WHEN this column was young, that is to say younger still, the Monday afternoon venue was always the Red Lion, over the road from the office.

It was labelled the Liquid Luncheon Club, its undoubted star Coun Peter Jones, prominent businessman and chairman of Darlington Conservative Association.

Remember Jonesey? Never a week, sometimes barely a day, would pass without his being somehow in the paper. In every sense, a big man in town.

For the past four or five years, however, almost total silence. Not so much as a sighting getting in the milk, or carrying the shopping home from Morrison's.

A database check reveals that the only newspaper reference since 1998 has been a down-column paragraph on his failure to regain a seat in the 1999 council elections, when his wife polled more than he did.

Since then, nothing. Not so much as a Mr Angry to Hear All Sides, not even a Mildly Miffed.

On Monday, the column again had a beer in the Lion, but with only the ghost of Jonesey. He appears not only to have vanished from politics, but from Darlington.

Though sightings would be welcome, the only price on his curly red head is a pint of Black Sheep Bitter. We shall again be in the Lion at 2pm next Monday - should Peter put his head around the door, his usual large gin will await, and there will be rejoicing at the return of the prodigal.

IN the village where the column lays its head, however, politics is making a comeback. For the first time in memory, there is to be both a contested district council by-election and a chance to be co-opted onto the parish council.

For the district election, the LibDem candidate has issued a leaflet banging on about the importance of education and - at least twice - about "bus shelter's".

For such piteous ignorance, he loses any chance of a vote. His "Independent" opponent, meanwhile, proposes to belong to the Independent group. How do you vote for an oxymoron like that?

The parish council vacancy advises of various terms and conditions, including the national stipulation that nominees must be over 21.

A wonderful land, isn't it, where a man can be married or have a homosexual affair at 16, be killed for his country at 17, vote or be jailed for life at 18 but must be 21 before entrusted with a share in the affairs of Middleton Tyas Parish Council?

HERE'S a letter, meanwhile, from our old friend Jack Robinson, over 21-year-old parish council chairman at Mickleton, in Teesdale, and chairman also of Mickleton and District Fun and Charity Events, Madface for short.

Though Mickleton's now marooned in Co Durham, Jack's a proud Yorkshireman. "Get thi sen up to Teesdale to buy me a pint, and if yer can't mek it, send't brass," he writes.

There are other matters, too, like the threat of legal action which Madface has received from Teesdale District Council for failing to pay its £17.50 Lottery registration fee by January 1.

Jack, pictured below, received the invoice on December 16, made out a cheque and had it counter-signed the same day and posted it on December 17. It was drawn on Madface's account on December 28, three days before it was due.

The old Tyke isn't best pleased. "If the council ran its own business as efficiently as we run our letter draw each week there'd be no problem."

Last year Madface, far from robbing the municipal kitty, raised £5,750 for charity.

FROM Shildon, where the column has personal experience of the iniquities of local politics, town councillor Michael Hardy rings with a request.

He is also chairman of the Shildon Countryside Movement, which plans a sponsored abseil from the tower of dear old St John's church. Gadfly, it had been suggested, would be among the first over the top.

Sadly, there is more chance of jumping over that familiar tower - or of the cow jumping over the moon - than there is from being lowered from it on a rope.

Coun Hardy, an otherwise good egg, is aghast. Yellow-bellied varmint is the very least of it. It is probably through the total absence of a head for heights, however, that all these years we have remained so resolutely - and so safely - at the bottom.

SPEAKING of the moon, which by great good fortune we were, we reported on December 20 that Safeway's special Christmas offers included an acre of lunar estate for £15.99.

"Quite crazy, an utter and complete nonsense," said Patrick Moore, the subsequently honoured astronomer. The moon, in short, was neither Safeway's, nor anyone else's, to sell.

Lunacy, maybe, but so many have followed that giant leap for mankind's credulity - over 75,000 at the last count - that Moon Estates are now selling £19.99 plots on Mars and Venus, too.

"A lot see it as an investment and think it will be worth something one day," says Sue Williams of Moon Estates.

It's what's called being on a different planet.

THESE columns offer much better value, of course. For the £6.95 price of an excellent three-course lunch at the Chequers in Dalton-in-Tees last week, former Hartlepool United chairman Garry Gibson has already appeared in Eating Owt, twice in Backtrack and made a paragraph in John North.

Gadfly can now add that after his BBC television appearance on Question Time on Thursday - he was the chap in the bright pink shirt who asked about Liberal leader Charles Kennedy's pebbledash society - Garry phoned a friend or two to inquire how he'd done.

"They didn't clap you," said his dad.

"That Tony Benn seems a funny feller," said his daughter, at university in Essex.

Garry's chastened. "Talk about a hard audience," he says - now how can we get him into At Your Service?

NOSTALGICALLY recalling Berriman's chip van in Spennymoor, last week's column also wondered how the nearby "Dicey's" school came by its name. Opinion is divided.

Pauline Saunders from Spennymoor and a Mr Myers from Ferryhill both suggests it's because it was a diocesan school, controlled by the Church of England. "We used to have Church Lads Brigade practice in there," recalls Mr Myers.

Retired Spennymoor headmaster Joe Prest has a different theory, however. The school was built in 1841 and demolished around 120 years later, he says. Its first instructor was the Reuben Robert Gray, later Bishop of Capetown.

Around 1862, William Dyson arrived as head teacher and stayed for almost 50 years. "I've heard the other story but I very much doubt it," says Joe. "It's far more likely that it was named after the headmaster."

l Time for Music, Joe Prest's autobiography of his musical life, has been published at £12 50. He's on (01388) 814514.

AFTER last week's note on the curious names given to horse races, our attention is drawn to Monday's card at Southwell - not only the National Chocolate Fondue Day Handicap (Class E) but the Hiram B Birdbath "King of the Sand" Handicap. So who on earth was Hiram B Birdbath - and while we're about it, does anyone remember Hiram Holliday, an' all?

AND finally, back again on the circuitous 213 to Peterlee, the match a late postponement and straight back in the opposite direction.

Still, the rainy day was saved by two youngsters, aged 11 or so, in Edenhill Road. One wobbled along on a push bike, the other pushed one of those new-fangled scooters. Does anyone ever ride them?

"Are you playing out after?" asked bike boy. "Oh aye," said his mate, "I know where there's a brilliant puddle..." Momentarily in Peterlee, the column was 11-years-old again, too.

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