IN the sure and certain knowledge of his eventual demise, William Mason had himself measured for a coffin, lay in it in his shop window - eyes closed, old black trousers on - and invited the local photographer around to record the life and death occasion. Crowds gathered, too, the resultant pictures selling so well that he had covered his funeral expenses long before his passing.

Mason, a gentleman of Spennymoor, was 85 at the time of his lying in state. The coffin lid recorded that he was born on August 18, 1800, but never did acknowledge when finally he got away.

He is among many characters reinvigorated in a simply splendid and largely photographic record of Spennymoor and district - Millennium Memories - kindly sent for Christmas by town council leader Bill Waters.

There's Insp Joseph Elliott, the late Victorian polliss "largely responsible for solving the Middlestone Moor triple tragedy" - what Middlestone Moor triple tragedy, for heaven's sake? - Ernie Brooks from Tudhoe Colliery who built a gyroplane in Brooklands Garage in Coulson Street and was killed while flying it in 1969; Jacky Lister, the Tudhoe Village schoolmaster whose somewhat free-handed use of the birch may have been explained by the fact that he had 300 children in his class.

Other Spennymoor luminaries live on. Anne Wood created the Teletubbies, made millions and won the CBE; Bill Geldard ("a veritable superstar") is an internationally renowned musician and composer, John Walton, Spenny Grammar, became one of the country's top doctors.

There's Cornish, Courtney and even Mary Ann Cotton, though the town's claim to the mass murderess is both tenuous and improbable. She was Dr Hefferman's housekeeper, though he managed to survive her ministrations.

The book, many a mile superior to anything of its ilk, has been compiled by retired headmaster Tony Coia - the Coias were originally ice cream men, Spennymoor had lots - and George Teasdale, still a commercial photographer.

Though its visual reminiscences are mostly of the 20th Century, they also recall the "dreadful explosion at Black Horse colliery" in 1882, the Tudhoe steeplechases of 1847 ("commencing at the front of the inn and ending at the back") and John Robinson, who made so much money by backing Lord Zetland's horse Voltigeur that in 1850 he built a pub of that name. The Volti it remains.

Old and new photographs sit comfortably together. Home Guard and hay making, gardens, galas and the Grand Electric Hall, football, ferreting and fires, of which Spennymoor seemed to have an inordinate number. The Arcadia went up, the Cambridge ("the people's theatre") and the Tivoli, though admittedly only after it became a rave club, whatever one of those may be.

Memory also suggests that Kenmir's furniture factory and the Clarence Ballroom, home in its day to Don Mitchell and his Hawaiians and to the Rhythmaires, similarly perished.

There's a lovely picture of Miss Spennymoor enthroned on the back of Jimmy Key's coal wagon, another of the Lord Raglan day-out club (men only) and several of Gray's pop, or mineral water as properly it was known on the label.

Other joys include the ads for businesses long since shut up shop: the Public Benefit Boot Company; Williams for Wireless; Mrs T Bottoms (fancy drapery); Madame Meredith's Gown Shop; Charlie Miller, knacker, and Hill's Whitworth Balm ("acts like a charm.") The book, too, is wholly and irresistibly charming. It costs £9.95 from Spennymoor Town Council, Spennymoor newsagents or Dressers in Darlington. Far beyond the town boundaries, Spenny for your thoughts.

ANOTHER new book arrives, smelling of Brillo pads but resonant of Northumbria. North East Dialect: The Texts is published by the University of Northumbria at £7.99, a cross between Larn Yersel Geordie and an English language MA.

Collected by Bill Griffiths, "hard" words demystified, there are familiar poems like The Lambton Worm and the Keel Row, local songs like The Talking Cats of Easington and Pelton Lonnin' and something about snarters, which apparently translate into turnips.

Not in Shildon they don't, they're snaggers. Bobby Shafto's included, too, still all at sea. Spennymoor lad, of course.

FROM snarters to sprouts, and something we dug up last week. Jack Amos, it may be recalled, was a mite bemused by the chap he met in the Belle Vue Club in Crook who claimed that his handsome walking stick was made from a Brussels sprout stalk.

Was Jack being green? Janet McCrickard in Darlington not only suspects it was the genuine article - straight up - but brings round a copy of the seed catalogue from Chiltern's in Ulverston, Cumbria. Janet, a retired biology teacher, was the reader who several months ago tried to explain why there are male and female holly trees, another prickly subject.

Under "uncommon vegetables" - Connover's colossal asparagus, thick leaved dandelion, Glaskin's perpetual rhubarb - Chiltern lists the Jersey kale, aka walking stick cabbage, record height 18ft.

"Very large and vigorous, gives the appearance when fully grown of a small tree, very much in demand on the Channel Islands," adds the catalogue - though it's not in demand by Janet.

"They were growing like so many Triffids. I resisted the temptation," she says.

On Tuesday she sent another letter, enclosing a piece from last weekend's Sunday Times about walking sticks "made from the reproductive organs of a bull."

That, too, is something about which she is surprisingly knowledgeable but is not for Christmas consumption. Another piece of the pizzle next time.

STILL spreading the flora, we turn again to the orchids on Ludworth pit heap, east of Durham.

In 1976 Durham County Council wanted to flatten the heap. Opposition was led by parish council clerk Vera Taylor-Gooby, a 29-year-old redhead who had counted 70 different types of plant - and precisely 263 orchids - on the heap.

After gaining that little battle -"our pit heap in summer is quite delightful," she'd protested - Vera won another at the weekend. Now Vera Baird QC, she was chosen as Labour candidate to succeed Mo Mowlam at Redcar.

In celebration, we have found the original cutting - though not, sadly, the photograph - from the Battle of Ludworth Tip.

"Beauty and the heap" says the headline. Whether the first bit refers to the orchids or the parish council clerk it would be politically impossible to suppose.

DURHAM County Cricket Club will have a new all rounder next season, a gentleman called Danny Law - known to colleagues as Desperate - about whom Bill Moore in Coundon sought further information.

"Cricketer most admired: John North" said the Cricketers' Who's Who. Bill wonders if Desperate knows something he doesn't.

Like Law, the alternative John North began his county career with Sussex, belted a half century off 20 balls against Durham in 1992 but has been off the county scene for several years.

As we tend to say in these nature notes, he appears to have been put out to grass.

....and finally for another year, news of a little free offer in Darlington tomorrow lunchtime.

Readers may know that we both edited and contributed some features to Northern Goalfields Revisited - the Northern League's millennium history - though the vast burden of the work was undertaken by Durham County Cricket Club scorer Brian Hunt.

From 12-3pm in the Britannia, a lovely little pub off Bondgate, Brian and I will not just be signing copies but will give a free pint and a mince pie to every buyer.

In truth, however, no purchase is necessary. It would be good just to offer a little festive largesse to all those who have helped these columns stay upright through an unexpectedly hard shift.

The 530 page book, extensively illustrated, isn't just a chronicle of the world's second oldest football league but a reflection of changing times in the North-East. Absurdly cheap at £8.99, it remains the perfect Christmas present.

Northern Goalfields Revisited is also available from Northern Echo offices in Bishop Auckland, Darlington, Durham and Northallerton or by post (plus £3) from Joe Burlison, 4 Carrowmore Road, Chester-le-Street, Co Durham.

The column returns on January 11, and looks forward no less greatly to tomorrow.

www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/news/north.html