HARRY Watson's e-mail address is hairoil 'Put some Brylcreem on it, Denis'. I believe he preferred Elastoplast."

SPORT has always played a big part in advertising, as Rule Britannia - Robert Opie's 1985 book on the British advertising industry - richly illustrated.

A long-skirted lady golfer promotes Bovril - "for health, strength and beauty" - another extols Wills Gold Flake cigarettes though not, happily, with one dangling from her lips.

Kilkof Kubes were sure to score, Sharp's was the word for toffee and for all-round prowess, even Reckitt's black lead was given a sporting background.

Few promotions, however, employed - used may be the better word - the sports personalities of the day, though Billy Gunn's image appeared alongside an ad for the Harness Electropathic Belt.

Wearing it may explain why Gunn, an international at both cricket and football, appears to be scything the grass and not playing cricket.

W G Grace appeared not only in an advertisement for Player's Gold Leaf Navy Cut - "Two champion players" - but on a splendid show card for Colman's Mustard. "Like Grace, heads the field," said the caption.

Grace and favour? They probably didn't pay him a penny.

HARRY Watson, it may be recalled, had also mused upon the difficulties of being Poet Laureate - having to write to order, as it were, instead of when the muse took a twopenny bus ride.

"How would you like to have to produce a poem on Prince Edward's boils?" he asked last week and - that very Wednesday - Prince Charmless's boils were spectacularly and publicly lanced.

"The Palace now tells me that Edward no longer suffers from boils," adds Harry. "He is merely a pain in the backside."

A FIRST time e-mail from Barry Wood, a Ryhope Grammar School lad who became a probationer polliss at Bishop Auckland from 1967-69 - the same time and place as the column banged out its arduous inky trade apprenticeship.

"I'm not quite sure how our paths have never crossed," Barry writes - but almost certainly they have.

Didn't he ever lock up George Henry Wilson off the last Lockey's bus to Woodland? All the other pollisses did, especially the young 'uns in the mistaken belief that it earned them Brownie buttons.

Then there was the young solicitor, he recalls, who used to drive a Jaguar sports car and never won a case.

Ah yes, him. Probably a High Court judge by now. Particularly, Barry draws attention to the Echo's report last Thursday of a new exhibit at the National Glass Centre in Sunderland - "a chandelier made of metal and dripping with frosted crystals."

Wouldn't the dripping melt, he asks, when all the lights were switched on. He's also concerned about use of the words "actual" and "actually", particularly on television. "Some people use this actual word so much in actual interviews that I wonder if the word were missed out, would the sentence actually mean the same?"

Whole programmes could be cut in half, adds Barry, if the actual word were omitted, and - actually - he has a very good point.

Oh, and Barry would also like to know what's on a wall and ticks.

Ticky paper, of course.

...and finally, the walking pace continued on Sunday with a six-mile trek - unplanned, unsponsored - down the A68 from Tow Law to Howden-le-Wear.

The bus had snuck off seconds before we got to it; the walk seemed better than hanging around for the next.

Even from the back, we present a familiar - some might say unmistakable - figure in those ill wind parts. Surely, ran the Good Samaritan reasoning, there'll be someone who'll take pity and stop.

There wasn't, though there'll be any amount in coming weeks who'll say that they saw us striding down the A68 in the rain and wondered what on earth was going on.

It finally enables us, however, to offer a definitive view on the correct address of the esteemed Helme Park Hotel, alongside the main road.

"Helme Park Hotel, Fir Tree, Co Durham," insisted long-time former owner Chris Close and was teased persistently in these columns.

It was much closer to Tow Law, we insisted, but whilst Fir Tree was born with a sylvan spoon in its mouth, Tow Law could be almost legendarily bleak.

From Tow Law Football Club to Helme Park's doorstep took precisely 30 minutes. From the hotel to Fir Tree trunk embraced 29 minutes and 58 seconds.

A Close call, but - two seconds out - the gentleman was right all along. Another column, or what the Helme, next week.

Published: Wednesday, October 3rd, 2001