In response to customer requests, Fash has banned the ash at his restaurant in Stockton a year ahead of the coming smoking restrictions.

HER e-mail dated January 4 - some things take a little longer - Julie Bee wrote about Borge restaurant in Stockton, and particularly its decision to ban all smoking from New Year's Day.

It's an issue which concerns us all and which certainly concerned Julie, not least because of what might be termed clear-the-air meetings - Julie called them "discussions", a manifest euphemism - between the pathetic, selfish sods who pollute everyone else's food and freedom and those who don't really see why they should.

Fashad Khalili, who's had the place for 22 years, had taken the decision with some trepidation. "He is very worried about a potential backlash, " wrote Julie.

"I know there are some refusing to come in any more, but in recent months increasing numbers of smokers have driven out many other customers, particularly families.

"I suspect Fash is more worried about offending smokers by ostracising them than offending non-smoking customers who were expected to put up with it.

"It seems that, despite national figures to the contrary, Stockton is still very much a smoking town."

Three months later: Wednesday March 29, 6.30pm.

It's happy hour or two, any pasta or pizza dish £4.75. A notice in the window advises that the restaurant is non-smoking due to "substantial customer demand". The place is almost full, lots of families and youngsters, the atmosphere good natured and boisterous. No cloud hangs over Borge.

It's in Yarm Lane, a great strip of restaurants, takeaways and fast food joints with names like Spaghetti Junction, Siciliano, Casanova, Romeo and (a little more prosaically) Pig-Out. Most of the others are empty.

The staff at Borge are young, black clad, efficient. The waitresses wear what are probably known as hipsters; some are hipper than others.

What both sexes have in common is that almost every sentence ends with the word "there".

"Are you being served there? Can I get you any more drinks there? Would you like any parmesan there?"

It is as if the syllabus in Stockton's primary schools has abandoned please and thank you in favour of thy and therefore. No matter: there but for fortune.

The restaurant is fairly standard pizza house: tiled floor, marble topped tables, low lights, little candles, laidback. Similarly the menu, though with some interesting specialities, and we'll come back to that in a minute.

One of those yellow signs which warns of slippery floors stands by a pillar. Statistics will probably prove that far more people do themselves a damage falling over the damn things than ever by going out on the tiles.

The minestrone soup (£2.80) is piping and perfectly pleasant, without perhaps being as Momma used to make it. The Caesar salad (£3.30) is also enjoyed, though without the anchovies which some would consider essential.

A group of customers, mainly young and female, gathers outside to puff their evisceral cigarettes. Smoke rises like Head Wrightson's chimney. A ring of dump-ends forms around them, like a garland on an early grave.

Among the group, a particularly vacuous young lady is smoking sedulously with one hand while the other clamps a mobile semi-permanently to her ear. An addictaphone, perhaps.

We order chicken fajitas. The waitress explains that it's not a normal fajita dish (there) but comes inside fried tortellini bread. Physically it's the biggest meal I've ever seen, rising from the plate like an outsize atoll.

The chicken and the enchilada sauce are well flavoured, the whole thing accompanied by "spiced" vegetables and Cheddar. For reasons only of eyes and belly, it's impossible to finish it. The Boss has the "vegetarian chef special", one of eight vegetarian dishes each costing £5.70.

There's penne pasta, mushrooms, spinach, onion and sweetcorn in a mustard, cream and white wine sauce. She considers it a bit bland.

She also recalls that Victor Borge, right, a Dane once described by the New York Times as the funniest man in the world, devised a system of phonetic punctuation.

It sounds absolutely hilarious.

Puddings are the usual proprietary offerings, ice cream from the Richmond Ice Cream Company at Leeming Bar. The restaurant's still filling: if it's like this at half seven on a Wednesday, what's it like at half ten on a Friday?

Fash, nice chap and non-smoker, says afterwards that business has actually increased since he took the restaurant off the tab.

"People were smoking without consideration and it was increasing. This is a family restaurant and it didn't make sense to me. There was a lot of second hand smoke; I couldn't wait another year."

With a couple of Cokes and an ice cream, the bill reaches £24. Cheap, cheerful, entirely pleasant - and, truly, a breath of fresh air.

Borge, 50 Yarm Lane, Stockton (01642 677707). Open Wednesday, Friday and Sunday lunchtime and seven evenings from 5.15pm. Happy hour until 7 30pm. No problem for the disabled. www. borge. co. uk