It was raining at Chester-le-Street, fringe entertainment at the Riverside provided by Mike Gough - Hartlepool sports shop owner and father of the Durham opener - with the story of how he hit an eight.

Gough senior - usually sound, rarely spectacular - was playing for Wolviston against Hartlepool II two weekends ago when he deflected the ball towards the boundary, ran three and was just about to anchor at the non-striker's end when he heard a "clunk".

The fielder's return had hit the helmet left some way behind the stumps; the umpire, correctly since the ball wasn't dead, awarded an extra five runs.

"No one was more surprised than me," says Mike. "I usually get a bit of stick for not being a big hitter, so I'm having fun reminding everyone how I scored an eight."

Just when he thought it was his lucky day, however, Mike - himself a Durham player in Minor Counties days - discovered fortune's fickleness.

The same chap bowled well wide. "I'd no need to play a shot but went after it, got an inside edge and dragged it onto the stumps. After my eight, I was out next ball."

Nothing else much happened at the Riverside, a thin crowd even greeting the streaker (not so much thin as shrivelled) with proper contempt.

Somerset included Paul Jarvis, the Marske lad who'd played for Yorkshire (at Middlesbrough) aged 16 years and two months, became the youngest bowler to take both a Sunday League and a championship hat trick and made nine test and 16 one day international appearances for England

They didn't include Andrew Caddick, centrally contracted and last seen in Morrisons getting the grub in for the lads.

"Somerset's bowling isn't as good as Brandon thirds," observed Tony "Jesus" Day, and may shortly expect a solicitor's letter from Brandon thirds.

With few other talking points, we wondered when - before the expected appearance of Caddick and Trescothick on Thursday - Somerset had last had two players in the same England team. The question grew legs and ran round the boundary.

Fred Rumsey, Ken Palmer, Brian Rose, Brian Close and Mark Lathwell were mentioned - even Richards and Garner, who may not quite qualify. A friendly west countryman in the press box finally reckoned Marks and Botham, 1983. The sun appeared after that.

Scant crowd and fieldsmen's frustration meant that swearing on the field became ever more audible - Mr Jarvis, known inexplicably as Gnasher, among the chief culprits. They'd best get it quickly off their chests.

The International Cricket Conference, we hear, is preparing legislation to allow umpires at all levels summarily to punish offenders.

Time wasting, excessive sledging, abusing the umpire and offensive language will all be included - unlike hitting the helmet, for which five runs are added, the plan is that five will instantly be deducted.

Lord's giveth, and Lord's taketh away.

All smiles for the cricketers in our picture, however, a famous five Yorkshiremen - England men, too - photographed, presumably, around the start of the Second World War.

It couldn't have been after 1943, because Hedley Verity, a Green Howard, died of his wounds in an Italian prisoner of war camp. The others, more happily, lived to tell conflict's tale.

The picture, handed over by Peter Lax in Billingham, was among a friend's effects. Though Frank Smailes played but a single test, the others had 214 international appearances between them.

Verity still holds (and is likely to keep) the record for the least expensive ten wicket haul - 10-10 against Nottinghamshire. Smailes bagged 10-47 against Derbyshire.

Herbert Sutcliffe, a Sherwood Foresters' captain in the First World War, would have been 45 at the outbreak of the Second and was 51 when last he played for Yorkshire. Maurice Leyland, better remembered as a batter, claimed a hat trick against Surrey.

Len Hutton, another Green Howard, carried a military legacy into the peace. After suffering a compound fracture in the army gym, his left arm was left shorter than his right - but he was still one heck of a cricketer.

After the Riverside to Waterhouses where, somewhat unusually, they hadn't had a drop. Just eight or nine miles west of Durham, Waterhouses is in the Deerness Valley - the region's most delightful secret.

The valley sides are thickly wooded, the houses wonderfully floribundant. "We have terrible trouble getting urban regeneration grants because no one will believe there was once a pit here," said Nigel Quinn, commercial manager of Esh Winning FC who play on the old Welfare ground.

Instead they help themselves, and others.

On Friday night the Albany Northern League Second Division club presented £1,000 for the Butterwick Children's Hospice in Stockton - part of a League initiative to help the hospice and as much, to date, as the other clubs put together.

Most had been raised by a group of youngsters with sponsored walk, fancy dress football match and the like. FESTOG, an offshore workers' charitable organisation, had given £300.

(FESTOG's first function had been a trip to a real ale festival. Three turned up to fill a 56 seat bus. "So far as I remember we still had a good time," said Dave Parkinson, the treasurer.)

Esh Winning remain the only surviving founder member of the Northern League Second Division - in 1982-83 - never to have been promoted. Next season they're confident - "but determined," said club chairman Charlie Ryan, "to help the less well off as well."

Headed "Airforce 1 to land at Shotton Colliery", sub-titled Lock Up Your Daughters, an e-mail arrived on Friday about the Blair babe's baptism.

The sender was our old friend Garry Gibson, former high profile chairman of Hartlepool United, the location altogether unexpected.

The missive's essence was not only that little Leo was to be christened just along the street from the barber's in Sedgefield but that the two godfathers - "me mam heard it on the X1 bus to Stockton" - were to be Bill Clinton (hence the reference to Shotton airfield) and Paul McCartney.

"Should be a canny concert at Trimdon Labour Club on Saturday night," Garry observed.

You can't be right all the time, of course, but clearly the lad's trying. His new address is one of Scotland's best known universities. Who said Gibbo would never learn?

...to the intriguing matter of Sunderland's singing winger, aired in Friday's column.

"Colin Grainger" correctly claimed Gordon Nicholson - patrolling the third man boundary at the Riverside - but did he really appear at the London Palladium?

Grainger, Wakefield born, hit 14 goals in 120 League appearances for Sunderland between 1956-59, won seven England caps, also played for Wrexham, Sheffield United, Leeds, Port Vale and Doncaster Rovers and clearly was more than just a communal bath tenor.

The Echo's archives include a picture of him on stage at Finsbury Park Empire (above) - not quite the Palladium - and another serenading a lass who looks like Cliff Richard.

He'll now be 67. Admittedly modest efforts to track the Singer Winger's whereabouts have so far been unsuccessful. Can anyone help?

Also on the banks of the Riverside, Bill Moore from Coundon sought the identity of the senior English football club whose Wembley appearance last season was their first beneath the twin towers.

More of that, and with luck a note on the singer, in three days from now