THIS week's columns may by now emit a certain tangle o' the isles. We have been over the sea to Skye, and westwards to the Outer Hebrides. The Skye boats sail from Mallaig, where ends the 164 mile West Highland Railway, among the wonders of the world.

In the mid-19th century Mallaig was just four houses, its economy made buoyant by shoals of herring and by the railway from Glasgow, which finally got through in 1901.

It steams in still, though only in summer and not normally on Saturdays. The rest are diesel units. It was yet more exhilarating, therefore, when a steam special whistled up at 3pm on Saturday afternoon, hauled by class K1 62005 and greeted by a skirl of a girl on the bagpipes and by more cameras than Kodak.

Better still, the chap atop the tender, raking coal with all the enthusiasm of a Bevin Boy on his first shift, was our old friend Fred Ramshaw.

Fred's a pig-in-muck member of the North East Locomotive Preservation Group, which owns the K1 and runs it the rest of the year on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.

Once, when we were raggy trousered train spotters in Shildon, 62005 seemed never to be off our doorsteps, as common as mucky.

Now, resplendent and ennobled, it bears the nameplate Lord of the Isles and, to judge by Mallaig's welcome, might have been Master of All It Surveyed as well.

Fred, who lives in Barton - between Darlington and Scotch Corner - had been helping steam the locomotive for 22 successive days but had to go back home that night for a wedding.

"I have to show my face," he said. "My wife thinks I love steam engines more than I love her as it is."

NELPG, as we have previously observed, is also close to completing the restoration at its Darlington workshops of a class Q6, another workhorse of the post-war permanent way.

There's talk of a formal unveiling, of a directors' saloon, of a few drinks and of an invitation. Fred, in any case, will be among the first to fry his eggs on the footplate - as Mr Graham Kelly likes to remark of his peremptory departure from the Football Association, fired with enthusiasm.

STILL on the railways, we note at Chester-le-Street's privately operated station the usual warnings about buying a ticket before boarding the train. Next to it is one of those scriptural posters familiar as wayside pulpits. The Book of Numbers, chapter 32 verse 23: "Be sure your sins will find you out."

PUN and gains, Ian McGrath has collected his 72 pints of Grand Canny 'Un - his prize in the column's recent "Name that beer" competition.

The Grand in Bishop Auckland is home to the recently opened Wear Valley Brewery, run by Simon Gillespie and Ian Boyd. Even the runners up sportingly conceded that Ian's suggestion was a bit smart.

He in turn gave the ale - "Absolutely spot on, quite light but nice and hoppy" - to Tudhoe Cricket Club, near Spenymoor, where barbecue attenders made thirsty work of it and the junior section's funds benefited.

Simon, chairman of Bishop Round Table, has also produced Excalibur - Arthurian enthusiasts will get the point - and another beer called Old Vinovian, to acknowledge the town's heritage.

"They're going really well," he says.

ACCUSTOMED to special guest appearances, Trimdon Labour Club has rarely rocked more than when Lonnie Donegan played shortly before his death. Lonnie's son Peter followed him last weekend.

"We got the shock of our lives. He just walked in and he was brilliant," says John Burton, Tony Blair's constituency agent. Peter and friends, appropriately called the Scratch Band, play at the Tan Hill Inn in Swaledale tomorrow night to help launch a weekend of music and what's billed as the Top of the World championships.

Sports include tossing the welly, doughnut line and an improbable ski race. Bill Lloyd and his Hillbillies play on Saturday evening.

John Burton's folk band Skerne recorded a couple of years ago a "tribute" CD to former Redcar MP Mo Mowlam, simply called Love, Mo. In December, says John, they plan a Coatham Bowl gig in her memory.

MORE music, more memories. A concert and buffet to remember Pat Conlon, former superintendent radiographer at Darlington Memorial Hospital, takes place at the Redworth Hall Hotel on Friday, September 23.

I didn't really know her, but her late husband Brian - professional footballer, domino player, man about Shildon, scallywag - was a grand lad.

Pat, much missed, died in March. The concert, featuring Fourum and Floosie - a French folk singer now happily settled in Darlington - aims to benefit the Pat Conlon Memorial Award at Teesside University and the haematology unit at the Memorial.

A fiver from each £17.50 ticket goes directly to the fund. A supporting raffle offers prizes like a week in a Tuscany villa and £500 worth of Argos vouchers. Tickets and details on (01325) 743223.

...and finally back to the Highlands where, as yesterday's Gadfly column observed, the pesky midge is one of life's great distractions. They have similar problems elsewhere.

St Cuthbert's parish magazine in Darlington carries a piece by the Rev Richard Davison, an Australian priest who visited the church recently with tales of another St Cuthbert's, Darlington - an altogether humbler building in the Perth suburb of that name.

Though there's a stained glass window of Cuthbert on the Farne Islands, seals at his feet, things are different in other ways, too - not least that the Australian worship veers towards the "happy-clappy". Announcing the last hymn, the woman vicar told the congregation that they could clap during the choruses - "and the more mozzies you can kill, the better".