THE guys with whom we had a beer on Tuesday lunchtime would unanimously define an orgasm as riding immediately behind a steam engine with only a large whisky for company.

Mostly they have never been professional railwaymen, nor even train spotters with smutty faces. Now they have the enthusiasm of bairns, ready daily to get their hands dirty in the cause, Last of the Summer Wine without the crumpled stockings.

Unofficially they are the Retired Gentlemen's Club. "We have either understanding wives or broken marriages," says Fred Ramshaw.

All are members of the North East Locomotive Preservation Group, whose latest project is to restore - restore again, it may be said without fear of grammatical offence - a steam engine with a story.

It is a class Q6, built in Darlington around 1919, numbered 2238 by the NER and 63395 by British Railways and destined for a low key lifetime on the region's branch lines, the mechanical equivalent of the store horse.

In 1967, as the steam age sadly subsided, 63395 was also condemned to the scrapyard until a group of Newcastle University students made a late rescue bid.

Acceptance was withdrawn, however, when Ian Smith's declaration of UDI in Rhodesia sent copper prices soaring overnight.

The Q6 was again scheduled for the scrapyard, the crew duly rostered. The night previously, however - or so locomotive legend has it - NELPG members took the driver to the pub and got him so drunk (or so grateful) that he didn't turn up for work next day.

By the time the last sombre journey could be rescheduled, the NELPG had raised the extra money.

Reinvigorated, the engine worked the North Yorkshire Moors Railway but by 1984 was in need of further restoration. For 18 years it stood in a shed.

"Every annual meeting someone would ask when it was going to be the Q6's turn," recalls Martin Lloyd, 65. "It was always supposed to be next on the list."

Finally the Q6 reached the front of the queue, now in bits in an externally shabby Darlington council-owned former carriage workshop. Upstairs in the little office are wonderful old photographs, bundles of Steam Railway magazine and a list of opening times at the chip shop.

The Retired Gentlemen's Club, and friends, expect restoration to take two

years and - even with volunteer labour - to cost £100,000. Without need of much shunting, they reckon old NELPG men are coming out of hibernation to get the Q6 firing on all cylinders again.

"It's something to keep us out of mischief," says Martin. "My wife and I have an arrangement. She likes whist drives and cruises and I like this but

I defy anyone to see a steam engine working and not think it's quite magnificent.

"In a shed they might look cold, dirty and tatty but light a fire inside and there's a magic about them. We're just helping rekindle it."

Firstly, however, it must be stripped down and cleaned up. The technical term, apparently, is that it's "covered in crap".

Bill Angus, among the old dependables, is an engine driver's son from Middlesbrough who recalls taking his dad's Sunday dinner kept warm in a red and white spotted handkerchief, the reward an illicit ride on the footplate.

"You never forget a thrill like that," he says. "I still think of steam engines as living, breathing things.

"Regrettably the youngsters don't seem to want to know, too busy playing with their computers. Us old crumblies will just have to do it ourselves."

LAST week's note on the passing of Charles Simon - the 40-a-day actor who trod the boards until he was 93 - was mistaken in supposing that he married a shopkeeper's daughter.

Nancy McDermid, an actress herself, was the daughter of Walter McDermid, Darlington Council's head of public health.

Charles, who ran a repertory company in Darlington either side of the war - and was staff officer to Bomber Harris during it - became best known as Dr Dale in the long running radio programme but earned far more money in his last 20 years than ever he had in his life.

His theatrical philosophy, said the Express obit, remained constant - "Learn it, say it, take the money and bugger off" - though the most memorable story is told by Ian McDermid, his nephew.

Ian's father, Kenneth McDermid, owned Fox's Caf in Bondgate, Darlington - "many of your readers will remember the wonderful roasted-bean coffee aroma" - and also ran ("as a hobby") the Kino cinema in Butterknowle and the Crown in Cockfield.

Ian, now in Sutton on the Forest, near York, particularly recalls a family gathering in the 50s at which the legend of Robin Hood was being faithfully re-enacted - until someone broke wind.

The muse swiftly visited Uncle Charles. "Someone's shot Robin Hood," he announced.

"It took away all the embarrassment," says Ian. "In our family, shooting Robin Hood remains the term for that sort of thing to this day."

FROM an idea by Elsie Kitching, enhanced by the most coruscating canapes, a lovely evening in Escomb's Saxon church marked the opening by the Bishop of Durham of a vivid new porch exhibition.

Elsie, said Michael Dent, the Vicar, had considered the previous historical exhibition "a bit dated".

The cul-de-sac village is by the Wear just upstream from Bishop Auckland, its stunningly simple church reckoned at least 1,300 years old.

"An amazing survivor," said Rosemary Cramp, now emeritus professor of archaeology at Durham University and who at 73 wears pretty well herself.

Prof Cramp - "the church is incredibly dear to me heart" - had written the text for the permanent exhibition; Christina Unwin, a freelance designer and illustrator from Shadforth, had done the visuals.

Granville Gibson, recently retired Archdeacon of Auckland, announced himself thrilled to bits (as often he does) with the result. "I wanted it to look like the entrance to a place of worship, not a museum," he added. The church key is always available, guided tours on summer afternoons between 2-5pm and cheap beer at the Saxon - the village pub, not the church - on Jubilee Monday. Coruscating canapes sadly not included.

STILL on a Jubilee note, flower festivals blossom in two Darlington churches from tonight.

Sir Paul Nicholson, Durham's Lord Lieutenant, opens the festivities at All Saints in Blackwell - "a brief ceremony" says the invitation - whilst we have been invited to perform the floral necessaries at Harrowgate Hill Methodist church in Lowson Street (7pm).

This may be slightly longer, since the organisers have asked for 20 minutes ("maximum") on the At Your Service column but there's a bun fight and good hymns thereafter. Open all weekend until Monday.

...and finally, Tuesday listeners to the Today programme on Radio 4 were perhaps surprised to find the hostilities between India and Pakistan interrupted by a song from Ian Luck, a wandering minstrel from Gainford. Ian was live from Upper Teesdale, rhapsodizing the brief life of the blue gentian, an Ice Age survivor which blooms thereabouts for just three weeks a year. "It's a wonderful blue, like seeing your first kingfisher," he says.

Ian rose at 5.30am, sang live - "they threatened to throw me into Cauldron Snout if I didn't" - and was back for his cornflakes by nine.

"You could hear the waterfall and the golden plovers," he says. "James Naughtie sounded very envious." After that they went back to the Kashmir.