A column in which we shall examine the North-East's interesting use of the word "starvation" - and indeed the term "half starved to death" - wonder aloud why Gadfly readers have suddenly joined the risque business, enjoy a little striptease with Mr Allan Smart from Sedgefield and Mr David Armstrong from Redcar and once again wind up the anagram.

First, however, to what Thornton-le-Beans means....

Beloved of the acclaimed author Mr Bill Bryson, it is a village between Northallerton and Thirsk and not to be confused with Thornton-le-Moor and Thornton-le-Street, which live nearby.

Celebrating in Notes From a Small Island the lustre of English place names, Mr Bryson touched upon villages like Potto (which sounded like a pan scourer, he said) and Sockburn (like a skin complaint) but considered Thornton-le-Beans "unbeatable".

The Echo's cuttings library, however, reveals that even in recent times Thornton-le-Beans was not always tranquil.

Basically, it seems, the place was split between old newcomers - that is to say, those who had been there more than three years - and new newcomers, of yet more recent vintage.

Oftcumdens, as they say in Yorkshire, though in more tribal parts of the county the residential qualification remains closer to half a century.

Matters came to a head in 1979 when a letter from disgruntled locals - the "Thornton-le-Beans Society" objected in unexpurgated language to a new, four bedroom house in the village. It was not just a "hideous cottage", they said, but an "excrescence".

The Northern Echo carried a story in which (by way of all-comers understatement) the new arrivals suggested that it wasn't a friendly welcome, a leader which attacked "instant villagers" and a letter from Mr Neville Whittaker, former director of the North-East Civic Trust.

"It cannot be said to be an ornament in this small village," observed Mr Whittaker.

The Thornton-le-Beans Society regrouped. They blamed media misinterpretation, of course.

THE still greater vexation is how Thornton-le-Beans came by a name so mellifluous that Bryson begged to be buried there, and the answer to that's in the cuttings file, too.

On May 9, 1977, the John North Column noted - "since its derivation is of obvious importance to the national well -being" - that the name in 1534 was Thornton-in-Fabis and that "fabe" was Latin for horse bean.

Quite simply, they grew them there. Bill Bryson can rest in peace.

Geoff Fletcher is to blame for all this. He doesn't just live there, he submitted an anagram. Dogma became "am God". How true, said Geoff.

Tackled further, he consulted something acronymical called GENUKI, confirmed that the origin was nothing more exciting than that they grew beans there - a root crop, as it were - and also noted that in the Domesday Book the settlement was known as Gristorentun.

"I wonder," adds Geoff, "why they changed the name."

ANAGRAMS abound. David Rickinson in Newcastle ranges from the familiar "I'm Tory Plan B" (Tony Blair) to "Woman Hitler" (mother-in-law) of which Les Dawson would have been proud.

Irritable bowel syndrome becomes (of all things) "Oh my terrible drains below", "eleven plus two" is exactly the same as "twelve plus one" - as mathematicians will probably confirm - and if Mel Gibson is really an anagram of "big melons" then running the risque may be setting a new lap record.

Anthony Pearce in Peterlee offers "he bugs Gore" (George Bush), translates snooze alarms into "alas no more zeds", empties slot machines into "lost cash in 'em" and even offers a watershed anagram for President Clinton of the USA - "to copulate he finds interns".

ALLAN Smart has just marked his golden wedding anniversary. A glance at his postcard suggests that they celebrated in Stockton; closer inspection confirms that the old romantic took his wife to Stockholm.

In the Swedish hotel foyer - as Allan's photograph confirms -was a notice advising of a major cleaning operation on the frontage and asking guests to "bare with us".

Unfortunately, none of the local young ladies obliged, adds the mischievous celebrant - and as in the rest of Scandinavia, they spoke beautiful English, anyway.

STILL dressing down, David Armstrong sends a newspaper ad for an "exotic dancers'" night in Middlesbrough - "dress code: shirt and tie."

Whilst wondering why there's one rule for them and one for us, David is also reminded of a ditty popular in his RAF days - "I must stand and face my lover, with a short shirt for a cover...."

He's forgotten the rest, though there was a chap when he worked at Durham Rural District Council who knew it all by heart.

Perhaps someone can refresh the parts which others cannot reach. There is no guarantee, of course, that it will ever appear in print.

A-level acronyms - and knackronyms - must perforce wait another week, though we are as ever grateful to Gillian Wootten for the recollection that there was once an ODTAA Transport Company in Darlington. It stands, as we noted last week, for One Damn Thing After Another. Anyone know what drove it out of business?

ANOTHER morsel upon which gratefully we pounce, what of the word "starve" - or the familiar North-East suggestion that it's starvation out - used not as in "hungry" but as in "cold".

Martin Snape in Durham sends a magazine cutting on Yorkshire dialect which suggests that "starving" in that context is peculiar to the White Rose.

Whilst recalling his Liverpudlian grandmother using "starve" in the same way, however - and "nesh" meaning delicate - he has never encountered it around the North's far frozen extremities.

"Indeed," adds Martin, "I am always struck by the marked difference between the language and customs of the North-East and those of the "other" North, in Lancashire and Yorkshire."

Nesh may not have strayed too far, but "starvation" is not only more generally used but etymologically sound. It's from the Anglo-Saxon verb "steorfan", meaning to die or to perish - as easily from cold as from hunger.

Even in Durham, it can be so perishing you'd starve to death.

SO finally to the highest risk of all, artfully embraced by Tom Cockeram - "is there room for a vulgar aspirate?" he asks - from Barwick-in-Elmet.

Tom recalls an army lecture on basic wood construction. Drawing a deep breath, the sergeant instructor announced that the first subject would be the h'ash.

"Ash, sergeant, ash" cried a plummy voice from the back of the class.

Ignoring the interruption, the sergeant proceeded to the h'elm and the h'oak, with the same reaction in each case.

With a gleam in his eye, he turned finally to the back of the room: "Now I come to teak, which always makes me think of piles for piers - and I don't mean aemorroids for h'aristocratic h'areseholes h'either.

Published: 18/07/2001