Up the Junction

There was something similar about an Andover policeman and a Wiltshire constabulary truncheon.

For propriety’s sake, this one’s last word had best be “unction”, though there could be bonus marks for “compunction”.

Battersby, as properly now it is known, is on the Esk Valley line from Middlesbrough to Whitby, an occasional diesel multiple unit sidling in before the driver changes ends, heads briefly back whence he came and then goes off – don’t we all? – at a tangent.

The North Eastern Railway dropped “Junction” as long ago as 1893. As if to show that nothing changes, not even at a junction station, locals still call it that, regardless.

A century ago it was a thriving railway community, a second passenger service heading desultorily to Stockton via Stokesley, Sexhow, Potto, Pickhill and goodness knows where else and, until 1925, frequent freight trains from the Rosedale ironstone mines on the moors from which an annual 560,000 tons were once taken.

Ore inspired, Battersby had extensive marshalling yards, three platforms, a three-road engine shed, a turntable and 37 railwaymen’s houses, built in two rows. The houses remain, bright-decked for Christmas, though the nameplate announcing “Some fine cat’s live here”

suggests that the cats’ pedigree may be better than their owners’ grammar.

THE Boss, not noticeably railway inclined, chiefly remembers the village for a 1970s planning application that proposed an epoxy resin factory in its midst and the subsequent stink when locals realised that epoxy resin was glue.

Battersby feared being stuck with it. The outcry proved liberating.

The snowy station still has what railwaymen call a passing loop, still an antediluvian water tower – “NER, 1907” – still the tank in which once lived the biggest goldfish on British Railways (and, quite possibly, on all the earth.) Two Sundays ago, Battersby also hosted the first scheduled steam service from the North Yorkshire Moors Railway since Dr Beeching was a cad, a sign by the crossing urging “Stop, Look and Listen” – some of us needing no second bidding – and a grey day immeasurably illumined by the lamps of schools class 30926, Repton, gliding in from Kildale.

“Like something from The Railway Children,” thought The Boss.

It was as naught, however, compared to the moment that Repton, class act, shrouded the platform in steam. Had Miss Jenny Agutter herself emerged from the mist midst, wearing a red flannel petticoat and breathing “Daddy, my daddy”, it would not in the last have been surprising.

The turntable no longer in spin, Repton duly ran round its train, whistled, wassailed and was gone.

Up the Junction, we headed blissfully towards lunch.

INGLEBY Greenhow is barely a mile away, on the road westwards towards Great Broughton, the Cleveland Hills coruscating all around.

Originally, indeed, the station was itself called Ingleby Junction.

The Dudley Arms is a 17th Century building, the coat of arms and motto “Quo fata vocant” prominent.

Classicists would translate it, as Google does, as “Where the fates call us.” It’s also the watchword of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, and might well be of the Eating Owt column.

Just a single small bar when bought by Craig Staples in 1969, it’s now a multi-roomed pub so sure of its reputation and its customers that it closed on both Christmas Day and Boxing Day. The Staples family, still owners, marked their 40th anniversary in 2009.

The bar was coal- fired, festive and friendly, a single hand pump offering a very distinctive pint called Northern Cracker from Tetley’s. The d’Lisle bistro, named after another local toff, was perhaps a little less jolly but – as was said of one or other of the Cratchits – bravely turned out, nonetheless.

Three-course Sunday lunch was £12.95, still offering turkey and plum pudding, but with abundant hearty alternatives on every section of the menu.

IN truth it was the sort of meal best approached after a 15-mile walk, not a couple of slithering sorties down the platform at Battersby station.

The black pudding in sherry sauce had also been on the Christmas menu, and while it may have taken a Basque bloodhound to detect any alcohol, the black pudding was fair, square and substantial. The Boss began with a poached salmon and gravadlax cocktail, followed simply by lightly battered cod and chips – both a very welcome change from the festive fantasia.

The steak and ale pie was offered with short or puff pastry – good touch, others please emulate – and came with great mountains of vegetables and good chips.

She finished with crumble, I with “Christmas bread and butter pudding”, laced with sweet mince and served with brandy sauce.

The service was friendly and cosmopolitan, the music machine still ding-donging merrily, the whole experience altogether satisfactory.

A steam train, a couple of pints, a good Sunday lunch and home in time for the last 25 minutes of the glorious Gunners. Staples diet, it could be a very happy New Year.

■ The Dudley Arms, Ingleby Greenhow, Stokesley (01642-722526); dudleyarms.com Darlington

CAMRA’s Christmas party proved as convivial as ever, save for the lugubrious observation that everyone looked at least a year older.

Among those with good cause to have aged – and to have need of the occasional pint – was Frank Tweddle, Darlington’s FC’s admirable historian and statistician, though not even Frank had realised that the Quakers had fielded 61 different players in 2009.

He also has a new grandson, another Frankie, already photographed in a Darlington shirt down to his knees. “It won’t be long before he’s getting a game,” he murmured.

Interest elsewhere turned to Peter Fenwick, whose micro-brewery at Aldbrough St John, between Darlington and Richmond, is now likely to be up and pulling by April.

Pete’s a dab hand already. “There are many of us,” said CAMRA branch chairman Peter Everett, “who can hardly wait until the spring.”

PETER Fenwick also produced the recipe for Rivet Catcher, the award winning ale from the Jarrow Brewery.

We managed a couple of those on a seasonal visit to the Langdon Beck Hotel in upper Teesdale, leaving – by the look of reports in the following day’s papers – shortly before the mountain rescue teams arrived.

Sue Matthews’s welcome remains as warm as her blazing coal fires.

RALPH Wilkinson, owner of the multi-award winning No 22 in Darlington and the Crown at Manfield – on the North Yorkshire bank of the Tees – has been thwarted in his attempt to steer The Ship in Richmond into his agreeable harbour.

Ralph believed that he’d reached a deal with Punch Taverns, the Ship’s owners, and had teams of workmen on standby. Now the deal appears to have been scuppered. “It would have been Richmond’s answer to No 22,” he says – but suggests we haven’t seen the last of it yet.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew the best day on which to eat frozen food.

Thawsday, of course