John North: Right on view

"One of yours wasn't it?" said Clive. Tomorrow's fish and chip wrapping? Not in Quarrington Hill.

The point of the story in the winter of 1975 had been that, though barely five miles south-east of Durham, the Heather Lad still generated its own electricity.

It still does, the mains attraction rather lost on Sylvie Hammond, the warmest of landladies despite the sign displayed prominently behind the bar. Never mind the dog, it says, beware of the owner.

"We asked about getting connected but the price they're asking is ridiculous, around £20,000 and another £800 for a proper estimate. We just bought another generator.

"We're also getting a small wind turbine from Finchale Abbey and I'd like nothing better than to make enough for the Electricity Board to buy it off us. I can't see it happening, but it would be lovely if it did."

The pub's high above the village, on the road to Bowburn in general and nowhere in particular and all the better for it. It generates much conviviality, too.

Sylvie's parents, James and Jane Moore, arrived at the pub from Manchester in June 1947. The roof had collapsed in that fearful winter, the outgoing owners temporarily rehoused in the church hall.

"If that old van had been able to get back to Manchester I think they'd have gone back with it," says Sylvie. "I think my dad only stayed because of the view." She's very glad that they did.

"It's the peace, the freedom. Walk out of here and there's no houses, just fields. The views are just wonderful; I can see nine windmills from my bedroom window."

Though the pub continued to mind its own business - James's only previous appearance in the Echo had been for allowing a goat to stray on the highway; fined five shillings and still protesting his innocence - it became a welcome refresher for the Cyclists Touring Club, still is, and until 1966 for The Northern Echo Grand Prix.

In 1975 it had been 1950s and remains rooted in that red plush era - the only difference that now they have a water supply. "Every pot of water we had to carry up from the fields," says Sylvie, 69.

"It was damned hard work, I've seen my mother doubled up carrying water. I don't know how she managed it.

"We've been on the mains about 16 years but we still don't waste water, force of habit, I suppose.

"I don't care what they do behind that wall, but this little bar is staying the same as my mum and dad had it."

We looked in again on Monday evening. Cuttings edge, Slyvie still had the original column, too. The stove still burned, Mars bars and crisps still constituted the staple diet - there are plans for a restaurant - the previous day's power cut in Quarrington Hill provided the topic of conversation.

Well, they had to smile, said Sylvie....

She's also a bit concerned that quarry workings may encroach a bit too close for comfort. "They say there's nothing happening, but what's that great big crack in the fireplace?"

Kevin Walker, one of just three other customers, reckoned that Sylvie could still play hell with him sometimes - "We get nice people, I don't like anyone stepping out of line" said Sylvie - but that he wouldn't change her, or her pub, for anything.

"Pubs in the towns seem to change every time you go in," said Kevin.

"Here nothing changes at all, that's why people like me love it." Ha'way the Lad.

FEBRUARY 20 1975, when first we discovered the likely Lad, was also the day that Consett steelworkers believed a £12m expansion had saved 1,000 jobs, that the trial of T Dan Smith - described as an "arch-corrupter" - continued at Leeds Crown Court and that Reggie Maudling, post-Poulson, returned to the shadow cabinet.

The Rt Rev Hugh Lindsey was consecrated Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle, John McGovern and John O'Hare signed for Nottingham Forest manager Brian Clough for a combined fee of £60,000 and Darlington Borough Council apologised for advertising planning applications for "trilateral units".

They proved to be three-sided advertising hoardings. "We will try to avoid gobbleydook in the future," promised borough solicitor Neville Fearneyhough.

Perhaps the most telling comment in that day's paper, however, was a letter from Tommy Woodrough - a Hear All Sides regular, memory suggests - on the Conservative party's new leader.

"I welcome Margaret Thatcher," wrote Tommy, from the Ferrymount Hostel in Ferryhill. "It seems that some men have forgotten how the so-called weaker sex fought and pulled us out of the mess in two world wars."

Whether Mr Woodrough continued to welcome the Iron Maiden will probably never be known.

BACK down in Quarrington Hill, we were not only intrigued by a little street called Carole Dunes - anyone know why? - but by a book on the history of the village social club, opened in December 1911.In 1960, the book recalls, the club committee decided against installing a fruit machine. "We can't sell enough beer, never mind fruit," quoth the chairman, said to have been Joe Cairns.

