Home, sweet tome

THE Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society, home to 160,000 books and very much else besides, is housed in a Grade II* listed building a cockstride from the Central Station.

Members have ranged from Robert Stephenson to Neil Tennant, he of the Pet Shop Boys, from John Dobson, the city architect, to Sid Chaplin.

Since for all of them the full-blown monicker may have been something of a mouthful, it has long answered to the Lit and Phil instead.

In the “Reference and silence”

room, a solitary figure in a baseball cap is poring over an ancient text, or possibly the Daily Telegraph crossword, his vacuum flask at his side.

The flask is wholly permissible, the baseball cap shouldn’t be.

Things are much more vibrant upstairs in the main library, a vigorous conversation embracing what doubtless are fine and philosophical ideas.

“The answers are all in the Book of Leviticus,” someone insists. Though the response is inaudible, it is fervently to be hoped that it is “Bollocks”.

THE Lit and Phil was formed in 1793, initially as a “conversation club”, membership a guinea. They moved into the magnificent present premises in 1825, at much the same time as the Stockton and Darlington Railway got up steam.

Finances have frequently been tight. In 1856, Robert Stephenson paid off half the mortgage on condition that the Society halved its subs.

Now it’s launched a £1m development appeal, Lady Lucinda Lambton among contributors to the brochure.

“At a time when the philistines in London are shutting down libraries throughout the land, how marvellous it would be if we Geordies demonstrated our cultural independence and pride by writing a new chapter in the glorious history of the Lit and Phil,” she writes.

The Society, adds Lambton, embraces a rare combination of “high learning and intimacy, friendliness and informality as befits the North- East’s particular genius.”

So it seems. The crime writer Anne Cleeves, another contributor, takes time to praise the coffee and buns, an’ all.

The problem may be of image, of first-footing folk through the door and up the stairs to the improbable glories beyond. A little esoteric, maybe. But arcane and able, nonetheless.

What it needs is a V&A-type slogan – “The Lit and Phil: not for the monosyllabic”.

Since I’ve not given to the appeal, they can have that one for nothing.

KAY Easson’s the librarian, Caroline Lievesley the marketing manager. The appeal, they say, is both about sustaining the building structurally – “it’s creaking a bit,” concedes Kay – and making themselves more self-sufficient.

A café – if not the ace caff of V&A memory – is planned, too. Kay supposes that 150 years proximity to the Central Station hasn’t helped – “You can feel the building move when trains pass” – knows they have to be more disabled-friendly.

They’ve 1,800 members, double the low point of 20 years ago. Non-members are most welcome to use the facilities, but may not borrow from the extensive book and music collections.

There’s a children’s section, too, a chess set by the enquiry desk, even a couple of teddy bears. Like all teddy bears, they wear an expression of deep profundity.

Haven’t they thought of changing the name? “Members would be horrified,” says Caroline. “We’re a little financially embarrassed at the moment, but the appeal is off to a very healthy start.

“We want people to have a look round, stay all day if they like. It’s like walking around a National Trust building and imagining what life was like back then.”

What of the public libraries, of electronic publishing, of the tightening squeeze?

“There are things here that you’d never find in the Central Library, for all that it’s wonderful,” says Kay.

“This place is vibrant. I worked on a public library enquiry desk and there’s much more going on here.

“It’s quirky, but I think people enjoy that. They like the feel of the place, they’re comfortable here.

There’s a sense of ownership.”

The oldest book was printed in 1504. Others she accepts, don’t exactly fly off the selves. “A book may sit there for a century and then the reader comes along,” adds Kay, memorably.

Caroline conducts the grand tour, grand indeed. Conversations continue, laughter’s heard, Leviticus cited.

It’s only in the Beano that these days libraries are shushed.

“It’s like a club, really,” says Caroline.

“Within reason you can do anything that takes your fancy. We even had a Viz exhibition here, all risque cartoons and jokes about bottoms and breaking wind.”

Kay Easson says that when visitors come through the door, they can’t believe why they never did it before.

“It’s a wonderful place, open to all. Nothing like you’d imagine at all.”

* Much more information on litandphil.org.uk

Taken literally…ten things you may never have known about the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society

*Though topics in the early Conversation Club were wideranging, politics and religion were banned. So, until 1804, were women.

* The present building’s foundation stone was laid in 1822 by the Duke of Sussex, the subsequent celebration including 35 toasts and 53 speeches.

* The old lecture theatre was the first public room to be illuminated by electric light, during a lecture by Sir Joseph Swan – Cockfield lad, was he not? – in 1820.

* The first catalogues were sorted by the size of the book.

Novels weren’t bought until 1891, a move for which none seemed much the worse – except, as one distinguished member observed, “for those unfortunate enough to read them”.

* The Lit and Phil also runs an active bookbinding and restoration programme and hosts numerous evening events.

