Mike Amos writes...

Hannah, 73, is believed to have lain for some time before being discovered in the garden of her home in Cotherstone, Teesdale. "There are tales going round that she was there all night, but it certainly wasn't that long," says Jack Robinson, her friend and distant relation.

"Hannah doesn't really know herself how long it might have been, but she was very glad when someone heard her groaning and came to the rescue."

She was taken to Darlington Memorial Hospital, where surgeons inserted a pin into the joint, and is now able to sit in a chair. She may be transferred soon to the Richardson Hospital in Barnard Castle.

Hannah achieved international renown after a television journalist discovered her self-sufficient smallholding in Baldersdale, near Durham's border with Cumbria.

"She's as cheerful as she always is, but she obviously won't be able to live on her own for some time," says Jack. "Not for the first time, she's probably glad that it's spring."

THE courageous Lady Masham, we hear, has also suffered horrific injuries in an accident involving her over-protective Great Dane - an animal that answers to Patch.

It happened at the parliamentary dog show when a pugnacious pug went too close for Patch's comfort to his mistress, confined to a wheelchair since a horse riding fall in 1958. Lady Masham, 66 next month, was pulled from the wheelchair whilst still holding the Great Dane's lead, breaking one leg in three places and the other twice.

She spent a week in Westminster Hospital and another five weeks in the famed Stoke Mandeville hospital in Buckinghamshire - "it was a pretty awful experience, I had quite a difficult time" - where doctors built "Meccano-set" splints around her legs.

Insult to injury, Patch narrowly lost out on first place to a greyhound owned by Labour peer Lord Lipsey.

"The only reason we lost was because Lord Lipsey's dog had a microchip inserted and Patch didn't," she says. The Great Dane has been exonerated, of course.

NEWS of Hannah's downfall was picked up in the Rose and Crown at Mickleton, in Teesdale, where a much more convivial occasion took place last Friday evening.

Officially, it was the annual cheque presentation from the village's charity committee, unofficially a chance for Durham to challenge Yorkshire at 5s and 3s.

The new, London-born editor of the Teesdale Mercury was there, too, but disgraced himself by leaving without buying drinks for the entire company and leaving another £50 behind the bar for contingencies.

Though south of the Tees, Mickleton is administratively in Co Durham. Jolly Jack Robinson, former landlord of the Rose and Crown but now removed next door, insists that it is properly in the North Riding.

He and Frank Watson, 21 years secretary of the Barnard Castle Games League, represented Yorkshire at the doms. The County Palatine was championed by a well known Shildon lad and by Bob Oliver, owner of a country sports shop in Barney and born at Rookhope, in upper Weardale.

"Tha's braying away like Cockfield Band," observed Mr Watson, stirring memories of Det Chief Insp Bob Clark who - when head of Bishop Auckland CID 30 years ago - was given to observe that, like Cockfield Band, he was just buggering about.

Clearly they were a multi-talented, not to say ubiquitous, group of musicians.

Jolly Jack also chairs MADFACE - Mickleton and District Fun and Charity Events - which, through its weekly letter draw, had raised £5,750. Chiefly it was divided between medical charities, though £500 went to the local fell rescue team. In any event, said Jack, he was lucky to be there at all after Teesdale District Council sent him a final reminder for the lottery registration fee three weeks after it had been paid.

"If Big Brother in Barnard Castle had had his way I'd have been in the debtors' jail by now," he told the assembled gathering. "I'll keep on at them until they have the decency to apologise."

It would never, he added implausibly, have happened with a Yorkshire council. His domino team came second, an' all.

A drink the following evening - he on Kaliber, the column something stronger - with John Hodgson, on the trail of missing friends.

Crook lad originally, now in Wolverhampton, John's helping organise a reunion of the band of Hope Street, the Young People's Fellowship attached from 1945-55 to Hope Street Methodist Church, in the town.

"I think it influenced the life of everyone who joined it," he says.

In Crook, as in many other places, there probably wasn't a lot else to do apart from the three cinemas - Hippodrome, Essoldo, Empire, Top House, Middle House, Bottom House - and Mrs Tazioli's celebrated ice cream parlour, if twopence change allowed.

The club was begun by Bill Askwith, railway signalman and Methodist local preacher, who became known as Uncle Billy. His sisters were Auntie Mary and Auntie Betty.

There was also a monthly newsletter, called Scoop. "We hope to have a bumper time all round," observed Uncle Billy in the September 1946 issue.

John Hodgson recalls a membership approaching 150, and a waiting list. He can't, unfortunately, remember the name of the minister, only that at the manse he was invited to come in, sit down and shut up.

"I'd gone when the Archers was on. The rest of the church knew that nothing could start until the Archers had finished."

There were sports teams, outings, cinema visits, drama group, debating society and parties - "grand parties" said Scoop - Sunday attendance at any church, the only condition of membership. John and his team now have 58 definites for the reunion, to be held at Dawson Street church in Crook - Hope Street church is long gone - over the weekend of June 9/10, The furthest flung will travel from West Vancouver, the nearest lives in Dawson Street.

Many more of the Hope Street faithful may still be around. John Hodgson would greatly welcome news on, or from, any of them - 01902 339424.

JOHN Alderson, Horden to Hollywood, was out watering his flowers when we rang. It was 7.30am local time; he will be 85 next week. This was Hollywood.

Yet for all the perceived glamour, for all the 45 landscaped acres of the actors' retirement village in which he lives and the "whole bunch" of gardeners who maintain them, he dreams forever of home, and of Horden.

"You come into a place like this and you can be completely forgotten," says John. "My agent doesn't even come by to say hello, or anything. It's disgraceful, really."

The pitman's son who vowed never to go down below, we told his remarkable story three weeks ago. He joined the Army, became a major, married an American general's secretary and for the past 50 years has made a successful film career in Hollywood. B-list, maybe, but on the list, nonetheless.

Among his more recent appearances, he recalls, was playing Red Adair in a commercial for Worthington beer and another ad for a confection called Yankie. "It never took off. Nice ad, shame about the chocolate."

Mostly, however, he wants to talk about the mining village on the Durham coast where his memories stretch back to the General Strike, and to selling potatoes, penny a pail, to the neighbours.

"No one was more hard up than we were. There were no bathrooms in those days, just a tin tub in the middle of the living room floor. It was how I first noticed the scars down the middle of men's backs, over six feet tall as I am and working in a four foot seam."

He recalls catching crabs on the beach, is delighted ("about bloody time") that it's been cleaned up, hopes to visit again soon.

"I'm so proud to be from Horden, I'd hate to see places like that disappear. I go to bed at night and remember all those wonderful times and the warmth of the wonderful people. I truly love it, it's still home, the lighthouse that has inspired whatever modest achievements I may have made. Give my love to everyone you can; tell them that I mean it."

....and finally, Arnold Alton from Heighington suggests that recent Donald Campbell stories may have prompted a mistake in last week's column. We called Jimmy Shand's greatest hit the Bluebird Polka; it should - of course - have been the Bluebell Polka. Arnold's old 78, the Veleta on the B-side, was given to his friend Alan Milroy - "so it's not just 1960s suits he's well off for." Could that be the same Alan Milroy who stood between the sticks in Shildon FC's most ignoble hour, August 26 1962? Indeed it could, wings the electronic reply. "I helped him drown his sorrows that night," adds Arnold. Whitley Bay 12 Shildon 0, and not another word.

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