A lot of bottle

This one’s in Cockton Hill Road, Bishop Auckland, now formally named after a Durham County Council rejuvenation and spotted by John Maughan in Wolsingham (to whom many thanks.) “After years of being on the receiving end of strange looks after telling people the name of the park opposite the register office, I’m delighted that the council has made it official,” says John.

The name, it’s said, came about because parents and nursemaids would stop there for a bit blether while giving the bairns their ten o’- clocks. The North-East has many more.

Though the lovely park off Richmond town centre is properly Friary Gardens, older residents know that as Tittybottle Park, too.

There’s still a Tittybottle Park in Masham, memories of them in Guisborough, Loftus and Normanby near Middlesbrough.

West Auckland had a Tittybottle School – a nursery, perhaps? – while Shildon is said to have had a Tittybottle Bank, though someone’s going to have explain where and why.

A triangle of land on Redcar sea front was also locally known for many years as Tittybottle Park, until the council built a public toilet on the site.

Now it’s called Bog Island, instead.

HAND-to-mouth existence, as always, the column had touched upon something similar in 2006 after a complaint from Harold Watson in Darlington.

BBC had a programme called Tittybangbang, said by the Radio Times to be “disturbingly funny” and by the Financial Times to be “wilfully repellent.”

Its characters included a group of middle-aged Harrogate ladies who did needlepoint whilst naked from the waist downwards, its co-author was Bob Mortimer, who may most kindly be described as an acquired taste.

Harold’s concern was that the Echo’s television listings used asterisks in the programme title. “When I was a bairn on Tyneside, it was a perfectly acceptable word,” he protested.

Tittybangbang lasted for three short series, and had its admirers. By the second, the Echo no longer thought deletion appropriate. A titular triumph, no doubt.

CHIEFLY about snoring, last week’s column recalled a bedtime book beloved of our two boys about a little train that ran away. Its usual route was between Great and Little Snoring, in Norfolk.

Stockton councillor Michael Clark read it to his kids, too, wonders if we’d realised that the book was written by Graham Greene and illustrated by Dorothy Craigie, his mistress.

No we hadn’t. Besides, it was probably something best not talked about, or at least not in front of the children.

The great Greene had several mistresses, Craigie – real name Dorothy Glover – occupying his affections (and his bed) between about 1938-46.

Coun Clark’s copy is subsumed within one of his many book cupboards; ours was long since shunted into the attic, sidelined next to just about every Thomas the Tank Engine book ever written. Though it was read dozens of times, the author’s name never registered.

Happily, Michael Clark recalls, the little train that ran away was rescued by a fictionalised Flying Scotsman and returned to the Snorings, where a joyous reception committee awaited. By then, more often than not, the boys were fast asleep.

DOROTHY Craigie lived in Mecklenburgh Square, near Kings Cross station in London, where her neighbours included the Anti-Sweating League. A little research reveals this to have had concerns about sweatshops, aspiration and perspiration not quite the same thing at all.

BILL Bartle in Barnard Castle expresses “surprise” that we failed to mention RAF Little Snoring a wartime Bomber Command base, also in Norfolk.

“Many an airman thought it a wind-up when told to report there for duty,” says Bill.

The station principally flew Mosquitoes and Lancasters, 100 Squadron destroying 66 enemy aircraft and damaging 75 more. Memorials are still in Little Snoring church. Another website claims that “RAF Little Snoring is either the ultimate proof of nominative determinism or its absolute antithesis.”

Before being able to fathom what on earth it was talking about, I’d fallen noiselessly asleep.

CLEARLY wide awake, Gerry Vickers in Bishop Auckland spotted – and, helpfully, photographed – this poster in a pub in Huddersfield at the weekend.

Several readers have, over the years, returned from the USA clutching packets of Famous Amos cookies – sometimes empty, sometimes intact – but this is a new one.

Goodness what the slogan “Cent ans de sant” means, or even what language it is, but the message is clear, nonetheless. Amos, as might reasonably be expected, is a king among beers.

ONE or two grammatical matters, and firstly our present occupation with the wanton misuse of the prefix “pre”, as in prewarning and pre-booking.

Though Pete Winstaney in Durham has a book of silly signs that includes the American example: “Take notice: when this sign is under water, the road is impassable”, his sympathy is qualified.

While pre-warning sounds daft, he concedes, what of the familiar phrase “Forewarned is forearmed”?

Angus Hoy in Middlesbrough agreed with last week’s excoriation of Ms Rebekah Brooks for her reckless misuse of the word “fulsome” in front of the Commons Media, Culture and Sport committee – “I noticed it as it left her lips; she ought to have known better” – and is surprised she didn’t “refute” the allegations against her.

“Refute” means to disprove. The unfortunate Ms Brooks might only have hoped to reject them.

Wendy Acres in Darlington bravely enters the Dragons’ Den with a report of a visit to the town’s Bannatyne Hotel – at the junction of Grange Road and Apostrophe Avenue – where she spotted a notice by the door. “Please leave your key’s at reception.”

IN a state of feverish excitement (so he says), Gavin Hay in Darlington reports receipt of a flyer from a Chinese takeaway which gives its address as “Glandstone”

Street. It sounds, says Gavin, a particularly unpleasant problem.

...and finally, a teacher in Newton Aycliffe – who’d best remain nameless – reports that the Health and Safety Directorate (or whatever it may be called) has slimmed down its essential reading before taking kids on trips from 150 pages to three.

It still proved too much, alas, for a parent invited to sign the consent form. Under the section “Telephone number in case of emergency”, the child’s mother helpfully wrote 999.

Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, as the Psalmist long since observed, the column returns next week.