Clive Lawson, secretary of the community centre, adds the story about the committee which wanted to buy a chandelier but couldn't find anyone to play it - but that, he insists, was in Thornley.

Was Arnold bullied to death?

STROLLING around the cemetery, as you do, John and Lynn Briggs stumble across the grave of Arnold Davison, aged ten, and upon a fascinating story.

The gravestone, in Grangetown, Sunderland, records that the unfortunate youngster died on May 7, 1885 "of injuries sustained while attending to his duties at the Grammar School, Darlington."

Poor Davison's duties seem to have been little more than minding his own business. There is evidence of bullying, of unsatisfactory inquests and of there being nothing new under the sun.

It even involves Dr Gibb, from Newcastle, who - as alert readers will realise - was immortalised for rather different reasons.

With the help of Lynn Briggs, the registrar's office and the archives, we have been re-examining the evidence. Even in the week of Arnold Davison's passing, questions had been asked in the Commons about the death of a 12-year-old at Kings College, London.

If Darlington Grammar School weren't a school for scandal, it certainly should have been.

Arnold, described as a "very delicate" child, was the son of David and Esther Davison of Lieben Lodge, Coniscliffe Road. His father was a "gentleman of independent means" and "proprietor of lands and houses"; their servants included Mary Smith, from Shildon.

Young Arnold, it transpired, had complained on returning from school on April 21 that he had been "pulled about and trodden upon by several other boys." No complaint was made to the school.

Two days later he complained of pain in his right leg; soon he was hardly able to walk. Dr McCarthy, duly summoned, sought a second opinion from Dr Gibb. (Oh come on, you remember Dr Gibb...)

"Despite their undivided efforts," it was reported, "the little fellow succumbed."

The following day's Northern Echo had no news of it. There'd been a "considerable snow storm" in Stanhope - "a dreary prospect for lambs and primroses" - the sighting of a heron by two bicyclists in High Coniscliffe and at Stockton police court, Elijah Leybourne ("a low, wretched looking man") was jailed for 14 days for stealing a workman's breakfast from Westbourne Foundry.

By Saturday May 9, however, we were able to report that Arnold had died "in circumstances of a somewhat painful character" which had given rise to a great deal of excitement in the town.

The in quest was that same Saturday morning at the Trevelyan Hotel in Darlington, coroners' courts working rather more swiftly than - not least in Cleveland - they appear to do today.

Though the proceedings "excited the greatest interest in the town", the mayor and half his corporation there - as school governors - the level of inquisitorial investigation may have left something to be desired.

David Davison: "It (attacks on his son) happened almost every day. They did it outside and inside whenever they had a chance. Greater care might have been taken to prevent older boys doing mischief to younger boys."

Coroner Dean: "Boys are boys, you know. They are all rough sometimes."

Davison: "On Thursday he came home with his clothes sodden and he seemed to be harassed and distressed. He said that some big boys of the fifth and sixth forms had lamed him by pulling him and dragging him about. There were several boys and Peacock was one of the worst."

George Gardner Peacock also gave evidence, admitted that he had got hold of several boys by the hand and pulled them down three steps to "make way for his entrance" to a courtyard.

When he was pulling him down, he added, the deceased might have fallen.

Dr McCarthy suspected "internal inflammatory fever caused by some deep seated mischief", a view with which the good Dr Gibb - ha'way man, Dr Gibb? - concurred.

Guided by Thomas Dean, the jury's consultation was "brief". Arnold Davison's death, they said, had been "pure accident", with no imputation against any individual. The learned coroner agreed: no imputation against anyone.

The death certificate recorded "inflammation of the bone of the right thigh caused by some external injuries but how or by what means no sufficient evidence to shew."

There the questions ended, the scandal and the poor victim interred by the coroner's inquest just two days after he died.

* Said to have been the best known physician in Newcastle, Dr Charles John Gibb (1824-1916) began as house surgeon at the Old Infirmary before setting up private practice in Westgate Road.

His consultation fee was 2/6d for both rich and poor and he was said to have "taken half the Infirmary with him."

It was for his service to those injured on the road to Blaydon that he became best known, however. Remember him now?

When we got the wheel back on, away we went agyen,

But them that had their noses broke, they cam back ower hyem;

Sum went to the dispensary, and some to Doctor Gibb's,

An sum sought out the Infirmary to mend their broken ribs.