The Eating Owt column

The best laid plans, as possibly old Boney once observed...

William Pryce Cumby, born in Heighington in 1771, won his Royal Naval commission in 1793 and at Trafalgar commanded the Bellerophon, a 74 gun battleship to which Napoleon, later, surrendered.

His naval career continued on a crest until his death in 1837. He is remembered in Heighington parish church, at a village hall concert on Saturday and in the name of the pub alongside the verdant cricket field.

We looked in on Saturday evening, 6.30, another birthday. Things (shall we say) appeared very much less than shipshape, the welcome of the sort which Nelson reserved for the French.

The bar floor was littered with children and with their toys, televisions played to an audience of none, the restaurant was empty and unstaffed, a menu written on a small blackboard on the floor. It seemed to be a signal; we retreated.

Ten minutes later, still not 7pm, we were three miles away at the Bay Horse in Middridge, outside Shildon. The restaurant overflowed, the atmosphere was vibrant, the young staff outstanding.

Amanda Richardson, the manager, is energetically at the centre of everything. Shildon lass, she clearly and commendably believes - like Nelson, no doubt - in leading from the helm.

The pub's been there donkeys' years, reverting to its original name after a less than magical spell as the Poacher's Pocket.

"Isn't this where grandma once asked for a doggy bag?" said the elder bairn, delving into early childhood.

Everywhere, we reminded him, was where grandma asked for a doggy bag.

The food, understand, isn't necessarily captain's table and probably wouldn't pretend to be. It's just the stuff to give the matelots, for all that. Two hand pumps dispensed Cameron's and Brakespeare's.

They cheerfully accommodated us "out the back", a pleasant and not particularly distant table. Starters included potato skins, mussels with a garlic cream sauce which richly rewarded dunking and a "tower" of battered black pudding - birthday treat - which, like the stout party, appeared to have collapsed.

Two of us had Wensleydale chicken - Wensleydale the cheese sauce - a third, a very pleasant curry (served with salad and chips), the bairn mince and dumplings with, he said, the world's biggest dumpling.

His mother, as incorrigible as she is incomparable, was reminded of the time at Rotherham United when, aged about seven, he became wedged between two concrete crush barriers.

"Eeeh," said the kindly St John Ambulance man who extricated him, "what a raht dumplin' thing to do."

It passed off very pleasantly indeed, the bill for two courses for four a few coppers under £40. As for the Cumby Arms, England - as old Horatio might almost have said - expects something altogether better.

CUDDY Collingwood, as his crew may never have called him, probably also deserves better than the titchy little street named in his honour in central Newcastle.

Grey Street, around the corner, is regularly reckoned England's finest; Pilgrim Street has and other grand buildings; Blackett Street has its moments - and last week had cricketer Paul Collingwood, the region's second great hero of that ilk, signing books in Waterstone's.

Collingwood Street has too much traffic, too little decent architecture and better-days offices with dingy doorways where lonely smokers gather in order to assist their suicide, a sort of pariah commitment.

Yet Cuthbert Collingwood, born in Newcastle in 1750 and educated at Royal Grammar School, is reckoned the forgotten hero of Trafalgar - the man who assumed command upon his friend Nelson's death and whose vision ensured that Britain would long rule the waves.

He died at sea in 1810, is buried in St Paul's Cathedral and has a statue on Tynemouth front (where a service will be held at 6pm on Friday.)

The street's most imposing building, once the high and mighty Midland Bank, is now a caf-bar called Revolution. The bank's role is in part filled by a money lender's a few doors down, offering "pay day" loans of up to £400 "subject to status."

What status? You mean skint?

There's also a "Luxebar and dining room" called Apartment and dear old Ristorante Roma, which exactly 40 years ago became the city's first Italian restaurant. It prospers yet, but was closed at lunchtime.

We ate instead in the former pillared banking hall that is Revolution, a rather more youthful establishment than those to which we are accustomed. When it comes to revolution, this column still turns at 33 and a third.

The staff were friendly for all that, the music blessedly restrained, the menu full of burgers, paninis, flat breads and other symbols of a modern dining culture.

The waitress recommended the beef goulash, a fragrant special of the day, £6.85. Instead of offering a tip, we took it. It was perfectly enjoyable; you wouldn't have banked on that, either.

THERE'S been a pub on the same site in Gainford since the mid-18th century. Some time after those epochal events of 1805, it was patriotically renamed the Lord Nelson.

This year, of all the great and blessed commemorations, the company which owns it not only decided to throw Nelson overboard but to rename the pub The Gainford, a blistering broadside in banality.

It was the work of men with letters after their names and brains in their bulwarks - as landlord Graham Dawes, doubtless more politely, pointed out. Nelson was again victorious.

It's wholly refurbished, manifestly for the better and really quite plush, but with two of the three hand pumps hors de combat. The other sold Strongarm, so that was OK. So far, no food.

A problem was that the England match assailed the left ear (we won that one, too) and piped music the right - daft, to put it very kindly. The September issue of the first rate parish magazine offered a diversion.

Up the road, The Chippie - unoriginal also, but preferable to anything with "Plaice" in the name - offered fry-by-nights the October magazine while they waited.

It contained a most charming obituary of John Caldbeck-Meenan, a retired consultant psychiatrist from Darlington Memorial Hospital who'd been one of four members of the Eccentric Gainford Gabblers' Society, or EGGS for short. The write-up, rather neatly, was by someone signing himself Eggs-officio.

They'd hatched EGGS twelve and a half years ago, a monthly merriment of minds that began in the Cross Keys in Gainford, moved to the Red Well in Barney when Gainford became pub food free and finally found its feet under the table in Paris, Brussels, Dublin and heaven knows where else.

There was a picture of them too, Dr Caldbeck-Meenan in peace with his pipe in the avuncular manner of Tony Benn the Elder.

Fried to order while we primed the parish pump, the fish was good. The chips were plentiful. It marked the end of another weekly voyage of discovery; Trafalgar squared.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what the Invisible Man calls his mum and dad.

Transparents, of course.

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