IT MAY not be said that this one will run and run, perhaps, but the story has legs, nonetheless. We mentioned last week The Northern Echo's annual Easter Monday walking race from Sunderland to Darlington, forgot about our ten bob Mystery Man - the Echo's answer to Lobby Lud - and are grateful to Charlie Westberg and Henri Allaway for helping us stay the course.

It ran, if that's the word, from the early 1920s to the outbreak of war, attracted Britain's top walkers and was watched by many thousands lining the route.

Charlie, retired Echo chief photographer, recalls solid silver medals the size of a florin.

"I'm not sure if it was only for the winner or for everyone, but if they'd walked from Sunderland to Darlington they deserved one each," he says.

Henri Allaway remembers Darlington furniture shop owner Sam Wilkes employing a sandwich board man to head the runners from the White Horse Hotel to the finish at Feethams cricket ground.

"Sam Wilkes - first every time," the placard read, though by 1933 T W Green had won it for four successive years.

Time, forever ahead of the pace, allows just three further snapshots:

1929: The race was reckoned 31 and a half miles, through Houghton-le-Spring, Durham, Ferryhill and Aycliffe, feeding stations including the Bee Hive Inn (where was that, then?) in Durham.

Bradford postman Frank Holt won in 4-57-26, knocking over 18 minutes from the previous record. "There were scenes of great enthusiasm," reported The Echo, though we preferred to use a page one picture of three ladies plodging at Roker.

The Mystery Man gave out "treasury notes," value unrecorded, to ten of those carrying that morning's paper but - like Sam Wilkes' sandwich board - managed to be at Feethams before any of them.

1933: TW Green's race in the remarkably recorded time of four hours, 41 minutes, five and two fifths seconds and over a distance that had increased to 31 and three quarters. South Shields veteran and former world record holder Tom Payne, 51, was second - a double celebration since he'd just become a father.

Seventy three started, 59 finished. Sir Charles and Lady Starmer presented the awards at Houndgate Hall after The Echo (ever munificent) had entertained all concerned to tea.

"It is a thrilling moment when one is approached by the Mystery Man," wrote our resident fairy godfather, less coy by then about the extent of his own largesse. Most of the 19 recipients, he added, had known long periods of unemployment - "my ten shilling note would be doubly welcome to them," he wrote.

1937: The Mystery Man seemed, inexplicably, to have disappeared, his funds finally exhausted. The entry had dwindled to 37, though the crowds in Darlington town centre still caused the constabulary consternation.

TW Richardson from Woodford Green Athletic Club won by six minutes - walked it, it might almost be said - after getting a shift on through Chilton and with breath enough remaining to explain why they chose to spend the bank holiday in so pedestrian a fashion.

"It's not so much that we enjoy it," said Richardson, in the manner of masochists everywhere, "it's the wonderful feeling when we leave off."

ENGAGEMENTS elsewhere meant we were unable last Saturday to attend a 90th birthday celebration in Crook for Hannah Armstrong - widow of Ernest Armstrong, the former Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons and mother of Hilary, the local government minister.

Both she and Ernest were Sunderland folk, though Hannah was reluctant to admit it. "She insisted she was from Southwick, to her it was an independent state," recalls John Armstrong, their son.

Their home in Witton-le-Wear was called Pennywell - another little outpost of the Wearside empire.

They met in Yorkshire, married in 1940. "We still have the bill from the Grange Hotel, ten shillings and six pennies a head," says John. Ernest, Hilary's predecessor as MP for North-West Durham, died in 1996. May Hannah have many happy years yet.

EMBARRASSED by the subject matter, probably, last week's column erred greatly in supposing that the famous statue of the little lad having a pee was in Copenhagen.

Copenhagen has a mermaid, which has significant differences. The peer show is in Brussels - "and very welcome they are to him," writes Paul Dobson from Bishop Auckland, one of many readers to pounce on the mistake.

It was The Boss who first pointed it out, however - 7.30am and the proof hidden in one of those snow scene thingies, among hundreds deep drifted all over the house.

She collects them, snow hoarder if not snow boarder. There are snow shakers of the Pope and of the Virgin Mary, snow scenes from Australia, from Africa and very likely from the middle of the Sahara desert.

Each birthday we try in vain to add to the blizzard, charity shops ever oblivious to the cry. Another birthday fast approaches - best prices paid, so long as it's not more than thirty shillings.

NOR, finally, were we able to attend the "Alternative Stokesley Show," held last Sunday at the ever-excellent White Swan. Not many others did, either. Not a single entry in the "rude root" section, not a local limerick, not so much as a line in the category inviting short poems containing the words "White Swan", "best beer" and "brewed on the premises". In truth, just eight entries altogether. "There's nothing I can tell you except that it was very disappointing and we hope to do better next year," says Brian Skipp, the landlord - and on that sad note we've no alternative but to take a week's holiday. Back on September 14.