Scoring forties

The Wensleydale’s steam-hauled until September, if not quite the Chattanooga Choo Choo then on this occasion headed by a nameless, but by no means charmless, Great Western tank engine in splendid fettle.

All that was slightly out of sync, like the chaps in wartime uniform filming furiously on their mobiles, was that it pulled a Sixties diesel multiple unit.

A lady passed along the train selling £1 “bonds”, an attempt to fund the line’s envisioned £15m reinstatement to Northallerton to the east and Garsdale, west, on the Settle and Carlisle. Impossible? There are those who’d have vowed that we’d never win the war, either.

Leyburn was full of it, a real dressy-up do, all GI blues and Tommy browns, flighty Wrens and Bluebirds Over. Men in double-breasted suits alighted with little suitcases barely big enough to hold their snook sandwiches, like something out of a Just William illustration.

The chap in the seat behind had got himself a new gas mask.

“Repro”, he said, reassuringly.

The little town had found the Dunkirk spirit. Posters in the Co-op window urged digging for victory, the Bolton Arms offered rabbit stew and tapioca pudding – not, sadly, at Forties prices. Mrs Pumphrey’s sold trench pie, everywhere sold Spam.

Leyburn may have had more Spam on Saturday than the average personal computer can digest in six months.

It overflowed. A splendid group reenacted Dads Army’s best-known scene – don’t tell him – a 5ft 4in feller called Paul Harper played ukelele and was introduced as the North- East’s top Al Bowlly act.

The guy’s website also claims that he does the Andrews Sisters, which may be rather more difficult. Principally, however, he seems top of the Formby.

Next to the shuggy boats in the square they danced unselfconsciously to the St Bernard’s, for some the walking boot waltz, and to the one they always do to the tune of Chase Me Charlie. At night, they danced on in the Wensleydale Palais, known in term time as Leyburn School. Folk simply loved it.

Coupled to the resurgent railway, it seemed just the thing to bring back the tourists. It also helped, of course, that the sun shone throughout. It was just like the good old, bad old days.

􀁧 The Wensleydale Writers have produced a booklet of stories with a Forties theme. It’s available, price £1, from Mike Childs, 5A Annasgarth, Harmby, North Yorkshire DL8 5PJ.

NO great vintage, save for the registration plate, we spot V1MTO squeezed into a parking space in Leyburn market place.

Essentially and originally purple, Vimto was invented in 1908 by 24- year-old John Nichols, said to be a “secret recipe” of 29 herbs, spices and essences from around the world.

These days it’s sold in 65 countries, not least among the Islamic nations in the month of Ramadan – a Times piece claimed that, in 2007, 15 million bottles were sold during the monthlong observance.

Back over here, the young uns are now said to drink something called Cheeky Vimto – the singer Charlotte Church particularly fond, it’s reckoned – a mix of ruby port and Blue WKD that doesn’t contain Vimto at all. It hasn’t been possible to trace the owner of V1MTO, nor to obtain an estimate of what the plate might be worth. If someone owns PEP51, he’s probably a fizzing millionaire already.

LEYBURN had a vintage bus running Park and Ride services, too, one of those nowquaint old Uniteds with an advertisement on the side urging that The Northern Echo be bought every day.

Do we still pay for that?

It was a bit coincidental because, on Tuesday, Arriva launched eight new buses in Darlington market square with help from the council’s sustainable transport team.

The bus was actually a bit late. In an attempt to discover its whereabouts, we asked at the town hall for the sustainable transport department.

“Oh,” they said, “you mean the buses.” So what’s so different about these vehicles? “It’s internal, really, different blues. There’s only so much you can do with a bus,” said Mark Ellis, Arriva’s amiable North-East commercial manager.

Mark’s patch covers from Berwick to Scarborough and across to the Cumbrian coast. His knowledge of routes is impressively encylclopaedic, even remembering the No 59 which, once a day, set off from Darlington for Hawes at 5 30am and then rubbed its eyes, turned around and came back again. “Hardly anyone used it,” said Mark, “only you.”

The new buses, pretty much the same as the lot that arrived in 2008, will see service in and around Darlington.

These days they don’t just have service numbers but go-faster names like Red Hall Rocket and Whinfield Whizzer. It all seems a little improbable.

Each new bus offers little more than a day return change out of £100,000. Their finer points include low emission engines, low access floors – Mark called that a “step change”, the pun probably unintentional – and room for pushchairs and wheelchairs.

Just as importantly, they have reasonable leg room. It’s not always the case. “Every bus that was ever built was designed for the average man,”

said the commercial manager. “They never take account of big lads like you.”

What they don’t have, of course, is clippies. Soon they may not even have tickets. In Darlington before the year’s out they’ll be introducing smart cards, the sort of thing – said Mark – on which folk will be also able to take out library books or pay for swimming lessons at the Dolphin Centre.

“That’s going to be a real sea change for the drivers,” he said, prompting the not-unexpected suggestion that it might make them even more miserable than usual.

“We do have a few less cheery than others,” he said, by way of worldclass euphemism. Like the circuitous service 59, this man could go far.