Deadpan Dulcie, the privy counsellor

Since that happy day is still several weeks hence, however, needs must we tread carefully. Today's principal offering is decidedly down to earth. It is a column of night soil and netties, muck men and midden England, of jerries, chambers - though not as in Dictionary - and of a four-holer known as the Houses of Parliament, on account of the long sittings.

There are some things which even the most expansive euphemism cannot conceal, however, hence the following fundamental passage from Dulcie Lewis's new book:

"The history of bottom wiping is long and fascinating, though probably not one to which you have given much thought..."

Dulcie has. The Romans, for example, used a stick with a sponge on the end, washed it in salt water after use and replaced it on the ledge, ready for the next person - hence, and not many people know this, the phrase about getting hold of the wrong end of the stick.

Later, of course, we became much more civilised and turned to paper work. The Radio Times was always a nailed-on favourite - both strong and handy for cutting into quarters - though in the North Yorkshire Dales they had a dual use for the Farmers Weekly and in Gayle, near Hawes, the Christian Herald was proclaimed invaluable.

The telephone directory, folk reckoned, was the softest option of all, but in those days there wasn't a great deal of it.

We wrote in July last year about Dulcie, who lives in Carperby in Wensleydale and was introduced to someone in Leyburn market place as the lady who gives talks on the lavatory.

Now she has finished the book, published this week, on that and related matters - a delightfully droll mix of hygienic history, wry anecdote and bottom line information in a style that may best be termed deadpan.

"In this book we are never far from defecatory matters," she writes. "You might wish it otherwise, but we cannot turn aside. I don't attempt to reveal all behind the bathroom and lavatory door, but will gently peep around it at what used to go on." Goings on, indeed.

There are chapters on bath night - Friday in front of the fire, and a bit inconvenient because the insurance man called on Friday nights, too - on washing day (Monday, poss tub and blue bag) and on old cures, like liquorice powder for constipation.

"Is it any wonder that constipation was a universal problem as long as there were outside netties," writes Dulcie and returns to her favourite subject - the inglorious glory holes of North Yorkshire.

Right honourable she undoubtedly is, privy counsellor for certain.

Some called it the Palace of Varieties, others the nessy (as in necessary house). Some shook the lettuce, others borrowed Cockney rhyming slang and went for a pony - oh you know, pony and trap - all were best advised to wear a raincoat, whether it was raining or not, and to watch out for stinging nettles, mischievously positioned. Some privies led so far up the garden path it might have been easier to catch the number 213 bus there, most offered the kind of cheek-to-cheek intimacy that fostered firm friendships, all had a rich variety of insect life and the occasional stray rabbit, too.

"An outdoor privy is also the quickest way of curing morning sickness," she was told by Denny Mennitt, in Askrigg.

The book also offers a chamber pottery, recollections of gazunders, poes and the multifarious uses to which their contents could be put. "Several people have vouched of its efficacy as a cure for chilblains, though not taken internally, of course."

Her researches mean she's not very fond of rhubarb or gooseberries, either.

Dulcie's unselfconscious adventures in tunderland began in Kent, when she was invited to give a couple of lectures on hygiene and found a fluent channel for what might be termed toilet humour. There's a book on Kentish cludgies, too; the Loos of the World may follow.

This summer she gave 50 talks, believes she's never caused offence, closes the diary in winter - "you still can't trust the weather up here" - is fully engaged for next year and booking for 2002.

"It's just for the fun of it," she insists. "I never expected it to take off like this."

Though the title's awful - she may borrow A History of Midden England for the next one - the book's incomparably splendid. Even better than the Radio Times.

l Down the Yorkshire Pan by Dulcie Lewis is published by Countryside Books, £7. 95.

STILL the show goes on for 92-year-old Charles Simon, the actor son of a Darlington GP recalled in recent columns.

Perhaps he is best remembered from the radio pages of Mrs Dale's Diary, though Freda Jenkinson in Darlington tells of a "rather unusual" Charles Simon play at the Gladstone Hall in the 1950s during which she and several other audience members walked out.

"CS laid on top of the female as if to make love, at which point I was marched out by my husband-to-be, insistent that I should never be subjected to things such as that."

CHARLES Simon, a lifelong 40-a-day man, has been in touch, too. Back from making a television commercial in America - "I had some good long evenings" - he met Barbara Leigh Hunt and Wendy Craig, who both first made their names in Darlington rep, at an "affair" last week in the Garrick Club.

The extraordinary Mr Simon maintains just one Darlington connection - "I have continued to employ the same firm of solicitors who still handle all my personal and professional affairs."

Then, he writes, he must stop rambling - "off to Barcelona to do a bit of filming".

A LETTER, too, from David Kirk actor, playwright, producer, theatrical manager and (as we were saying) one of those tall gentlemen who played Hylda Baker's stooge, Cynthia.

Freda Jenkinson remembers him, too, a Darlington schoolboy "dippy about trams" in the days when she was secretary to Mr Penman, the corporation transport manager, and the young David was a too-frequent visitor.

Finally, the lot of secretaries then as now, she was instructed to tell the questful schoolboy that the gaffer wasn't in, wouldn't be back and had probably in desperation caught the last tram to Blackpool.

Mr Kirk writes principally, however, of A Girl Called Sadie - his "adults only" play which in 1956 first brought together Patricia Phoenix and Tony Booth.

Granada recently used extracts from it. David - "once I'd convinced them I wasn't a total innocent" - was happy to bag some unexpected repeat fees. Was this the trend setter in which Charles Simon was so improbably lying low and from which Freda Jenkinson was so summarily ejected. What was it with the salacious Sadie, anyway? Perhaps we shall know more next time.

WHILST America was being kicked in the ballots, former Darlington councillor Peter Freitag rang with memories of being in Times Square, New York, November 1948.

Not only had Dr Gallup and his pollsters forecast that Thomas E Dewey would beat Harry S Truman by the length of Twelfth Avenue but the Chicago Herald headlined one edition "Dewey beats Truman". Truman won by two million votes. "The atmosphere as things unravelled was absolutely sensational," says Peter, in the States on what these days would be called work experience.

"Injection moulding and extruding, deadly boring," he says, and to pass the time he'd attempt little mental sums like the number of seconds in a year.

So how many are there, then? "Thirty one million and something," he instantly replies, and proves remarkably accurate.

In a 365 day year there are 31,560,000 seconds - and still America may not have elected a president.