Amen to that

Amen Corner has brought the column to its knees, so great the interest in last week's angle on the subject. It has also raised the irrelevant but nonetheless interesting point of why the Roman Catholics say "Ay-men" and the Protestants "Ah-men." So be it, someone may know.

We'd noted, at any rate, both that a pub and brewery is planned for that part of Barnard Castle known locally as Amen Corner - opposite St Mary's parish church - and the suggestion that the 1960s pop group Amen Corner had taken its name after a visit to Barney.

Much the group's best remembered hit is If Paradise Was Half As Nice, a celestial number one in 1969. We've spent most of the week trying to set the record straight.

To date we've had five different explanations for the name, the most popular that given by Wikipedia - that they played along with a 1954 drama of that name by American author James Baldwin.

Former Barney boy David Atkins - "I left in 1968 to seek my fortune"- has no doubts, however, that his home town offers the true Corner stone.

"One of the group, possibly Andy Fairweather Low, was at Barnard Castle School. I remember in the late 60s attending an Amen Corner gig in a marquee at the back of the Kings Head," says David, now in Croxdale.

"It would have been big if it had happened in Darlington, but in Barnard Castle, where nothing ever happened, it was unique. It was a way for them to say thank you to the town."

Bill Mosurak, another Barney boy, also remembers a gig behind the Kings Head but reckons it was Brian Poole and the Tremeloes. "I was there," he says, "12 shillings and sixpence a ticket."

It's likely that both recollections are right, as shortly we shall hear, so therefore purely coincidental that Brian Shaw in Shildon should point out that Amen Corner's greatest hit was first offered to the Tremeloes, who turned it down.

Paradise lost, Amen Corner recorded it in just two hours - a turning point, if ever.

Bill, whose brother's in the music business, also reckons that the Cardiff-based group was originally called the Sect Maniacs, because of their links to a Methodist church, but - perhaps on higher authority - thought it best to change.

Certainly they played - prayed? - Barnard Castle because John Emerson, a former chairman of the town's annual Meet, kindly sends a bill from the 1968 event.

Attractions on Friday, May 31 included wrestling at Barford Camp - tickets four shillings to 10/6d - and at something described as the Castle Outer Bailey ("rear of Kings Head Hotel") a "group dance" with The Amen Corner. Tickets were 15 shillings.

Barnard Castle, in truth, may have been more accustomed to hitting the musical high notes than David Atkins supposes. Two years previously, the Meet featured chart toppers Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas and Dave Berry and the Cruisers.

Tickets were £1, including food. "Quite a first for the Meet," says John, former landlord of the Oak Tree in Hutton Magna.

Several other readers - particular thanks to Tom Purvis, Pete Winstanley, Colin Jones and Alan Hepple - point out there's an Amen Corner near St Paul's Cathedral, another in Leeds and a third, marked on the A-Z, near Newcastle Cathedral.

These days, if memory serves, someone wants to open a dance lapping club within kissing distance of the cloisters.

Amen Corner, as we noted last week, is also the name of the 11th, 12th and 13th holes at Augusta national golf course, named after some particularly miraculous goings on involving Arnold Palmer.

Eventually, however, we turn to Keith Evans, saxophonist and agent with New Amen Corner - who, coincidentally, play Whitby Pavilion on September 30 after a doubtless big night in Bognor Regis.

"I know why you're ringing," says Keith immediately and, of course, he is right.

There are, he admits, very many versions of how the group came by its name - though for certain none of the band went to Barney School. The "official" account - and he has consulted Alan Jones, one of the founders - is that a Cardiff club at which they played held a weekly "Amen Corner soul night".

They were formed from the cream of three other groups - including the Sect Maniacs - after a "best of the bands" night. Amen Corner just happened to be, as it were, on the block.

Though style and songs remain much the same, none of the original members is in the new group, though they are supportive of it.

Paradise regained? "We absolutely love it," says Keith.

A solicitor's letter arrives, happily of the friendlier sort, from Mr Stephen Woodall in Northallerton. It's not usually in court that we bump into him, but on the racecourse.

Stephen encloses a photograph that he believes appeared in the Echo in June 1939 of the King - he thinks it's the King - visiting the Billitt brothers, blacksmiths, in the hamlet of Thirlby, near Thirsk.

"Can you confirm that it's the King," asks our learned friend, "and explain what he was doing in Thirlby?"

Royal we, it didn't look much like George VI to us.

Our back copies are kept in great monthly files, five editions each day. You can feel the war clouds gathering as June's pages turn, though the Northern Echo Nig-Nog Club - that and Black and White Whisky - was still doing its best to maintain spirits.

It's sod's law, of course, that it was the 29th before Thirlby's royal visitor appeared.

Until June 20, in truth, the King and Queen had spent six weeks in North America, including the first visit to the USA by a British monarch. Half a million lined Washington's welcoming streets.

On the day of his return, the young princesses taken out on a destroyer to meet their parents off Southampton, a plane carrying the youngest-ever King's jockey - 23-year-old John Crouch, due to be married the following week - went missing in midsummer mist between York and Newcastle.

The following morning it was spotted by Forest-in-Teesdale postman Robert Redfearn on Dora's Seat, near Newbiggin, said at the time to be "Teesdale's second highest peak".

The plane was burned to white dust. Crouch, the pilot and wireless operator were all dead nearby. Someone else had to ride the King's horses that afternoon at Gosforth Park.

William and Cussins Billitt's royal guest was the Duke of Kent, on a three-day visit to "Social Service activities" in Yorkshire, and greeted there by a "blunt" Durham miner called Henry Martin - "staying at Thirlby for his health".

"Let's have a shake, Duke," demanded the old Durham lad and was promptly obliged. The Echo's reporter was clearly impressed.

"The fact that Mr Martin got his handshake and a few friendly words showed the democratic manner of the Duke's visit to the royal districts."

Our solicitor will doubtless be glad of the advice. The bill's in the post.