AT the opening last week of People Pictures, a selection of portraits from Darlington Borough Council's art collection, a centre of attraction was the portrait of one grammar school master painted by another.

The subject, "Bug" Allen, taught biology to generations of boys at the Queen Elizabeth grammar school in Vane Terrace, now the sixth form college, and next door to the arts centre where the Myles Meehan gallery is showing the exhibition until the end of August. A master there from 1927 to 1968 and for many years housemaster of Normans, he was so universally known as "Bug" or "Bugs" that even the DGS old boy setting up the exhibition was at a loss to know what W W stood for. Walter Woodward, he discovered, after inquiries among others connected with the school.

The artist was the school's art master, the late Lindsey Bird, himself inevitably nicknamed Dickie, who was said to paint a portrait of each member of staff on retirement. The exhibition also contains his best-known sitter; Mr Bird was invited to Clarence House where the Queen Mother sat for him. That sitting, said his widow, Teddy, now living in Cheshire, was notable for the Queen Mother's flow of chat and endless cups of tea.

Swift travel

Our country diarist, Nicholas Rhea, would most heartily approve of the "essential guide to trouble-free travel across the trunk road and motorway network" produced by the Highways Agency. The summer travel information leaflet lists all the roadworks planned for the holiday and has a picture on a front cover of a car and caravan on a lakeside road.

The slow shutter speed used by the photographer means the vehicles are just a blur, giving the impression of the car and caravan speeding to their destination.

Mr Rhea's views on what he believes are inconsiderate caravan-towing drivers slowing down the traffic flow on the main tourist routes have been well set-out in his column over the years. Spectator has sent him a copy

The sincerest form

UNTIL a few years ago, Whitby still had a proper, old style draper's and haberdasher's in Flowergate - H Duck, the name picked out in chunky cream letters on a brown-painted ground.

Now its run of frontage is taken up by more than one business and, repainted bright blue, a section offers rather trendier gear. The chunky letters, or some of them, are no longer picked out in cream but still discernible to the passing eye.

Slightly rearranged, they now read DCUK. Now where did they get that idea?