THE beer talking, as usual, last week's column wondered which town or city had had the most pubs per head. Newcastle, it was said, had had 446 pubs and beer houses for a mid-nineteenth century population of 88,748 - one for every 200 people, bibulous or otherwise.

Bob Harbron goes one, or possibly quite a few, better. Pigott's 1834 Directory of Public Houses in Stockton - doubtless a best seller - listed 58 pubs for a population of 6,670, a pub for every 115 inhabitants.

If the ratio were to be repeated with today's population of 82,000, there'd be 713 pubs, Bob calculates.

There are, of course, fewer and fewer. Bob was especially saddened in 1969 when good old town centre hostelries like the Vane Arms, Black Lion, Unicorn and William IV made way for the egregious Castle Centre.

Arabella Kurdi's history of Middleton Tyas, near Richmond, counts more than 20 pubs in that small village's copper mining heyday - Crown and Anchor, Blue Anchor, Bulls Head, Miners Arms, Shoulder of Mutton (then as now). There were beer houses, too. "I expect they worked up a thirst," she says.

None spared the copper mines, only two village pubs remain: but was Middleton Tyas, now the home of gentlefolk, once the booziest place in Britain?

BOB Harbron also recalls Tees shipbuilding's hammer and tongs heyday, when the initiation ceremony of apprentice to tradesman required the youngster to sup as much ale as possible on his dinner break - 12 to 12.30pm - paid for by the tradesman.

The average was reckoned eight pints. More than that and the newcomers status rose commensurately with his blood/alcohol level. "They were carried back to the yard and tucked away somewhere safe," says Bob.

"Foremen and charge hands turned a blind eye, because they'd been through it themselves."

The only proviso was that they had to be back at work by 12.30, or lose a day's pay. What thereafter they did to deserve it, can only be imagined.

REACTING to the murder of the Bradford policewoman, the Sunday Express commissioned a lengthy piece from the high profile Mayor of Middlesbrough. Much of it was predictable, perhaps - jump on the kids, hammer the parents, reclaim the streets, transfer the fear of crime from the victim to the criminal. Just one surprise: the piece was bylined Sir Ray Mallon. New Year Honours coming up, does the Sunday Express know something that we don't?

NOW that they're cutting air fares in every direction, the people at Teesside Airport - or whatever we're supposed to call it these misguided days - appear also to have become economical with the truth.

Those seeking information on connecting trains are directed via the airport website onto Network Rail's. The airport, it says, has its own railway station with "infrequent" services to Darlington, Durham and Newcastle.

John Briggs in Darlington wonders how infrequent a service has to be before vanishing up its own tail light; Phil Chinery, also in Darlington, sends a copy of the new timetable, effective from December 11.

As for many years now, there's one train a week in each direction, which may be as infrequent as it gets. There are no services to Durham or Newcastle.

The Darlington to Saltburn train stops at 10.28 on Saturdays, while in the opposite direction there's a return at 13.41.

"How long before you spend between 10.28 and 13.41 at Teesside Airport some Saturday?" asks Phil. Unlike the poor blighters at the airport railway station, readers may not have long to wait.

DARLINGTON lad Mel Carter is one of those who doesn't get the Echo through the post. No doubt via Teesside Airport, he's working on the rigs in Newfoundland.

Avid reader, nonetheless, he notes a recent Gadfly paragraph on strange place names and adds a few from his new base - home, he insists, of the world's queerest names.

The rugged types who colonised Newfoundland, Mel reckons, had no time for fancy handles. Hence there's a Black Island and a Misery Point, a Break Heart Point, Wreck Cove and Famish Gut.

When self-flagellation ceased, they turned to what was in front of them - there's Plate Cove, Broom Point and Bread Island - and when imagination dried up entirely they tried Nameless Cove and Harbour Harbour.

Mel's home this weekend, when doubtless we shall have a beer. He's already anxious, however, not to give his new base a bad name. Newfoundland, he says, is lovely.

LAST week's note on the word "whelmed" also included the term reckfully - presumably, suggests Tim Stahl in Darlington, from the same honest root as rectum, rector and rectitude.

Well, rectum's from the Latin straight and narrow - as anatomically it might well be - but rector is from the Latin verb meaning to rule. Reckless and reckful have the same stem, meaning "care" or "heed".

Tim, reck of ages, also notes an interesting reference in one of Chris Lloyd's columns on Stanhope Park in Darlington: "At the time of being planted they looked more like discarded recklings weeded out for the rubbish dump."

Excused because he's just moved and can't yet find his dictionary, he wonders what a reckling is. The Oxford obliges: "The smallest and weakest animal of a litter; the youngest and smallest child in a family."

IF only because, however briefly, we may all be singing from the same song sheet, we end with another query. Brian Anderson asks if we remember the childhood song about Aiken Drum, and wonders what it's all about.

Though the chorus may be familiar - He played upon a ladle, a ladle, a ladle, He played upon a ladle and they called him Aiken Drum - the answer remains obscure.

All that's certain is that the song was early 19th century Scottish, probably haranguing the Whigs and containing disparaging references to the Duke of Sunderland, second son of the 2nd Earl Spencer.

Whether that means that that city has links with Lady Diana and with royalty we've no idea, but if Aiken drums up enough interest, we'll return to it next week.

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