Pass and present

EXACTLY a year ago, I reported the death of John Howes, a good old friend from Shildon days. John had just turned 60, enthusiastically entitled to his bus pass, had travelled – Shildon to Darlington, Darlington to Richmond, Richmond to Leyburn, Leyburn to Ripon – to visit his younger sister, Margaret.

Two days later, he died while returning by train from watching his beloved Middlesbrough manage a 2- 2 draw against Manchester United.

“John,” said the column, “was a big lad, a great lad, one of the lads.”

Last weekend, the first anniversary of his death, John’s 84-year-old mum Marjorie joined Margaret and Margaret’s long-time partner Mike Bonser in recreating the Ripon yarn.

Leaving the King Willie in Shildon, where they’re photographed, they even stopped – as John had done – for a bite and a Brown Ale in the Bolton Arms at Leyburn, and raised a glass in his memory.

“We really enjoyed the whole journey, particularly the Dales and District services where the drivers were on first name terms with all the regulars,”

reports Margaret. “We were a little sad, but our thoughts of John were of the good times, which were wonderful.”

Last year’s column had concluded with the advice to live for today and to make the most of the bus pass – “you never know when it’s going to expire.” So many have taken that advice, of course, that free travel’s expiry date may be sooner than anyone ever had supposed.

CLIFF Howes, John’s dad, was a railway policeman at Darlington – a big, no-nonsense polliss of the old school, decidedly firm but undoubtedly fair.

It’s tempting to wonder what Cliff would have made of the mayhem on and around the 9.17pm from Peterborough to Newcastle last Saturday evening, when supporters of rival football clubs clashed – as, apparently, they do on many Saturday night trains. There was much more of that in yesterday’s Backtrack column.

Cliff may also have had something to say about the injunction atop the at-seat menu: “Sit back and enjoy the calm atmosphere of first class.”

Sadly it is neither calm nor first class any longer. It is simply for a different kind of cattle.

STILL on those lines, a press release from Durham Cathedral talks of the railway station at Chester-le-Street – “once the resting place of St Cuthbert.”

Clearly the railway age began rather earlier than most of us had supposed.

UP to the oxters, the column these past two weeks has recalled the white-out weekend of March 16 to 19, 1979.

Abe Stewart from Chilton, near Ferryhill, was a miner at Easington Colliery, remembers turning up just after 3pm for the back shift and quickly becoming aware that things weren’t well up above.

“The power kept going off. When we phoned out-bye to see what was happening, the chap on bank reported that very heavy snow was interfering with the electricity supply.”

When they returned to the surface, none of the buses had been able to get through. After spending the night at the medical centre – “we took turns for a lie down” – they were given breakfast in the pit canteen and then taken to the Officials Club (known for some reason as The Leather Cap) for a little liquid refreshment.

Since none of them had much money, they were told to put it on the tab and thus stayed until closing time.

Still snowbound, they were then taken to the Norseman Hotel – Peterlee’s finest – given a fiver a day spending money and passed a pleasant enough weekend. By the Monday they were told they’d have to go to work from the hotel, but finally got back to chilly Chilton at 6pm.

“It had been a long shift, Friday afternoon to Monday night,” recalls Abe, and clearly there was good reason to remember it.

MIKE Smyth remembers that caught-cold weekend, too. He was a Wheatley Hill lad in those days, waiting for a bus to take him to his girlfriend’s in Seaham. Since that bus didn’t turn up, either, he busied himself taking photographs. Many are also on David Cook’s Wheatley Hill website. If ever every picture told a story, it’s this one.

NOSTALGIA’S avalanche began after a chance meeting between Andy Rust – now in Cornwall, but in 1979 an impecunious refugee from the storm – and Peter Brookes, a councillor in Trimdon Village, where for four days Andy had been given shelter.

We subsequently told how Andy had returned to Trimdon to plant a white-flowering tree and hand over a cheque to the parish council – a token of his gratitude.

Though the weather proved a little more clement, some things never changed. “I left my wallet back in Cornwall,” reports Andy. “I was skint all over again.”

ABIT like the recently introduced smileys on Page 2, only gone forth and multiplied, a meeting of the Tees Valley Christian Alliance recently heard a list of “50 reasons to be cheerful”.

Matt Falcus sends it. Unlucky for some, there appear to be just 13. They include the fact that 80 men in Holme House and Kirklevington prisons have recently turned to Jesus, that the amount of drunkenness and other anti-social behaviour on Stockton High Street has fallen markedly since the introduction of street pastors, that drug use is down by 35 per cent and there has been a “significant” increase in miraculous healing across the region.One statistic stands out, however. “The sun shone more than any other year on record within the Tees Valley.”

Is that how anyone else remembers 2008, or is this a latter-day case of turning water into wine?

AN email arrives, headed PCC.

It may be evidence of a permanent state of paranoia that I immediately take it to mean Press Complaints Commission. Philadelphia Cricket Club were quite pleased with a recent Backtrack column, too.

EASTER almost upon us, David Lawson in Sunderland sends the words of a hymn unlikely to rival Hail Thee Festival Day. It’s called “The world is full of smelly feet”, the second verse perhaps a summary: Jesus said to his disciples “Wash those weary toes, Do it in a cheerful fashion, Never hold your nose.”

It’s on page 848 of Hymns Old and New. This may be one of the newer ones.

…and finally, Roger Dent in Low Coniscliffe, near Darlington, returns whence it came the headline “Glassses raised for beer fest” with the suggestion that we have a proof reader with a sense of humour. “It’s about time for my biennial trip to Specsavers and I was quite worried that my faculty failure was beginning to accelerate.” The blind spot, unfortunately, is our own.