An aresting time was had by all

The Society was formed in 1854, a sort of early doors Neighbourhood Watch, when things were growing a bit lawless thereabouts. The Bishop Auckland Herald of December that year recorded that "a great number of inhabitants from Coundon, Windlestone, Westerton and neighbouring townships" had enrolled.

Soon afterwards, of course, the government got its acts together, constabulary duty began to be done and the Felons started falling by the wayside.

"We should have been disbanded in 1865," said Dr Bob McManners, the chairman. "Coundon never was in the vanguard of politics or policing."

Other Felons' societies survive in Weardale and at Glaisdale and Lealholm in the Esk Valley; Coundon's also has committee meetings throughout the year, chiefly to plan the annual menu.

Since 1854 it has been vegetable soup, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and cheese and biscuits (in season). "We like to make sure everything's right," said Dr McManners.

Exactly 100 attended the dinner - whilst not exactly fallen among thieves, then clearly up to the oxters in Felons - including former Coundon village bobby Arthur Stephenson.

It was Stivvie - under orders from Supt Thomas Oliver Pringle, known to subordinates as Top and to Coundon parents as something very much worse - who in 1961 had taken ten local juveniles to court for playing hum-dum-dum (finger or thumb) on the pavement outside Ranaldi's caf.

Obstructing the highway, it was alleged. The Felons role in the hum-dum-dum show has never clearly been established.

Fr Gary Nicholson, Coundon's vicar, recalled the 19th Century occasion when they read the Riot Act in Crook; Dr McManners said one or two mischievous things about the column and was rewarded with a paper napkin around the right ear.

Assault with a paper napkin is not yet a felony, though Mr David Blunkett is doubtless reviewing the situation at this moment.

We, in turn, recalled the smoke fug fraternity at Bishop magistrates court in the late 1960s, the carcinogenic call box and the virtual season ticket holders like George Henry Wilson, Ronnie "Rubberbones" Heslop and, of course, George Reynolds.

The story of the explosives store at Bolam quarry still goes up well.

Insp Ivan Wood, the duty polliss, said that Coundon crime continued to fall. There were SRBs and BBCs and other initial initiatives and there hadn't been a hum-dum-dum outbreak for ages.

The role of our hosts should not be underestimated. It was a very good night: hail Felons, well met.

ON the familiar argument that it's nasty work but someone has to do it, Echo motoring correspondent Ian Lamming has been road testing Alfa Romeos at the top end of Scotland.

When the party had sped as far as it's possible to go without falling off the Atlantic shelf, they called in at Elizabeth's Caf in Bettyhill, two hours north of Inverness.

Elizabeth Best, co-owner with her husband Graham, recognised Ian's North-East accent, announced that she was a Shildon lass.

"Do you know Mike Amos?" asked Ian.

Once she was Elizabeth French, and our dads had neighbouring allotments. Whilst Ernie Amos (bless him) was content simply to dig heroically for England, Gordon French kept pigs, hens and sometimes sheep and calves and had apple trees protected by everything short of anti-aircraft guns.

It couldn't happen now. These days you almost need planning permission to plant a row of taties.

Both Elizabeth and Graham were heads of large primary schools in Kent, took the caravan to the Far North for holidays - French leave - found it ever more difficult to go home.

"It's an absolutely beautiful place - so steady, so peaceful, so quiet and so far from the rat race. We planned to retire here, then four or five years ago decided not to wait any longer.

"We don't do too badly with the weather, either. There's usually a big black cloud over us on the weather map, but it's not always like that."

From Easter to October they also do fish and chips at night - "people come from Thurso, 30 miles away" - which rekindled mutual memories of the fish shop at the end of her street, where Mrs White would forever be pushing her glasses back up and battering her nose simultaneously.

The caf is also a craft shop and tourist information centre. The headmaster of the village school, 150 pupils from three to 18, has several times asked them to join the "supply" list.

They always decline. "We've done with teaching," says Elizabeth, Shildon lass made hugely content. "We want nothing in the world more than this."

CALLED upon to declare the Spring Fair open, we made shameless use of the Rev Graham Morgan's book of what might be termed mildly Methodist jokes - right down to the one about how many Methodists it takes to change a light bulb.

Five - one to change the bulb, the other four to organise the love feast.

John Mason, Spennymoor's minister, has himself not been too clever of late - he retires after a flower festival in July - and appeared still further to be groaning during the joke about the Methodist monk.

There was home made marmalade, knitted tea cosies ("Not much call these days") and the familiar tombola on which we won some soap on a rope, a tin of processed peas and (how Methodism changes) a bottle of Morrison's "keg shandy", new and improved.

Like the opening remarks, it was unlikely to have them rolling in the aisles.

ON the column's intermittent excursions to Spennymoor, elderly folk are apt to recall Mrs Amos and to wonder if perchance she was any relation.

Mrs Amos lived down what they call Half Moon. If anyone was sick, or even proper poorly, it was she for whom they sent.

Though apparently unqualified, she had learned (as must we all) from experience. "Mrs Amos could make anyone better," said someone at the Trinity Methodist Church Spring Fair." She was a doctor before doctors were invented."

Further memories would greatly be welcomed, though the lady appears not to have been family. Like Rosie O'Grady and the colonel's lady, however, she and the maternal Mrs Amos may have been sisters under the skin.

Back home in Shildon, there was nothing which couldn't be relieved with two spoonfuls of syrup of figs.

...and finally, the piece a couple of weeks back on the Stainmore Railway over the Pennines stirred memories for retired Bishop Auckland estate agent Denis Edkins.

Denis and his twin brother were at school during the war at Windemere - what's now the Hydro Hotel - the train journey from Bishop involving changes at Barnard Castle, Kirkby Stephen, Tebay and Oxenholme and many a perishing hour on country stations.

Now in Redcar, Denis recalls many a bad winter but - perhaps with some regret - no snow blocked lines. "Whatever the weather, we were always delivered back to school on time."

Published: 11/04/2002