* Speakers have included Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Sayers, John Betjeman, Edith Sitwell, FR Leavis and Mary Kingsley.

* The gramophone library was created in 1942. Now there are 10,000 LPs and 6,500 CDs. The grand piano may be hired for £7.50 an hour, £3.75 a half-hour. There’s Wi-fi, too.

* Next Monday there’s an illustrated lecture called The Vampire Rabbit and its Kin. Nonmembers £5.

* The appeal was launched on Monday by comedian Alexander Armstrong, half of BAFTA-award winning duo Armstrong and Miller, whose forebears were Society presidents.

* The appeal is supported by Brewin Dolphin, the investment management company. Other more recent sponsors include Wetherspoons, who have a pub over the road.

Snookered by shingles

FORMER women’s world snooker champion Vera Selby, an 80-year-old as immaculately elegant as the house in which she lives, has been suffering from shingles.

“It sounds quite jolly really, like something at the seaside, but I can tell you that at first I was just curled up into a ball,” says the former BBC commentator and Countdown contestant.

“It’s just like someone sticking a knife into you. It really is awful.”

After five months she’s very much on the mend, playing snooker and billiards most days of the week, giving art and textile lessons and hoping that folk – especially Richmond folk – will want to hear more of her poetry. They should; it’s wry, reminiscent and brilliant.

Vera was raised in Richmond where her father managed the Freeman Hardy and Willis shoe shop.

Now she’s written an hour’s worth of punch-line poetry recalling her youthful memories.

They range from furiously riding their bikes around the castle walls – “utterly dangerous, but I don’t remember anyone falling off” – to making Spam and cream cheese sandwiches for the wartime troops.

“The Americans and Poles had a little war of their own, they hated one another,” she recalls. “When it all started off we’d lock ourselves in the kitchen and wait for the MPs to arrive.”

She’s long been in Newcastle, took up billiards at 36, bought a table for £25, kept it in the garage and was coached by the great Alf Nolan, Newton Aycliffe lad.

She still plays in three men’s leagues, was due up at Guide Post, near Ashington – the last club finally to drop the no-women rule, just two years ago – but cancelled when the column came calling.

“I’m tired of reading of people in their 50s and 60s acting and talking like they’re old,” she says. “It’s about keeping active. I’d be bored to tears if I sat in the house all day.

“The snooker went back a bit because of the shingles, but it’s getting better again now.”

She’s also a snooker referee, instructor and examiner, plays the piano, takes her art and textile classes and last year was the first woman warden of Richmond’s ancient Fellmongers Company.

The hour-long poetry readings – “It’s like teaching, you have to know how to sock it to them” – are to raise funds for Richmond Museum of which she’s a life member. Small fee, no expenses – Vera’s on 0191-236-3483.

ALMOST in passing, we’d occasion two years ago to recall Don Arrol, a comedian and entertainer who in 1960 became host of Sunday Night at the London Palladium.

Donna Nicholas, his daughter, has now been in touch. A sad and superstitious story emerges.

Arrol’s wife was killed in a car crash near Scotch Corner in November 1963, as we’d observed.

Donna, just six, was a passenger.

They’d been staying in Scotland where her mother had a nervous breakdown, discharged herself from hospital and was heading back to Brighton when the car broke down near Darlington. A green-coloured replacement was provided.

“My mother was always very superstitious about green cars, she’d never even get into a green one,”

says Donna.

“The weather was awful, absolutely pouring down. She started driving this car and after just a few miles clipped a lorry as she was overtaking and crashed.

“We were in the same ambulance to Darlington. I knew she was dead.

I was wearing a seat belt, she wasn’t.”

The colour bar continues. “Even now I won’t get into a green car, won’t let my kids get into one and send green taxis away,” says Donna.

“It may be irrational but there’s no way I can do it. I worry about anyone I see in a green car.”

Born Donald Angus Campbell in Glasgow, Arrol left the Palladium after a year when Bruce Forsyth returned but subsequently compered the Black and White Minstrel Show, Candid Camera and others. He himself was only 38 when he died in 1967 from heart problems.

AFINAL note to lament the passing of Freda Romaines, for almost 58 years devoted wife of my old friend George Romaines – a star of Tyne Tees Television’s One O’Clock Show – and a charming, caring lady.

Their eyes had met at Shildon youth club. Freda, noted the book privately published to mark George’s 80th birthday, was a stunning blonde.

The wedding was delayed while George completed National Service on minesweepers and destroyers – £1 8s 9d a week plus a tot of rum and three cigarettes a day.

The book was called “It was raining, And it was Friday” – acknowledgement that most of the milestone events in George’s life happened on wet Fridays.

Freda’s funeral is at St John’s church, Shildon, at 11am tomorrow.

You’d not want to bet on the weather.