John North: Breakfasting like a Lord

A GOOD start, as it were, the column found itself at 8am last Saturday at a breakfast, men only, organised by Barnard Castle's churches. The speaker - there's singing for your supper, but for your croissants? - was former government chief whip and local MP Derek Foster, now Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland.

"My Christianity is far more important to me than my politics," he said.

The poor chap has been terribly teased hereabouts for his sartorial conservatism - every suit, save Salvationist serge, same sedate stripe.

Even his wife Anne - ermine doors, as a life peer might say - has remarked on it. "The principal when I was at St Hild's college in Durham was exactly the same," she says. "She had six different suits, but every one the same."

This time he surprised us, sporting a rather natty summer jacket and slacks. "Marks & Spencer's finest," said Derek - everyone still calls him Derek - flashing the label like a man accustomed to cutting his coat according to his cloth.

The breakfast was fine, the company convivial. We sat with a chap from Cotherstone who sings with Hannah Hauxwell in the Christmas choir. "She's a natural musician," he said.

Derek, perhaps accustomed to such early learning - Who's Who lists him as chairman of the National Prayer Breakfast from 1997-99 - mixed anecdote with encouragement.

"I seem to spend half of my time as a Christian doubled up with laughter," he said. "Christianity is as much about laughter as it is about faith."

He was a Sunderland lad, mad about sport but little else - "terrible student," he said - until being converted at the age of 14 and coming to realise the poverty of the east end.

Thereafter the shipyard worker's son gained an Oxford degree in politics, philosophy and economics, was chairman of the North-East Development Council from 1974-76 and became Bishop Auckland's assiduous MP in 1979.

His departure as chief whip was unexpected. Though there was no direct reference to it, his chief criticism of the government, he said, was that it wanted MPs to be ambassadors for the administration.

"I believe we are there for other reasons, too, sometimes to tell them things they mightn't want to hear."

He was the only card carrying, cornet playing Salvation Army member in the Commons. Though once he voted for its abolition, he greatly enjoys the upper house - promoted to glory may not in the circumstances be the appropriate term - but loves the North-East yet more.

He talked engagingly until after ten o'clock. Lord Foster had earned his stripes.

THE previous evening I'd formed 25 per cent of a "Question Time" panel which also included former health secretary Alan Milburn MP, the Bishop of Jarrow and the delightful Dame Dela Smith, a sort of educational super head.

It was organised by churches in the Haughton area of Darlington, originally mooted as a brains' trust. Clearly they'd spotted what might be termed a cerebral weakness.

"I introduced a note of levity," I reported to the lady of the house, afterwards.

"You mean you lowered the tone," she said.

Still, it went pretty well, not least because rumours that the event would be handbagged (or sandbagged) by angry Hurworth Comprehensive School protestors proved unfounded.

Milburn, his mane now verging on the leonine, exchanged good natured joshing about his Tow Law browtins up; Dela fielded everything from the future of football coaching to the effects of global warming.

Someone else asked about the benefits of healthy diet. Clearly they were looking at a role model.

At the end, they asked how we'd all most want to be remembered. The Rt Rev John Pritchard, least pious of all, said he'd like it to be for hitting a four at Edgbaston - clergy against doctors - and essaying a handsome cover drive towards the boundary of Whinfield school assembly hall.

"Mind," he added, "I was out next ball."

THE night before that I'd spoken to Bishop Auckland Townswomen's Guild, wondered how many remembered Bill Oliver, the Echo's much loved photographer out there until the late 1970s.

Almost everyone did, especially his famous hat. It offered the chance to recall one of the Queen Mother's fairly regular visits to open something or other at the Bowes Museum: Bill, by no means for the first time, was running late. The ribbon had been cut, the royal deed done.

Van finally parked, elderly plate camera slung across his shoulder, Bill approached her majesty, raised his hat - he raised his hat to everyone - and asked if she'd mind doing it again.

The Queen Mother had a good memory. "Why certainly, Mr Oliver," she said, and dutifully held scissors aloft.

The following day, the Bowes unveiled a sundial in memory of its royal patron. Had the sundial had Bill's hat on, the image would have been complete.

LORD Foster had been last Friday to the top end of Weardale, officially to reopen the village hall at Rookhope after a £40,000 facelift.

"It takes a lot of coffee mornings and jumble sales to raise £40,000," he said, though there've been plentiful grants, too.

Lifelong teetotaller that he is, they may not have mentioned the latest project in that resurgent community - villagers plan to open England's highest brewery in remote farm buildings derelict for 55 years.

The Rev Philip Greenhalgh, Weardale's rector, has agreed to become honorary chief taster on condition that the first brew will be called Nunc Dimittis.

Devotees of the Book of Common Prayer will recognise it from the Evensong service: "Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace..."

The St Aidan's Community Trust, which in resurrecting the Rookhope Inn made it the fulcrum of village life, has bought equipment from the redundant Rose Street brewery in Edinburgh.

Rose by any other name? "We've had lots of suggestions, including Weird Ales Brewery, but haven't yet reached a decision," says Alan Jackson, of the Trust.

Production, up to 1,000 gallons a week, will be based at the former Broad Dale farm, up a dumpy track high above the village. The Trust hopes to create three jobs for locals and to sell to "selected outlets" as well as the Rookhope Inn.

They are being advised by Mike Parker, who manages the successful Hesket Newmarket brewery in the Cumbrian village of that name.

"There's a lot of excitement," says St Aidan's Trust project manager Chris Jones. "We've got the equipment quite cheaply but are seeking grants to transport and re-assemble it. Subject to planning permission, it will definitely happen."

Helped by willing locals - "If they walk in here they usually walk out with a job," Chris once told the column - the Trust has revitalised the former lead mining village.

Both village hall and pub now have cinema facilities, too - particularly popular with the youngsters. "There's not a lot for kids to do around here," says Alan Jackson. "To be honest Rookhope was dying on its feet until the Trust came."

The brewery, weird ales or otherwise, should provide a further pick-me-up. They hope to be toasting the future next February.

ENGLAND'S highest pub, now under enthusiastic new management, remains the Tan Hill Inn at the distant end of Arkengarthdale. Back from beyond, Ian Luck brings in with him a complimentary bottle of Brothers pear cider, usually only available at the Glastonbury Festival but being sold by special arrangement at Tan Hill.

The label says that it's best enjoyed in a field in Somerset. "It's also pretty wonderful in a bar in North Yorkshire," says Ian.

...and finally, last week's story on Chapman Pincher - the legendary "defence" journalist, now 91 - stirred distant memories of their schooldays together for Denis Towlard, now in Thornaby.

Harry Pincher, as more familiarly he was known, was a year or two junior to Denis when he started at Darlington Grammar School in 1928. They opposed one another in the debate that "Masters really are wiser than boys", Pincher's motion daringly defeated.

Denis's school magazines also record that Pincher again lost when volubly arguing that silent films were better than talkies but won when opposing the motion that prefects should have fags.

The usage of "fag", Denis supposes, had nothing to do with smoking behind the bike shed.

In 1931, Harry Pincher was against speed records and against schooling after 15 years. The boy from Corporation Road elementary school went on to gain a BSc at London and an honorary DLitt from the University of Newcastle.