Of all the efforts made to mark the millennium, the folk of Low Row in Swaledale take Spectator's honours for their remarkable Pictorial Record of the Low Row area.

It is remarkable for its lack of pretension and humility. Local photographer Mr David Bulman set out to take a picture of every resident and the home they live in. In the main he called on his subjects without prior notice. There's no best bib and tucker about people's attire. Each photograph is convincing as a snapshot in time.

It is also remarkable in that virtually everyone participated. Very few declined to have their picture taken.

And each set of pictures tells a story. Even if the reader doesn't know the people captured by the lens, there is a small if vicarious thrill in speculating on what they do, who's related to who, and so on.

The hard-bound volume was funded by Richmondshire District Council, local fundraising efforts and the millennium festival awards for all scheme. Just two hundred and odd copies were printed and Spectator feels privileged and grateful to have received a copy.

As the debts and derision mount up at London's Dome - and it was London's Dome, not the nation's - Spectator cannot think of a more appropriate marker to a point in time than Low Row's seminal work.

Practical nightwear

THE Whitby Gospel, a handwritten document involving both calligraphy and the ordinary longhand of all age groups and several denominations, is to be illustrated by children from schools in the town and the surrounding moorland villages.

The illustrations, chosen and also rans, were all deservedly on display in Whitby Mission hall last weekend. Almost without exception, the characters - including some aerodynamically challenged angels - wore the long robes of traditional Biblical pictures.

The exception came with the parable of the lost sheep, illustrated by pupils from Glaisdale. Found sheep of distinctly North-East ancestry were carried home, slung across shoulders in the usual manner, by men in flat caps, jumpers, patched trousers and wellies. Spectator wonders if this was a teacher's suggestion for modern relevance or practical, rural-bred youngsters who knew you wouldn't go carting about after lost sheep in some sort of nightie