THE No. 1 bus from Darlington to Tow Law sets out in much the same way as the Children of Israel may have accompanied Moses into the wilderness - that is to say, with considerable trepidation.

"It's the one which goes through the Wilds of Wanney, " someone said to his mate on Saturday lunchtime, as they awaited the relative comforts of the Darlington town service. The No. 1 terminates in the Wilds of Wanney, an' all.

It hadn't been a bad morning in Darlington. A bit parky, understand, a bit busted Spring, but the sun couldn't be faulted for not trying.

Having completely bypassed Crook town centre - they must be digging it up again - the North-East's No. 1 climbed through Peases West and Roddymoor, through Billy Row and along Stanley Hill Top (bless it) before at last attaining the promised land. In Tow Law it was snowing heavens high, great fluffy flakes like celestial ticker tape.

Tow Law Town played Horden CW.

The Lawyers are acclimatised, the birds may not be. "The house martins will be having kittens, " someone said - by way of memorably mixed metaphor - as April showers turned to April blizzard, vernal to infernal.

Mr Mark Lawson, the referee, brought them off after 20 minutes - "Soft bugger, " someone else shouted at his back, "it'll have stopped by Monday" - consulted the sages (Tow Law has several) and cleared his lines with a broom.

Ten minutes later he led them back. By half-time the white-clad valleys were green once again.

In Sunderland, at sea level, Mr Mike Riley was simultaneously abandoning the Premiership match.

A victory for the Pragmatists' XI.

THE starkly evocative phrase about the Wilds of Wanney has long been familiar throughout the North-East, and probably beyond.

Back end of last year, a gallery in West Lothian staged a two-month exhibition called "Looking from the Wilds of Wanney". The search engine records regional references as far apart as Keld, top end of Swaledale, and back to Crook - a visiting football team lost in "the Wilds of Wanney". Another late kick-off, then.

Another website debates the phrase in the same breath as "Yerbugger-a-Hexham" - a euphemism, perhaps - but we needn't go into that now.

What may not generally be known - not even by those essaying a Wilds guess - is that Wanney and its wilderness really exist. It's a remote part of Northumberland, bordered by the A68 to the east and to the south by the Tyne Valley.

There are the Wanney Hills and Great Wanney Crag, Little Wanney and Keb Crag. The villages of Kirkwhelpington and Redesdale are scattered thereabouts, the River Wansbeck dashes swiftly off to the sea, lest it think better of the idea and goes back to bed.

"Bleak and windswept, " says the Northumbrian Climbing Guide - but they've never been on the No. 1 to Tow Law.

STILL on the buses, we'd occasion last Friday evening to retrace the roundabout route from Darlington to Peterlee, Newton Aycliffe man earnestly in mobile phone conversation over whether to meet his girlfriend that evening. Finally he agreed - "but can you have a bath first?" Who says the age of romance is dead?

SOMEWHAT belatedly, as might perhaps be expected, bus travel appears to be the coming thing. Two books arrive about the joys of public transport, though neither embraces the discursive delights of the 213 to Peterlee.

Great British Bus Journeys, subtitled "Travels through unfamous places", is jaunty, stylish, knowledgeable and highly readable.

The bus itself usually takes a back seat, however, a means to a different end.

David McKie, who wrote the much lamented Smallweed column in the Guardian, plots one route from Malton to Langdale End - he even found the pub open - another, reckoned the most "edifying" of all, from Gateshead through Byker to Tynemouth.

Particularly, he is perceptive about the Gateshead "renaissance" and the effect (or lack of it) of all that artyclarty stuff on the riverbank on the "mostly mean and dismal" streets elsewhere.

Jean Morris, describing herself as a "slightly cranky 40-something", even includes warnings about ups and downs and travel sickness in her Local Routes series, embracing bus, boat and train.

The "North Country" edition embraces six week-long explorations, one from north Northumberland to Durham, another from Tynemouth (again) along Hadrian's Wall.

It's more of a traditional guide - details of what to see, where to eat and sleep, how much the fare might be - but for the adventurous, just the ticket.

Great British Bus Journeys by David McKie (Atlantic Books, £16 99).

Local Routes: the North Country by Jean Morris - published by Local Routes, £7.95.

RATHER conveniently, John Heslop in Durham draws attention to a Guardian story headed "Beware the bus-spotting terrorists" and warns against wearing an anorak.

"What could be more suspicious, " asks John, "than a lone traveller checking out the furthest reaches of the network, disguised behind thicklenses, reading the Guardian?"

MOURNING the passing of Michael Drury of Richmond - described in his death notice as a "Philhellene" - the column on March 22 quoted the original story of the Trojan Horse.

Brian Hastings - e-mail address Whitburn Warrior - recalled the paragraph but asked again for the original lines from Virgil's Aeneid: Eque ne credite, Teucri Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentis.

It has great relevance, says Brian, in their fight to stop the "state of the art" school development behind them on Whitburn cliffs. Clearly there are Greeks with gifts everywhere.

THE following week's column echoed John Newbold's plea for real saveloys, thus eliciting information for which the squeamish may not entirely be grateful.

Pete Winstanley in Durham points out that "saveloy" comes from the Italian "cervellata" - meaning brains - because that's what butchers first used for the purpose.

Arthur Pickering recalls that in his Hartlepool childhood they were also known as "savage boys", reminisces about savoury duck with pease pudding and gravy, wonders what happened to polony and haslet, to tripe and to chitterlings. Haslet was the entrails, tripe bits of the stomach, chitterlings the small intestine. John Briggs recalls saveloy "splodgers", topped up with pease pudding and gravy, from youthful days in Sunderland. "As soon as you bit into one, everyone else in the group got some. They seemed to explode when you bit them."

The only place John's seen saveloys (and pork dips) recently advertised is on the main road through Tow Law - and, day return, the column is once again back where it started.

. . . so finally, timely thanks to all those readers who've pointed out that, early on Thursday, May 4, the hour and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06. "It'll never happen again, " says Mike Callaghan. Gadfly, Wanney the lads, returns in seven days.