CONSISTENTLY these swiftly passing years, these columns have sought to portray Shildon as the home of all things bright and beautiful. There appears to be an exception. The old home town, it transpires, is also one of the best sites in England - we're butterflying again - for something shamelessly called the dingy skipper, a creature which perhaps only Ian Weller and its own mother could love. Elusive the butterfly certainly is - numbers nationally have dropped by 20 per cent in 25 years - bright, it ain't.

"It's drab grey, just looks like a moth. That's the English name for it and I admit it doesn't sound very lovely," says Ian, butterfly recorder for Durham and Northumberland.

The dear old, dour old dingy skipper particularly likes life among the undergrowth alongside Shildon sidings, once Britain's biggest marhsalling yard and home to the greater spotted train number collector.

Latterly, however, it was earmarked as a viewing platform for the now-exploded steam cavalcade. "I'd had a meeting with Durham County Council and the promoters. They wanted to strim the grass, create a fire hazard and have people trampling all over it," says Ian. "I know it doesn't sound very good, but I punched the air when I heard the cavalcade wasn't going ahead. Nature tends to get overlooked."

The dingy skipper - no relation, of course, to generations of multi-coloured captains up at Dean Street - will now continue to do what comes naturally. Shildon, however we try to paint it, is a grey area, officially.

IAN Waller lives in Consett, reckons a lucky lepidopterist might spot 30 different species in the North-East, is recovering from a dislocated knee cap sustained whilst seeking the green hairstick in Hamsterley Forest.

It gave him chance to expand his website on butterflies in the region - www.ijwaller.demon.co.uk/butterfly.htm. He'd welcome all sightings.

This flight of fancy began five weeks ago on the Great Aycliffe Way, remember, when the sighting of an information board listing a butterfly called the comma prompted the ill-informed speculation that it might be a signwriter's mistake.

First seen north of the Tees at Low Dinsdale in March 1999, it's rapidly spreading north, says Ian - 30 miles a year is greased lightning if you're a butterfly - and has been spotted as far off as Edinburgh.

Whilst the comma spreads its wings, of course, the apostrophe simply flies ever more out of control.

FROM Sunderland, for example, Alan Archbold sends advertising material - "Guinness facts in Black and White" - produced to mark the draught variety's arrival at Boldon Social Club. From it we can learn of the "Wicklow Hill's reservoir's", that Guinness is brewed in 50 country's and that Dublins apparently abolished the apostrophe entirely.

"Every time I look at it, the grammatical errors seem to have been breeding at a prodigious rate," says Alan. "It is hard to believe that a company of the size and status of Guinness can turn out something like this."

STILL out walking - limping, more accurately - we'd come two weeks back upon the attractive hamlet of Bradbury, and another sign about which we were wrongly sceptical. These days Bradbury is best known as an interchange on the A1, between Darlington and Durham. In Roman times - as the information board claimed - it was just as important. Great areas of the Skerne between Aycliffe and Sedgefield were dammed and flooded to provide an inland waterway system towards Wear and Tyne. Bradbury, effectively, was the dock.

"The theory, with which I agree, is that Roman roads were simply to get soldiers straight from A to B," says Norman Smith in Newton Aycliffe. "Supplies and other goods were taken by barge."

Eric Smallwood in Middlesbrough even remembered an Echo report in 1996 that airborne archaeologist Raymond Selkirk had discovered the beds of several great lakes in the area. Coins and other evidence of Roman habitation were also found. "These routes would have been extremely busy. Their discovery may change many of the interpretations of the history of Co Durham," said Mr Selkirk.

Tom Purvis barges in, meanwhile, with a description from the History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham of the ancient manor house on Bradbury Isle - "harmonising with the dreariness of its situation". It says, and not a dingy skipper in sight.

THOUGH in the heart of Co Durham, Bradbury's postal address is Stockton-on-Tees and its postcode Teesside. We know similarly suffixed folk in Sedgefield, Co Durham, who flatly refuse to use either. So how should we address someone from Bradbury?

CHANGE out of last week's cross-border column, we proffered a Scottish £10 note to the driver of a bus from Stockton to Darlington. He scowled at it, held it to the light, announced that the "machine" wouldn't take it - quite ingenious, that - suggested we get change, while he waited, from one of the High Street shops.

The cashier in Boots reacted similarly. It might have been the habit of a lifetime we were trying to change, not entirely legal British currency.

A second Boots cashier was altogether more helpful. By the time we'd gained two fives out of ten, alas, the Sassenach bus driver was hasting back in the opposite direction.

MORE SCOTTISH NOTES:

l Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts treasures his copy of Scottish Country Dances by Jimmy Shand and his Band. Jimmy's now 92 and still playing the accordion.

l The 150 entries in last week's International Balloon Fiesta in Bristol included a giant inflatable bagpiper in a kilt. "It's OK, it's a tight kilt, wrapped closely," a spokesman explained.

l Further to last week's note on the Scott's Porridge Oats jingle, Chris Willsden in Darlington bravely recalls dressing as a wee Scots' laddie at a street party to mark the Queen's coronation. Seeing his picture in the Despatch - a grapefruit came into it somewhere - Scotts sent his mum several hundredweight of the stuff plus bowls, spoons and things. Chris, we are happy to record, is still getting his porridge to this day.

UNWANTED mobile phones may ring a bell. We wondered a couple of weeks back about good homes for them. The Royal Surrey County Hospital is collecting phones less than three years old and still with their chargers, sells them to a company which re-sells them abroad and gives proceeds to its children's unit.

Handsets, no more than two in an envelope, can be sent to CDM, Freepost, Sea 8861, Leatherhead KT22 7BR.

...and finally, we hear of a Darlington pub quiz last week - no names, but it's called after a racing dog - in which competitors were asked to name the professor in Cluedo.

The question master offered a clue, too. "It's painful if you get kicked in them," he said.

"I know," said a young lady immediately. "It's Professor Green."