SO greatly and so necessarily have these multi-faceted columns become a discipline of birds and stones that we are contemplating a pump-action catapult.

Had we been asked to sling Goliath of Gath, for example, the single shot would have accounted not just for the Big Unfriendly Giant but for most of the Philistine pigeon population as well.

Thus it was last Tuesday evening that an interview with Wendy Bowker - former prison officer, co-owner of Beiderbecks restaurant in Darlington and now purveyor of inside information to the Bad Girls television series - seemed also an excuse to have a 750-word dinner at the Stanwick Arms in Aldbrough St John.

Already in attendance were the quoits-playing gentlemen of the Bishop Auckland 41 Club - an organisation for Round Tablers whose legs have gone - led by our old friend Mr Neville Fairclough. Since Neville is a senior solicitor, he is most kindly described as 41-ish.

Aldbrough is a verdantly greened village north of Scotch Corner, the pub owned for getting on 15 years by Mrs Suzannah Winder. Its blackboard menu - most starters pushing £5, almost all mains over £10 - offers several items of interest, not least the thought that at that price it needs to be pretty good.

Wendy started with king prawns in filo pastry, we with "Stanwick prawn poppadom", a generous concoction with curried mayonnaise, salad and a poppadom shell.

She followed with halibut, banana and bacon and thought the combination pleasantly interesting, we with a nicely flavoured pork fillet with a robust wild mushroom and brandy sauce.

The reason this is so perfunctory, notes neither on the sound of music nor on the conversation from the neighbours' nookery, is that for almost four hours the lady herself proved so happily ineluctable.

The bill, with one pudding, two glasses of wine, two pints of Black Sheep bitter and two coffees, topped £46. Not least because of the young and friendly service, it seemed entirely reasonable - but not as good value as Wendy Bowker.

PAYING attention this time, we embarked early doors the following evening to the Masham in Hartburn - Hartburn Village properly, though all but subsumed by Stockton's Conservative-minded west end.

However unfortunate the place name - the Hartburn Pub may be considered akin to the Pity Me Assertiveness Training Centre - visitors will feel no pain whatever. It is unequivocally excellent, unreservedly recommended.

A terraced house and Grade II listed building, it has been run these past eight years by John Eddy - a pub mercifully unbranded, happily unburdened, wholly unbuggered about and with a reputation for Basso profundo.

(Mr Eric Smallwood, also in attendance, declines any longer to drink draught Bass. It is one of his principles, something to do with union fermenters but not with the GMB. Eric's principles, alas, do not extend to eschewing checked shorts in places to which women and children are admitted.)

Two small, comfortable side rooms lead from a bar which is a little bigger. An attractive beer garden awaits sunnier days. There are no bandits, immaculate loos, music only when a band plays on the first Monday evening of each month.

Prominent notices advise that children are welcome until 6pm in the side rooms, or until 7.30 out the back. Food service also ends at 7.30pm, not so that the kitchen staff can watch Coronation Street - though they may wish to - but so that the pub may revert simply to a haven of good beer and unhindered conversation.

Thus Mr Eddy impressively sets out his stall - and on www.themasham.co.uk - but before proceeding to the menu, a word on pronunciation and perhaps on heraldry, too.

Masham is also a small market town in North Yorkshire, centre of the Swinton estates, and in those parts invariably pronounced Massam. In Stockton, the pub is universally the Mash-em, as in three pounds of old potatoes with milk and butter. John knows of no connection between pub and town, nor even the significance of the coat of arms above his door. It could as easily be the crest of the Dennis the Menace Fan Club as of the noble Swintons. Readers may offer enlightenment.

Starters are perhaps wisely limited to the day's soup - tomato and tarragon ample, hot and delicious. Good bread, too.

A menu that embraces hot and cold baguettes also includes chicken a la creme (£5.25), salsa and spinach pasta (£4.25), salads for under a fiver.

Mrs Smallwood had the scampi, remarked particularly on the excellence of the coleslaw ("how nice to taste something other than cabbage"). Eric had a seriously good, suet crusted steak and kidney pie; both offered bits to the host.

"Droit de signeur" said Eric, which apparently is French for "He who pays the piper gets a nibble of everything."

Both had also extolled in advance the chips. They are magnificent, golden brown, lie straight and proud in their beds. Instantly they evoked the glorious days when men were men, fries were chips and the world map was the colour of Heinz ketchup.

We accompanied them with a Cajun chicken salad, served with coleslaw, salad and buttery potatoes in their skins. Like the scampi, wedges of tender chicken kept appearing all over the place, as if somehow they'd sent for reinforcements.

We passed on pudding, the bill - two bowls of soup, three overflowing main courses - still failing to reach £20. Perfectly suited to a tea.

l The Masham, Hartburn Village, Stockton (01642 580414) is just off Darlington Road - turn south at the Stockton Arms. Lunch is served Mon-Sat, 12-2.30pm, evening meals Mon-Fri 5-7.30pm.

MR and Mrs Smallwood are recently back from Shropshire, where they visited the town of Craven Arms - home of Chunky Chicken and of a junction on the railway routes to Wales. Exiled Salopians may be able to explain how it came by its name - others may care to suggest any other places that sound like they've been too long in the pub.

MORDUE, the national award-winning Wallsend brewery, has been commissioned by Gateshead Council to brew a special ale marking the opening of the £22m Gateshead Millennium Bridge on September 17. "The bridge will give us all the inspiration we need. Our intention is to produce an ale that's as well engineered as the bridge itself," says Gary Dawson, who founded Mordue with his brother Matthew. The beer should be available throughout the region.

MR Macourt, one of the Breakfast Club foursome, appears to have been cashiered from one WeightWatchers. Lost his buttons, as they say. Though there is much of clemmy and conservatory about this, it was appropriate nonetheless that we met in Fatboys Caf, a friendly, no frills establishment that aspires, in vast proportions, to reflects its corpulent corporate identity.

Fatboys is part of a pub called Sarah's, formerly the Cleveland Arms, in the once thirsting industrial area of Albert Hill, Darlington.

The caf, open from 8am, is cheerily decorated - not least with a poem about the ladies darts team in the manner of William McGonagall, the 19th century Scotsman who gave doggerel a good name:

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,

Alas, I am very sorry to say

That ninety lives have been taken away

On the last Sabbath day of 1879

Which will be remembered for a very long time.

Gargantuan breakfast is £3.20, including coffee, something called Tiny Tums costs £2.20. The lunchtime special - haggis, neeps, tatties and (oh, to be in England) Yorkshire pudding, was the sum of £2.40.

No one had Tiny Tums, or the smaller breakfast either. The Boss opted for scrambled eggs, however, and thought them very good.

The big boys' breakfast included crisp bacon and good black pudding, slices of something called Lorne sausage, eggs, mushrooms, beans, tomato, fried bread, half a loaf and probably two or three things we've forgotten. Excellent value for money.

Mr Macourt was then off to a posh lunch in Newcastle. Only his reinstatement hopes remain slim.

....and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what sort of nuts are hairy.

Chest nuts, of course.

Published: Tuesday, July 24, 2001