturday 11.30am-1.30pm and 4.30pm-10pm. Shop also sells cockles and mussels, restaurant has more extensive menu and a bring-your-own table licence. Best to book.

GOOD Beer Guide ever to hand, we looked homeward from Blackhall into the Bird in Hand in Trimdon Village. "The landlord is very committed to serving real ale," says the GBG, a gallantry which in those keg-cultured parts deserves not just a mention in the GBG but in despatches as well.

Guest beers change regularly - Piddle in the Sand coming shortly. It was a pity, therefore, that the Golden Jubilee ale hadn't expired when the Bank Holiday did.

THOUGH it's no journey at all, it was donkeys since we'd been in the Travellers Rest at Skeeby, between Scotch Corner and Richmond.

"The alcohol crisis is over, no need to bring your own," said a notice by the door, a message to the New Year revellers who had indeed brought their own and couldn't understand what all the fuss was about.

More conventional customers can choose from three real ales, assorted menus which include four or five vegetarian dishes and a seat, if they wish, in the post office.

Skeeby's old post office closed a year ago. Whilst the post masters consult on possible closure - "consult" is an official euphemism, meaning "go through the motions" - business accommodated two days a week in the corner of the bar.

Pension proposals are propped against the 5s and 3s trophy, directives from the Nash (as still it is known north of the Tees) piled next to the Ninja game.

Food includes small boy's breakfast (£4.25) and big boy's breakfast (£4.95), turbot with sweet pepper sauce and a vast range of sandwiches and baguettes. The intention to have a pease pudding baguette was thwarted, however, by the absence of a) pease pudding and b) baguettes.

Instead we began with black pudding in pepper sauce - not a chieftain of the pudding race, as Robbie Burns would have said - and followed with a huge, tasty and inexpensive dish of gammon, eggs and chips. "A whole pig," said the bairn, also in attendance.)

Though it was Bank Holiday Tuesday, Skeeby is delaying its own Golden Jubilee celebrations until the first weekend of July. There'll be kite flying; some of us have been doing it for years.

A QUICK one in the Kirk at Romaldkirk - another pub which doubles as the village post office, and for many years with Roz and Dennis Frampton's first class stamp - reveals that the pub is for sale. Romaldkirk's in Teesdale, Dennis still teaches in Billingham. "It's becoming an awfully long way," says Roz.

MOOCHING around Durham, waiting for a bus as usual, we discover several fly posters for Pipedown, the pressure group that commendably campaigns for all piped music - in pubs and elsewhere - to be silenced.

"Pipedown," say the posters, "believe that all music is devalued by being used as acoustic wallpaper."

Since the column (quietly) applauds its ambitions, a free plug: annual membership is £12 from Pip edown, PO Box 1722, Salisbury SP4 7UP.

The following day's Independent called Pipedown's tune, too, after a conversation with the celebrated (and famously hot headed) chef Gordon Ramsay.

"If you walk into a restaurant and music is being played," said Ramsay, "then you know that the food is crap."

BACK and front bronzed from two weeks in the sun, Sue and Terry at the Brit in Darlington report that a Chinese restaurant in Los Cristianos offers "happy families served on a sizzling hot plate." Upon colder consideration, they'll probably stick to ham and pease pudding sandwiches.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what was worse than finding a maggot in your apple.

Finding half a maggot in your apple.

Published: 11/06/2002