Marriage lines

“It was just kept in the family. They wouldn’t throw anything out, you didn’t in those days,” says June Luckhurst, who now has both the dress and the couple’s wedding certificate.

The dress will be part of an exhibition called Historic Hamsterley, aimed at raising funds towards a £140,000, community-conscious renovation of the 150-year-old building.

Henrietta married George Bradley in 1909, the dress made by Elizabeth Clarkson, June’s grandmother, who lived in Cotherstone, in Teesdale.

“It’s cream with lace and ribbons, high-necked, 24in waist and she was probably about 5ft 6in,” says June, from Ingleton, near Darlington.

The couple had a daughter, Navena, but Henrietta died four days after giving birth. Navena was brought up by her grandparents. June was Navena’s executor. Elizabeth Clarkson and Henrietta Wilkinson had been full cousins. “Navena always said she wanted the dress to stay in the family, but I never expected it to end up back at Hamsterley,” says June.

The church’s renovation – the Heart of Hamsterley project – will reinvigorate it, they hope, for flexible use by all sections of the community.

The Methodist Church has itself given half the cost, about £20,000 still needed but work underway and due to finish next month.

“We’ve let the contract in faith that there will be a generous response,” says Keith Phipps, superintendent minister in the Bishop Auckland circuit.

The Historic Hamsterley exhibition runs from 10am to 4pm on Saturday, opened by architectural historian Martin Roberts. It includes old documents and maps of Hamsterley and South Bedburn, books, documents and early postcards, and tenminute illustrated talks on the hour.

Lest there be confusion, this is the Hamsterley a couple of miles west of the A68, near Toft Hill.

AMONG the summer’s more improbable Methodist events – one, alas, that we were unable to attend – was last Friday’s jazz night at the Weardale Inn in Ireshopeburn, aimed at raising funds for the historic High House chapel, next door.

The splendid Maxine Raine, organiser and organist, admits it raised a few eyebrows. “You can’t do everything with tea and scones,” she says.

They were entertained by the Mississippi Dreamboats, the place stowed out with guests from as far off as Australia. “The evening was hot and so was the jazz,” says Sandra Stapleton. The event raised £1,200 for chapel funds, and that’s the equivalent of a canny few coffee mornings.

YET more Methodist news. The ubiquitous Paul Wheater sings Jim Reeves “and other country favourites” at Reeth Methodist Chapel on Wednesday, August 24, at 7.30pm. Tickets are £5, including refreshments, and when these guys talk of refreshments they mean that absolutely no one goes home hungry.

Information on 01748-884845 or 01748-886963.

LAST week’s column had spotted, in Leyburn, a car with the distinctly effervescent registration V1MTO. “It’s a frequent visitor up here,” says Geoff Clarke, “often seen on the same day as a dark saloon car with the registration 7UP.”

Vic Connor in Bishop Auckland recalls “proper” cafes in the late Fifties and early Sixties, which sold Twiglets, Horlicks fruit-flavoured sweets and, of course, Vimto.

“It was even offered hot, though I can’t remember it being served to anyone,” says Vic, in Manchester, it’s reckoned, they used to drink little else.

We’d also noted that Cheeky Vimto, a mix of vodka and Blue WKD, is said to be highly popular among the young. It prompts the elder bairn, alas, to ask what you get by adding ice to WKD.

Wicked.

…and finally a nature note from Martin Birtle, 36 years in the same house in Billingham and little more than spuggies and blackbirds out the back. On Monday, however, he opened the curtains to find a sparrow hawk in the garden, leaving behind it a seriously decapitated blackbird. “In all these years I’ve seen nothing like it,” says Martin.

Truth and claw, the column’s back next week.