Classical lines

Tom taught us at Tin Tacks, more educationally known as Timothy Hackworth Junior Mixed and Infants, in Shildon.

Though sadly absent from it – for putting up with us lot for four years, the MC was the very least he deserved – he came to mind after the publication of the Queen’s birthday honours list, in which the wondrously named Mr Xenophon Kelsey became perhaps the first MBE recipient in history whose forename begins with the 24th letter of the alphabet.

When we were seven, Mr Coates (as then he was known) taught us “real” writing. Each successive letter was illustrated on the blackboard with words beginning with a “small”

or “capital” example. I can still remember wondering what he’d make of the X-factor.

Tom produced Xerxes – a prince of ancient Persia, he explained. With the possible exception of one or two Athenian League footballers, it was the only time I’ve seen a name begin with a capital X.

XENOPHON Kelsey is a celebrated musician, composer and teacher who lives in Ripon, North Yorkshire.

The original Xenophon was a Greek mercenary soldier and writer who’d been a student of Socrates but was never particularly known for being able to hold a note.

His book Anabasis is said not just to have been the basis of the 1979 cult film The Warriors, but of a 2005 video game along similar lines.

The Oxford Dictionary offers the word Xenophontean, but gives no more helpful definition than having the qualities of Xenophon.

Mr Kelsey, whose telephone answering machine identifies him simply as Xen, has unfortunately been unable to explain more. In a 1939 Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Literature, however, Xenophon is much lauded.

Directly beneath his entry is one for Xerxes. Tom Coates was right all along.

TIMOTHY Hackworth – the railway pioneer – also got a mention in the “walks” guide in last Wednesday’s Guardian. By Saturday they were forced to issue a correction. The great man wasn’t born in Shildon at all, but in Wylam in the Tyne Valley.

BUT it is to be a classical column, and that’s even before we get to the vexed problem of whether a quack echoes. First to Mr Peter Sotheran, himself an MBE recipient, and from Greek to Latin.

His email’s headed “Gaudeamus igitur”, which translated means “Haway, let’s enjoy ourselves”.

Peter’s much involved with the Sir William Turner’s Almshouses in Redcar, which celebrate Founder’s Day – and the 300th anniversary of Sir William Turner’s school – with a service at 7pm next Wednesday. The first school building opened in 1709 and is now the Kirkleatham Hall Museum.

Researching its history, Peter discovers the original school song, to be sung – still in Latin – next Wednesday.

For some reason, however, the headmaster in the 1940s dropped the third verse – beginning Floreat omniae virginae liberae – substituting his own words about being inspired by one’s tutors and leaders.

Peter’s not particularly surprised.

“No doubt schoolboy humour when faced with a line about ‘All free young women’ was much the same then as it is today.”

SCOTTISH patter may be every bit as perplexing, not least – as last Friday’s experience suggested – when trying to understand a single word from the station announcer at Glasgow Central.

Last Wednesday’s column had pondered the word “firkling”, used by the late Mr Ian Nelson to explain why Scotland almost always beat England in the New Year’s Day domino challenge at Lune Street workmen’s club in Saltburn.

The Oxford will have none of it, though it kindly offers the definition that a “firker” is “one who firks”.

A Darlington reader, however, recalls that the word “firkling” was extensively used by the late Mr Blaster Bates, though whether euphemistically is unclear. “He used it in the sense of rummaging about,” our man insists.

Derek McIntosh Bates was a Cheshire lad and Army bomb disposal expert, an improbable success as an entertainer after first doing his bit at Congleton Round Table. He died three years ago.

Perhaps his most explosive story concerned the time when he was asked to shift 4,500 tons of effluent from a farm near Sandbach. “It climbed into the sky, mushrooming at 300ft, and a shaft of sunlight hit it,” he recalled. “You could see all the colours of the starling’s wing.”

He called the recording “The Shower of **** over Cheshire,”

though the asterisks may be considered euphemistic, also.

MIND, there are those who try awfully hard to traduce the Queen’s English, too. Clive Sledger in Aldbrough St John, near Richmond, reports that an enquiry to Microsoft was greeted with the option to “initialize the functionality” of the product when all he wanted to do was start the damn thing. They weren’t any help, either, he adds.

IAN’S funeral in Ayr passed as well as these things ever can, the humble eulogist rewarded not just with a round of applause but with a rather splendid bottle.

Norman Faulds, the minister, had earlier sent the story about the unemployed chap in Ayr who, having bought a £3 T-shirt from a charity shop, accidentally dropped a £10 note and his receipt as he walked up the street.

Happily, as might be supposed, his carelessness was spotted by two passing pollisses. It proved otherwise: they issued a £50 on-the-spot fine for dropping litter.

“I couldn’t believe it. I’m completely skint and certainly can’t afford to go throwing tenners around,”

said Stewart Smith, 36. “Maybe I have the kind of face they don’t like.”

Norman sympathises, declined even a drop whisky at the wake. “If the police in Ayr can fine you £50 for dropping a tenner,” he said, “if I drove with a wee dram they’d probably jail me for life.”

NORMAN was a friend of the Nelson family, accustomed each Christmas to receiving the long-forgotten Teddy Tale annual from his “uncle”

Ian. Teddy Tale, he recalled, was the Daily Mail’s answer to the still-celebrated Rupert in the Express. “Rupert was a bear, Teddy Tale was a mouse. The poor little chap never stood a chance.”

THAT a duck’s quack doesn’t echo is claimed – and by no means alone –in the “Did you know?” section of the Mile House Veterinary Centre newsletter in Northallerton.

So is the notion that dolphins sleep with one eye open at all times (as do whales) and that a headless cockroach can live for weeks. Yet more gruesomely, the severed head has a life of its own, too.

The second and third are correct, the first is – well – quackers.

Acoustics professor Trevor Cox at Salford University even conducted scientific experiments into the drake’s progress (and doubtless without regard to the bill).

It’s simply that the duck’s call is so long, it masks the immediate echo.

The sound resounds, nonetheless.

…and finally, our kidder has spent a few days in North Tees Hospital at Stockton, where all concerned have been first rate. It’s his brother who suffered agonies.

North Tees is multi-storey. Dave was on the seventh floor, by a window.

Revealed in Monday’s paper, plans for the new Wynyard-based hospital to serve Stockton and Hartlepool show that it, too, will reach for the sky.

For those of us with a helpless head for heights, such visiting can seriously damage your health.

By way of recuperation, the column now plans another week off. X doubtless marking the spot, we return on July 1.