Overflowing with milk and honey

Ramshaw's in south-west Durham, divided from Evenwood by the River Gaunless and by a set of traffic lights, but with boundaries open to negotiation. Ramshaw school is strictly in Evenwood, Evenwood railway station was in Ramshaw.

Several houses in Gordon Lane, the single street, still had sandbags outside. A piddling little thing in temperate times, the Gaunless had disgraced itself during the Great Flood.

There'd been a colliery branch line, too, up to Butterknowle or somewhere, the magnificent new facility on its track bed now catering for railway children of all ages.

Led by a lovely, livewire lady called Anne Lyons, a villagers' committee spent two and a half years raising the money, both round the doors and from lucky-for-some organisations like the Lottery.

There was also a grant from the Durham County Environmental Trust, which in four years has allocated £4m from money paid by way of land fill tax. It was an idea, they whisper, not just of "the last Government" but of the fabled Mr John Selwyn Gummer. He had lots of good ideas, of course. Anne, now a grandmother, spent her first five years in Cockfield, moved to Gordon Lane, has flitted from number 15 to number 4 to number 8 but never any further than that.

"Ramshaw's just lovely," she said, self-evidently.

The new place has all the usual play things - except a tea pot lid, which appear no longer to be fashionable - games court, garden and a bit of railway crane which once pulled its weight thereabouts.

A sign forbids dogs and cycles and warns that vandals WILL be prosecuted. The opener thought about writing "and make sure they bloody well are" in three inch letters beneath it, but concluded the act unworthy of the great occasion.

Considered too old and too large to have first hurl on the slide, we were asked instead to snip a ribbon, given another bottle of whisky (for which thanks) and invited to a chapel tea so mellifluously overflowing with milk and honey that Ramshaw may yet be eating it.

These are eternal occasions. Such old coal communities, and those who so diligently strive to foster them, should very greatly be cherished.

JOHN Selwyn Gummer's big idea has also been much appreciated in Shildon, where a "medieval festival" on July 14 marks the opening of a five-acre Millennium Green.

Durham County Environmental Trust is again among the agencies which have helped fund the £140,000 community initiative. The organisers even asked the Co-op, lovely bunch, to provide coconuts for the shy. Fresh out; they sent a tenner instead.

The project - green as in conservation area, not village green - was the idea of Mike and Tracey Hardy, who also helped form the Shildon Countryside Movement. She's the Green committee chairman, he vice-chairman, their daughter Rebecca the secretary.

"They've done an absolutely brilliant job," says Mike, chivalrously, though it was for him that we stood lunch.

The "green" nears completion. Descriptive boards invite visitors to identify snowberry and song thrush, selfheal and skylark, wild rose, yellow rattle and ribwort plantain.

The entrance, since this is Shildon, is marked by a wrought iron arch. Shildon now sprouts arches like goosegogs grow hairs; it is a town run not by councillors, but by arch-emperors.

The Green will formally be opened on July 14 by Richard Burge, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, though the festival will be preceded by a week of environmentally-friendly events in the town's schools.

Participants on the day are also invited to wear medieval costume. Mike Hardy will be Robin Hood, Raymond Cuthbertson - Shildon's long serving vicar - plans to recreate Blackadder. There'll be falconry, archery, morris dancing, kite marking, even something called splat-the-rat. They've also contacted Rentapeasant, which is based in Tow Law, though nothing - not least because the column is up that way tomorrow evening - should be read into the location.

The Green, splendidly situated at the top of the town, is there for all who might appreciate it. The Hardy family say they just appreciate Shildon.

The festivities end with medieval merry making in the Fox and Hounds.

Unfortunately, not least for the last bit, we shall be in a different part of the kingdom.

THE Coundon Society for the Prevention and Prosecution of Felons - whose chairman is now that ubiquitous polymath Dr Bob McManners - has asked us to propose the toast to the polliss at its 148th annual supper, next April.

The constabulary, indeed, may effectively have usurped the Society's role - a somewhat more hugger-mugger Felons Society survives in Weardale's sheep stealing country - though the supper has since 1854 been a much anticipated occasion and there are still several other meetings each year.

Is it because of the column's reputation as a speaker that we have been invited to hold forth, or perhaps because of our long upholding of law and order - save for the unfortunate incident of the midnight bicycle. "Neither," says Tony Fretwell, the secretary. "It's because you know most of the felons already."

GEORGE Reynolds - this item, it should be understood, has no connection with that immediately above - was greatly taken with the youthful photograph of himself in last week's column.

Taken in 1972, it showed the Darlington FC chairman with trademark hat and sumptuous cigar when he owned the GR nightclub in Shildon. (The column, he reminds us, was member number one.) The hat - "a bit manky now," George admits - is now in the hands of his long-time friend Steve Molloy, awaiting a comeback.

When the new stadium is complete, says George, it's one of the items they plan to auction for charity. "It'll fetch thousands," he adds.

SHOPS are a foreign country to this column, which is perhaps why the Euronics Centre in Redcar proved so puzzling last week. As Colin Jones in Spennymoor points out, it is simply a buying group representing independent electrical retailers.

....and finally, a PS not to this column but to the Rev Peter Mullen's on Tuesday. Peter, it may be recalled, wrote about the things which are scrawled on the bottom of posters.

He seemed to forget, however, the London Underground advertisement proclaiming that 70 per cent of Britain's clergymen take The Times.

Beneath it was a hasty codicil: "The other 30 per cent buy it."