WINNIE Richardson, now 73 and for 35 years a music teacher in south Durham, rings from Bishop Auckland on an indignant note.

Though now back home, she's recently had respite care after a knee operation at the Timothy Hackworth care home in Shildon - still threatened with closure, like others at West Auckland and Stanley, by Durham County Council.

Winnie's aghast. "I've had respite care there three times now. It totally settled my life to know that there was such a place nearby.

"They are lovely, caring staff and it's a lovely place to live. If it closes, what are people like me going to do? They're real Christians in that home, it's a blessed place. I beg them not to shut it."

There's a short pause. "Aren't they bloody awful, that council?" says Winnie - and she's sorry, she adds, but that's swearing.

IF that's swearing, at least according to Winnie Richardson, what are we to make of the six-letter word "bugger"?

Though it appears just once among the 1,100 pages of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations - when told he could convalesce in Bognor Regis, George V is said to have remarked "Bugger Bognor" immediately before giving up the ghost - it has surfaced 40 times in the past two years in the less sanitised pages of The Northern Echo.

About half of the references - offending or otherwise - were written by me. The word has even appeared in the At Your Service column, but only once so can hardly be said to be "like God bless you".

It has been in the Tuesday Poem - rhyming, rather unoriginally, with "sugar" - in the racing pages and even in the editor's Dad at Large column, in an anecdote (of all things) about a school nativity play at Eaglescliffe. Sir Tom Cowie, John Prescott, Gary Wilmott, Brian Clough and (perhaps least surprising of all) Ricky Tomlinson are among those who've employed it in print.

Expletives undeleted, the worst (and most recent) offender is recently departed Newcastle United manager Graeme Souness, who has three recorded instances against his name. "We had the majority of the ball and did bugger all with it," he observed after the 3-0 defeat at Manchester City on January 31.

Perhaps believing in the adage about three strikes and you're out, United sacked him shortly afterwards.

A war veteran used it aggressively about a despised enemy. Carol Vorderman had wholly different emotions when discussing the death of her friend and much loved Countdown colleague Richard Whiteley.

Vorderman particularly hated getting the numbers game wrong. "Richard knew it annoyed me, the bugger," she observed.

Used in that way, it seems to me a term of unalloyed affection. Readers may view the buggeration factor differently.

RECENT columns have recalled how innocent young ladies have acquired rather more memorable names upon marriage. Mrs IC Snowball in Sunderland was an example. Sometimes, of course, the menfolk are simply born with them. A reader in Romaldkirk, Teesdale, recalls a farming family called Hart, Ferryhill way, who named their son Alfred. "Everyone knew him as Alf Hart," he says. "He never batted an eyelid."

EDDIE Roberts in Richmond was much taken by the Echo report last week that "tens of thousands of pounds are to be ploughed into the village playing field at Heighington" - worth the column's while, he supposes, to dig something up over there.

Tony Eaton in Romanby, Northallerton, enjoyed the "vowel play" pun in last week's Gadfly and wonders if M Georges Perec - who wrote a novel in French without using a single "e" - might have been suffering from inconsonance.

Anne Gibbon in Darlington returns a listing for a concert at Chester-le-Street - "Rachael Hardie, soprano, live from Australia Methodist Church" - and marvels how good the lady must be at projecting her image.

John Briggs in Darlington notes that "desperation" is an anagram of "A rope ends it", that "election results" in an anagram of "Lies - let's recount" and, of all things, that "Mother-in-law" is an anagram of "Woman Hitler."

Ever gainfully employed, Paul Hodgson in Spennymoor reports that even the hospice charity shop in his home town has closed circuit television now. "They'll pinch corn off a blind chicken," he says.

REFLECTING upon last week's note on Cockneys, Pete Winstanley in Durham points out that in Australia, a cockney is the name for a young snapper fish - and thus starts another train of thought.

In train spotting days, dear and distant, a familiar steam engine on the night mail through Shildon was V2 class 60809, named "The Snapper, the East Yorkshire Regiment, the Duke of York's Own."

Apart from the matter of what on earth's a Snapper - other than one of those folded paper things formerly given away with the Beezer - it raises the question of whether that was the longest locomotive name in history.

It wasn't, says Mr Briggs, British Rail retired. While The Snapper had 62 characters and spaces, 60835 extended to 72 - "The Green Howard, Alexandra, Princess of Wales's Own Yorkshire Regiment."

The longest of all, however, may belong to the diesel age. Nine years ago, locomotive 37717 was named "St Margaret's Church of England Primary School, City of Durham, Railsafe Trophy Winners 1997." There are shorter novels.

Number 37717 is apparently renamed every year in honour of the Railsafe Trophy winners - but has anyone beaten St Margaret's primary?

...and finally, the newsletter of the south-east Durham Methodist churches tells of God's decision to build a new ark. This time, he tells Noah, he wants not two decks but 20.

"Anything you say, you're the boss," says Noah.

This time, adds God, he wants it filling with fish. Noah's a bit more taken aback. "To be exact," says God, "I want it entirely filling, floor to ceiling, with carp."

Noah looks heavenwards. "You want a new ark with 20 decks, one on top of the other, and you want it filling with carp?"

"Spot on," says God, "It's about time we had a multi-storey carp ark."

Published: 01/03/2006