A miilion-to-one coincidence

"He was always a canny little feller, not tub height to me but there was never any animosity between us," recalls Ron Bell.

The reunion follows five years determined detective work by 76-year-old Hermann Putz - and what Ron calls a "million-to-one coincidence", though he may seriously be understating it.

An officer at half the police stations in the county - "they were always moving you, they used to have two full-time furniture vans just to shift pollisses about" - he was also a founder member in 1948 of the Durham police choir and, sole survivor, still joins in.

He became a sergeant in Darlington and an inspector in Sunderland, where at 75 he lives in contented retirement. In 1946, Ron - a humble lance bombardier - was attached to a Royal Artillery officers' training unit at Glasgow University. Hermann Putz, a paratrooper captured in August 1944, had been held in Belgium and the USA before arriving at a camp near the university where, because of his mechanical experience, he was sent to help Ron Bell. "We got on all right and maybe because I felt sorry for him I wanted to help him out a bit," says Ron. "He'd arrive from the camp with half a loaf of bread and a bit of cheese. I might give him a pie and a few tabs."

The pair got on so well, in truth - "two Jack the lads," says the source of the column's story - "that when Hermann was switched to a camp near Perth, his friend was invited to spend a long weekend there.

"Things," says Ron, "were a bit more lax by then." On Christmas Eve 1947, however, Hermann was repatriated. "I knew he had relatives in Aachen but I hadn't his address or nowt," says Ron. In Germany, however, Hermann never forgot the English soldier who befriended him - though by 1995, when he decided to trace him, he couldn't even remember his surname.

All he had was a photograph of Ron in a kilt - "I wasn't supposed to wear one" - which nurtured the mistaken assumption that he was in a Scottish regiment and led to a letter to the Scottish British Legion magazine.

Unsurprisingly, it proved fruitless. Hermann's determination led to further inquiries throughout Britain, eventually a surname and a three inch thick file of correspondence. Eventually, last April, he again sent an inch square photograph and a "Where is he now?" plea to the Legion magazine in Scotland. Hope's high road would again have meandered into infinity but for one remarkable chance.

Ced Pugh, 40 years ago a young PC at Darlington, had married a lassie from Prestonpans, happened to be in Scotland visiting his mother-in-law, had a drink in the British Legion club and fell to flicking through the magazine.

"Hey," said his wife, "isn't that your old sergeant from Darlington?" Though PC Pugh and Sgt Bell had also not seen one another since 1962, clues fell into place.

Ron Bell and Hermann the German were reunited over the new year, when Ron flew into Munich airport. "Why lad, we got treated like royalty," he says, "all his family there, everything. We recognised each other at once and, honestly, it was amazing, just like it was yesterday. We were friends, like we'd always been."

Next month, Hermann returns to Britain as Ron's guest - not at a PoW camp this time, they're planning another three days near Perth. He looks forward to it enormously. "I never really broached why he'd tried to find me after all this time, so maybe I'll find out now. We've still a lot of catching up to do. He always was a canny little lad, was Hermann the German."

RECALLING the royal visit to Newton Aycliffe in 1960, last week's column wondered why the RAFA Club - which the Queen officially opened after tea at Billy Llewellyn's- was called the Canopus Club.

Several readers, not least former flier Jim Ferguson from Bishop Auckland, have explained that the Canopus was a C-class flying boat, built by Short Brothers in the 1930s and preceding the Sunderland.

Before that Canopus had been a type of warship and, still earlier, a town in ancient Egypt. (A Canopic jar was used at the time for storing the entrails of the embalmed. This may not strictly be relevant.)

All RAFA clubs, apparently, carry similar military identification. Newton Aycliffe's continues to fly high.

ALDWYN Robinson, on the RAFA club committee at the time of the visit, sends a photograph, above, of the Queen and Prince approaching the club after their tea break at Billy Llewellyn's. That's Aldwyn holding the banner.

The club was originally council offices. "Members worked hard to convert it in time," recalls Aldwyn, now in Shildon. On leaving, the Duke - smart looking young feller, mind - noticed the doorman's military looking striped tie.

"Who's tie is that, then?" he asked.

"Woolworth's best," said the doorman, and all of them departed in knots.

STILL on the royal train, last week's column recalled Joseph Borulawski, the 19th Century Polish dwarf who lived out his last years in Durham.

Perhaps it was because he was a bit of a ladies' man, even in late life, that Terry Chater has fond memories of Borulawski's Fancy - a tune regularly played by Jimmy Shand and his merry Band at the Highland Balls in Durham Town Hall.

Terry, retired manager of a Darlington betting shop - though English, he frequently wore his kilt to work - remembers those Highland flings affectionately. "The first time there was so much hooting and hollering there were about 100 police officers outside, expecting trouble at the end. "They learned better after that. All we ever drank was tea and coffee." The Highland Balls are no more, though Terry still teaches Scottish dancing. "Jimmy Shand," he says, "could bring the house down before anyone had ever heard of The Beatles."

SIR James Shand died last Christmas, aged 91 - the Queen Mother, predictably, and Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, surprisingly, among his biggest fans. "It's the strangest record I own, but the whole thing swings like mad," Watts observed.

"Jimmy Shand was a Celtic music superstar before the terms Celtic music and superstar had been coined," said his obituary in The Scotsman. His "Bluebird Polka" became a top 20 hit in 1955; the Parlophone catalogue the previous year listed 43 different Shand 78s, crowds of 20,000 would attend his open air accordion extravaganzas.

To the lad from Auchtermuchty, Durham Town Hall would be regarded as almost a neighbourhood concert. "Doon and ups" Shand called them, and had been known to go down and up to Portsmouth, returning after the show.

Though often regarded as dour, he is credited with a joke - a Scottish joke, anyway. Offered a minute portion of honey by a boarding house landlady, he asked if she kept a bee.

He had a pub, a racehorse and a Class 37 locomotive - with which John North readers have a happy fascination - called after him. The engines are named to reflect the region in which principally they do their shifts. Scots may see a diesel workhorse called Ben Cruachan (which is a mountain) or Oor Wullie (who's wee); the Welsh might spot Bony Y Borma whilst North-East names which roll off the production line have included Hartlepool Pipe Mill, Teesside Steelmaster and Leyburn, where they've hardly seen a train for years.

When last heard of, alas, poor Jimmy Shand was "stored unserviceable" at Toton. And why a shandy, anyway?

SOME headier brews last Saturday when Madge and Derrick Beckwith - Northallerton's best known licensees - celebrated their golden wedding. The column, alas, was footballing elsewhere. Dewsbury folk originally - "she's only called Madge in the North Riding," says Derrick, "in the West Riding she's Marjorie" - they've had the Black Bull, the Fle ece and the Tickle Toby in Northallerton and the New Inn at Hunton, near Bedale. Derrick, now retired, was the local LVA chairman for 25 years, has been life president for ten and helped form the National Union of Licensed Victuallers. "I've done the blinking lot," he says.

After the war he played football for Wolves and Huddersfield Town, was reckoned surplus to requirements when a keen new manager called Bill Shankly arrived at Huddersfield - "I'm the only person in Northallerton who's been sacked by Bill Shankly" - and also ran a shop and post office. The do was at Romanby Golf Club. Instead of presents, they invited donations towards Northallerton College orchestra's forthcoming tour of America. Over £400 helped the musicians on their way.

Published: Thursday, March 15, 2001