AMONG the more curmudgeonly elements of the popular press, several columns have recently been devoted to means of escaping the long weekend just concluded.

They ranged from four days in the broom cupboard to a fortnight in the Falklands. None mentioned a day at North Tees Hospital in Stockton and nor is it particularly to be recommended. It happened on Saturday, nonetheless.

Smaller Son, as the lady of this house has christened him, was driving his father to Billingham when he experienced sudden, very severe stomach pains whilst negotiating the A66/A19 flyover.

At last able to reach a lay-by, he collapsed in agony on the roadside from where his father, on all fours alongside him, immediately dialled 999. The hospital staff were prompt, efficient and kind, even resisting the temptation to ask why an 18-year-old should be wearing socks proclaiming him "World's best Dad." He'd bought the socks as last year's Father's Day present, depatriating them (as it were) about three days later.

Though still in much pain, the lad coped courteously and courageously until asked by one of the doctors when last he'd passed a motion.

His eyes rolled, his delivery halted, he tried to remember if they'd done motions in A/S level politics. Though he is confident, independent, streetwise and highly articulate there are times when lads still need their dads.

"Poohs," we said.

"Ah," replied the patient, "half past eight this morning."

EVEN Shakespeare - in The Merrie Wives of Windsor, of all the jubilant coincidences - makes similarly moving references.

"Shall I lose my doctor?" asks the host of the Garter Inn. "No, he gives me the potions and the motions."

It remains, as the Bloomsbury Dictionary of Euphemisms observes, a "lexical minefield" - a tricky business strewn with winsome circumlocutions.

There are jobs and big jobs, numbers one and two, honey carts, Tom-tits and Richards - Richard the Thirds, to be historically precise. Especially among the young, a grunty may offer the most self-explanatory sound effect.

The column's own dear old dad, before disappearing down the back yard with a pouch of St Bruno Flake in order to live in peace with his pipe, would talk of his "infra dig" - a corruption (he said) of the Latin "infra dignatem", meaning "beneath one's dignity".

For the moment, at any rate, that's enough of that (and for this relief, much thanks.)

DON'T I know you from somewhere?" the highly professional paramedic had asked in the back of the ambulance?

"The Northern Echo, possibly," we replied.

"Oh yes," said the paramedic, "you're the one who fills all his columns with long words that no one understands."

She proved to be the editor's sister-in-law, sororial vicariousness at its animadvertent best.

MORE words to the wise, last week's notes on the nocturnal habits of the West Highland barn owl translated the Scottish word "stooshie" as "an altercation likely to lead to fisticuffs".

It is by another 22 carat coincidence, therefore, that Ian Andrew in Lanchester writes of his "number one son" - Bigger Son, presumably - who is an accident and emergency doctor in Glasgow, where such things are all too familiar.

"The thing which annoys him most is the number of people who come into A&E presenting symptoms which should have been dealt with by a GP, thus clogging the system.

"He does not get bank holidays of any description off work. When he's trying to keep two cardiac arrests alive, then someone with a broken wrist is made comfortable and left, sometimes for two hours."

It's among the reasons why there are so many stooshies, and so many extra casualties. It doesn't take a brain surgeon, adds Ian, to realise why, in August, number one son is hoping to get a job in paediatrics.

AFTER the difference between the bad marksman and the constipated owl, incidentally, an e-mail from Peter Barber asks which type of owl likes to nest in the kitchen.

The teat owl, of course.

STILL able (on a clear day) to read a car number plate from 25 inches, the column last week reported spotting "32 CUP" parked modestly at Ireshopeburn, in Weardale.

No big deal, we supposed, but the owner might like to get the reasons for it off her chest.

It belongs to 74-year-old Mrs Dorothy Morton from Etherley, near Bishop Auckland - a fun loving size 42 and a lady of very substantial achievement. Just nine days ago, though we'd not made the connection, she'd featured in the Echo after being chosen for a television programme to train alongside the youngsters as a Britannia air hostess.

"I knew I'd have no trouble sorting our rowdy passengers," she said.

Last year Dorothy, a widow for 27 years, gained an Open University degree in history and social science and talked of measuring up to a Masters.

She's boasted 32 CUP for 54 years, since travelling to Oxford ("a big journey in those days") to collect her new Morris Oxford straight off the production line.

"Right from the start I've had lorry drivers hooting and flashing their lights when they see my number plate. They still do, but there's never been anything blatantly rude. It was absolute coincidence, UP was the Co Durham registration in those days and I hadn't been a size 32 since I was about 12."

Nothing personalised, of course, but what if - after all these years - she were made an offer by Playtex, or someone? "I've no money, but I don't think I'd part now," says Dorothy. "It still gets me lots of attention - all good, clean fun."

LAST week's column also chewed over a collective noun for dentists. "An amalgam," suggests Pat Cariss from Killerby, near Richmond, adding a spectacle of opticians - or a frame, perhaps - and a foothold of chiropodists.

Maybe even a pillar of columnists, says Pat, straight up. But what else should we collectively call those?

..and finally it was amid much joy that Smaller Son was discharged in time to watch the second half of the England match on Sunday morning, though the football, alas, risked relapse.

The whole village appeared overnight to have been decked with Union Jacks, bunting and balloons - a wonderful welcome home.

Published: 04/06/2002