Is this madness a sign of the times

The little green things are assumed - wrongly, probably - to be a particularly North-East delicacy, a spurious fame fanned by the apocryphal story of Mr Peter Mandelson and Owton Manor Fisheries.

(The London-born MP, it is universally alleged, went into a chip shop in Hartlepool, saw some green stuff beneath the counter and asked for the guacamole dip.)

The most recent Oxford makes no reference to mushy peas, the word simply defined as "soft" or "pulpy" - Mark Twain in 1880 wrote of "mushy, slushy early Spring roads."

The lexicographers want written examples of its use before 1981, 11 years before Mr Mandelson became the stuff of urban legend.

Mr Scott Dobson may possibly have written of such things 30 years ago whilst learning the nation Geordie - if not Oxford English - but we have been unable to track the source.

Others may more effectively be able to join the peas movement - or even to explain why mushy peas are meant to be enjoyable. Beyond argument, they are the worst thing that ever happened to a pie.

POINTED that way by the Eating Owt column, Eric Smallwood reports ecstatically from the high quality fish shop at Liverton Mines, near Saltburn - "Cod pieces, chips and mushy peas". Eric was so amused he's forgotten the price - What next, he asks, battered knights in shining armour?

'Mushy" has a second, perhaps related, meaning - "tender, sentimental, insipid" says the OED and cites both J D Salinger and P G Wodehouse in its support.

"She sings it in Dixieland and whore-house and it doesn't sound at all mushy," wrote Salinger in Catcher in the Rye; "though physically in the pin-up class she was as mushy a character as ever broke biscuit," observed Wodehouse in Much Obliged Jeeves. We mention it because today's column might also have steered towards the insipid, but for the strange story of how Darlington Borough Council is every day breaking the law.

Steve Jones noticed on his way to work down Woodland Road a road sign indicating that the Memorial Hospital was 200 metres to the right.

In Britain, claimed Steve, metric road signs are illegal - and, it transpires, he's quite right.

The sign, says council highways officer Mike Baxter, was erected around three years ago to dissuade motorists from taking a wrong turn to the hospital.

Erected by whom? "Darlington Borough Council," says Mr Baxter.

Then you're breaking the law.

"Oh, I wouldn't say it's breaking the law," says Mr Baxter.

Yes, you are. The laws says that English direction signs should be in England's miles better measurements.

"Well, I suppose theoretically we are breaking the law," concedes Mr Baxter.

We await action by the appropriate enforcement agency of similar severity to that taken against Mr Stephen Thorburn, the unfortunate Sunderland greengrocer. The appropriate enforcement agency? Darlington Borough Council.

STILL with the metric martinets, a note from Pauline Patrick who, with husband Ian, has just upped sticks to Spain.

"Without exception in the markets around Almeria we have found no price tags on the commodities on sale," says Pauline.

"I am correct, I believe, that Spain is part of the EC. Is it only in England that the law is so rigidly being adhered to?" We again rang Darlington council - different chap, difficult area. So far as we can follow it, European law says that when market goods are sold by volume, they must be priced metrically.

Where they are sold individually, however, they need not be priced - at least not in Spain which is, indeed, part of the EC. The law, quite clearly, is a banana.

LAST week's column mused upon Poets Laureate, and particularly the egregious Alfred Austin (definitely no relation of Jane.)

Harry Watson in Darlington - whose e-mail address is hairoil; doubtless he will explain it - reckons Southey and Wordsworth were all right but that Tennyson was the best of them. "The trouble with poetry is that it has to be inspired - not 'commissioned', as it were. Pity the poor Poet Laureate and do not envy him his butt of Malmsey wine or whatever it is they now pay him. How would you like to have to produce a poem on Prince Edward's boil?"

In appreciation of Tennyson, Harry has even written his own little eulogy:

When he met Queen Victoria, she fed him on some venison -

Made him Poet Laureate and Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

That's the masterwork in its entirety. He awaits any day the call from the Palace.

ROGER Jennings was also much taken by the note two weeks ago about Austin Avenue - on a new Barratt development at Colburn, near Catterick Garrison, where the roads are named after great literary figures.

Roger lives in Austin Avenue, too - but this one was built in Stockton before the First World War and began life, conversely, as Austen Avenue.

"In the mid-20s, for some mysterious reason as yet undetermined, the "I" replaced the "E". Ward's Directory for 1924/25 had Austen Avenue, for 1926/27 it was Austin Avenue."

Austin, if not ostentatious, it remained. It's possible, Roger believes, that the street - and neighbouring Ellen Avenue - were named after members of the Gaunt family who developed the area. He's researching a brief history - can anyone help solve the mystery?

LAST week's column may have become slightly derailed in suggesting that GNER emulate Virgin - which runs the parallel West Coast Main Line - in rail ticket pricing.

We'd paid £142 from Darlington to London, the full standard fare, whilst a friend managed a similar journey from the west - first class, and with buckshee gin and tonic and canapes - for just £27.

That, clearly, was a special offer. Virgin was attacked last week for increasing ordinary "walk-on" fares by 70 per cent in the past four years - 60 per cent above the rate of inflation.

"Monopoly exploitation," said the North West Passenger Committee chairman - as well might his counterpart in the North-East. Britain is being taken for a ride.

....and finally, another bit of bridge building from last week's column - the county of "Cleveland", says our local history expert David Simpson, was never north of the Tees.

That was the Wappentake of Sadberge. Whilst now just a pretty village a couple of miles north-east of Darlington, in medieval times the Wappentake stretched from Forest-in-Teesdale to Hartlepool, though including neither Darlington nor Stockton.

In the 12th Century, Sadberge was an earldom, had its own sheriff and coroner and was ruled from Scotland, not becoming part of the emerging County Palatine of Durham until 1189. References to the Counties of Durham and Sadberge continued to appear.

Now, only a large glacial stone on the village green bears testimony to Sadberge's former importance. On it there's a plaque - "Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India and Countess of Sadberge."

For the moment, space again overtakes us. There may be more peas, and queues, next week.

Published: Wednesday, September 26, 2001