Dear All, These columns have become one-way traffic, which is to say that readers write and I fail to reply. It is neither ingratitude nor inertia, rather the consuming demand of completing six multi-faceted columns each week - a task ironically made far easier by the self-same letters, endlessly appreciated but seemingly scorned.

The in-tray overflows egregiously. Probably there are Green Shield stamps buried down there somewhere, or a copy of the Daily Sketch or the long-lost key to the back door. The time has come to try to move the mountain.

From lunchtime today, the column will be absent in London for 24 hours. Upon returning, the rest of the week will be devoted to letter writing, answering requests and returning those things which their kind owners had thought they would never see again.

The time is insufficient to complete the task but we may, at least, reach base camp. A week's holiday follows, in which to recover from such unfamiliar heights.

THE do in London is what they call black tie - not a funeral, a monkey-suit affair. For reasons connected with unnecessary expense and inverted pomposity, the column is not made-to-measure for such occasions. However skilled the tailoring, a dinner suit hangs as a maternity dress might.

We were delighted to hear, therefore, that Mr Geoffrey Thompson - otherwise all-powerful chairman of the Football Association - has been defeated in his attempt to make the FA's grand summer ball a black tie affair.

If the FA Council feels uncomfortable with such foppishness, however, why are we annually invited to hire dinner suit and all the trimmings for the annual dinner of the otherwise estimable Bedale Sports Association - in the functional surrounds of the local school hall?

AFORE we go there are other matters to be addressed, however. At least so far as its constant interruptions at the end of a line of type are concerned, last week's column sought vainly to justify the hyphen.

Since there has been little reaction - but see the ode to Joy O'Hara, below - thoughts turned to Newcastle upon Tyne instead, and southwards to Stockton-on-Tees.

Both uses are correct, though Newcastle may in that respect be unique. The hyphen holds things together in Stockton as it does in Witton-le-Wear, Brompton-on-Swale, Thornton-le-Beans, Weston-super-Mare and every similarly conjoined community within the column's consciousness.

Memory further suggests that Newcastle is indebted for its freedom from hyphens to a royal charter, a matter we raised with a lady in the City Council press office.

"It's hyphenated," she insisted. "It's the way we were taught it at school and the way I've always written it." We urged a second opinion. "You're right," she returned, "a king's decree or something. Try the local studies library"

We did. It was passed in 1400, they said, when Newcastle won the right to be both city and county, to appoint a sheriff and to hurl its demented hyphens like Gadarene swine into the river

The library was unable to explain, however, why noble Newcastle is "upon" and everywhere else just "on". Before much more water passes beneath this particular bridge, someone may be able further to explain.

JOY O'Hara writes from Northallerton, enjoyed the bit about the hyphen, throws further insight onto the apostrophe.

A couple of years ago, a friend rang to ask if their telephone number had become ex-directory. Puzzled after many years inclusion, they sought an explanation from BT. "Well," said the telephone people, "we've been having a bit of trouble with the apostrophe..."

Which is why Joy finally found their phone number, listed under Hara, O.

CAROLINE Thacker - "after your recent columns on apostrophes and hyphens" - sends from Billingham a poem entitled The Old Fashioned Rules of Punctuation

Space precludes its entirety. The beginning, however, is:

"Start sentences with a capital letter

That way you'll make your writing better;

A full stop always marks the end,

It closes every sentence penned."

After that it gets into tricky bits like semi-colons and quotation marks. Copies on request.

WE all make mistakes, of course - how often has a Gadfly paragraph thus begun? - as Ian Forsyth from Durham points out in a recent Echo report from the North Yorkshire Moors Railway which described the engine driver's assistant as a "firefighter."

Ian blames either a politically correct spell-check or an imaginative sub-editor - the reporter probably blames the latter - but it's fortunate in any case that he seems not to have noticed another steam railway report in Saturday's paper, describing its "gentile pleasures." The Jews would no doubt appreciate them, too.

For the record, adds Ian, the fireman on a locomotive footplate normally does his best to keep the thing alight.

WE were also mistaken to suppose in a recent column that the indomitable Bertha Pallister from Shildon might now be nearer 100 than 90. "Nonsense, I'm only 93," writes Bertha, and enclosed as proof of her continuing vim this photograph of her about to burn up on Ricky Tillotson's powerful-looking Yamaha.

Bertha rode pillion. "We did about 20 miles," she says. "I only wish he'd have let me stop on longer."

A NOTE, too, from John Armstrong - nearer 75 than 70 - who stood down last week after 39 years as the conscientious Durham County councillor for the Evenwood and Cockfield areas.

He's also secretary of Lands Village Hall Association - asked to do it for three months, still there 41 years later - and in that regard seeks publicity for the "Fun day event" in Lands Methodist church on Saturday from 2pm.

Derek Foster MP opens proceedings, with a fire engine, face painting, children's games, bring and buy, usual attractions and a quiz at night.

REGISTRATIONS department, Susan Jaleel reports that the car regularly parked outside the Darlington headquarters of Bannatyne Leisure - which runs health clubs - is F1TSO.

We also hear of D8RLO, seen regularly in Crook. Which Quakers fan owns that?

STILL more correspondence. Wartime sailor Fred Edwards from Shildon says we were unfair to suggest that Faith, Hope and Charity - the Gloster Gladiator sea planes which defended Malta had only "shot down one and scared a few others".

Fred served on a Malta based destroyer and has a closer account of their heroism. "Their contribution," he says, "was far in excess of that."

In the same connection, Harold Mellor from Staindrop - enlisted 1937, 3.9 million miles as a flight engineer - explains why air crew were widely known as erks. It was simply a corruption of aircraftsman.

Air mail it may not be, but they and many others may expect written appreciation of their efforts very shortly - a red letter day, if ever.

Yours ever,

Gadfly

.

Published: 13/06/2001