Patriot games, by invitation only

Basil, 88, is a retired chartered surveyor, writer, top Tory, charity worker and man about Darlington since 1938.

To mark the jubilee, he and his wife Joan plan a spectacular coffee morning on Tuesday, June 4 - the second bank holiday - when admission will be free on production of a picture of the Queen torn from The Northern Echo. There will be headlines about Noble gestures, of course.

"Like all the best ideas it came to me in the middle of the night. It could sweep Britain," says Basil. "I'd thought of saying any picture except that one by Lucien Freud, but I want to keep it entirely undenominational."

Though the event will be open to all, invitations have already been designed - there are references to "Her Most Gracious Majesty" and to her "Loyal subjects", Basil and Joan Noble. "I think the Queen is absolutely great," he says. "I get quite cross with all this criticism of the Royal Family.

"The interest has been tremendous. I've already got someone to supply bunting, someone else has offered to bake, a third person designed the invitations. If they say the street party spirit is dead, they should have been in our house on New Year's Eve."

He hopes his little corner of England will attract at least 100 patriots. To mark the great occasion, says Basil, the rest of the country may have his idea for free.

AMONG those least likely to be joining the Nobles' loyal toast is 82-year-old Lord Dormand, MP for Easington from 1970-87, former chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party and still secretary of the all-party Parliamentary Republic Group.

"I've been a republican for as long as I can remember having an interest in politics," says the former Jack Dormand, son of a South Hetton miner and bespectacled goalkeeper - pretty able, they reckon - for Bede College, Durham, before the war.

He remains daily active in the House of Lords, was fixing the car when we called, still played in his 60s for Burnmoor Cricket Club.

If not for Queen and Country then for lunch in the Lords' cafeteria, there will be much more on Lord Dormand next week.

TODAY'S column could almost be an Over 80s Club for here, homeward, comes Horden lad John "Basher" Alderson.

John, as previous columns have revealed, is the miner's son who became an Army major and subsequently one of Hollywood's best known supporting actors - top of the second division, as it were.

"I don't want to be morose but it will be a trip to say goodbye," says John, 85. "My legs are getting awfully tired and the trip from California to England knocks you around a bit, especially if you're 6ft 3ins tall and in economy class like me."

He expects to stay with relatives in Peterlee before moving on to London and Rome, hopes to cram in as much as possible. We have promised him a pint in Horden Conservative Club - "Ah the Tin Club," says Basher, "I simply cannot wait."

DELLA Halliday, a bit bairn - "50-plus", she admits - takes over her first pub on Monday after 35 years as cook, cleaner and chief bottle washer.

"It's been a long apprenticeship," says Della. "If I don't know the trade now, there's something wrong with me."

Since 1974 she has worked at the Turks Head in Darlington. The place of her own, the Slaters Arms, is 100 yards up small world Bondgate.

The best known face in Darlington's licensed trade, she began in the Bridge in the 1960s, has worked at the Raby, the Wheatsheaf and the Jack and Jill in Middlesbrough and for several years doubled at the Red Lion whilst at the Turks.

"I have all the NVQs and bits of paper going, but for some reason the brewery wasn't prepared to give me a chance before," she says.

"I've played darts and bingo at the Slaters but never really looked around the place. It's a challenge, a completely different job when you have the bills to pay."

The new boss comes with all the tricks of the trade. "I expect everyone else to work as hard as I do," says. "I can be a pure bitch."

JIGGERED after a boisterous Burns Night, last week's column plundered the term fair faggit ("as a Scotsman might say").

A Scotsman wouldn't, as Mr George McKellar from Newton Aycliffe was quick to point out. The word - "and that's you put in your place, dear boy" - is "wabbit".

Perhaps by virtue of being English, the Oxford Dictionary has none of it, though "wabi" - it insists - is a term in Zen Buddhist philosophy describing a "state of quiet, simple serenity of a slightly sombre kind".

So where on earth does wabbit come from? This one could wun and wun.

SECURITY consciousness being what it is, not least at the BBC, the large metallic parcel addressed to Radio Cleveland presenter Alan Wright was taken at once to the special room set gingerly aside for such questionable packages.

Carefully it was unwrapped, designated personnel only, to reveal nothing more likely to go with a bang than a manhole cover lifter.

"Aha, just what I've always wanted," said Alan and thereby - of course - hangs a tale.

He'd been doing an outside broadcast in Middleton-in-Teesdale, interviewed Christine Mitchell at the long established Raine's ironmongers, mentioned that it was almost impossible to get hold of a manhole lifter these days.

"Sorry," said Christine, "there's just no call."

It was her parcel, nonetheless. "It's perfect, though it must have cost her a fortune to post," says Alan. "I've a manhole in my back patio which, anything that turns you on, I try to lift every year to swill the drains."

Christine, alas, was at a trade fair when we rang to do a Raine's check. "Probably," said the assistant, "she's looking for a replacement manhole lifter."

....and finally, it was with considerable reluctance that on Friday night we were dragged into the shooters' end of season soiree at the local.

It's the night that the beaters get blasted, accompanied in that easy endeavour by a very round country and western singer.

Worse still, we were invited - can't beat 'em, join 'em - to sing for our supper. Thus it was that the Bay Horse in Middleton Tyas witness the return of a very old favourite.

After all these years, the Laughing Policeman rides again.