THURSDAY 13 DECEMBER 2007

THE TANFIELD AND BOWES RAILWAYS
I’ve received an email from Neville Whaler, an old friend of BBC Radio Newcastle - indeed, without Neville’s appallingly saucy double-entendres, the career of the ‘Tipsy Duchess’ (of blessed memory) wouldn’t have lasted so damnably long. Neville’s a volunteer on the Tanfield Railway and he attached this picture of the Bowes Railway 'Santa Special' service last Sunday morning steaming towards Wrekenton. His email goes on.......
....Over 2000 adults and children travelled on the Santa trains on the four special days. The Tanfield Santa services run until Christmas Eve by which time about 5000 people will have enjoyed a steam train ride to see Santa. Your listeners/readers may like to know that on Boxing Day steam trains are running on the Tanfield Line from 1130, and each passenger will receive a complimentary mince pie! So it's a good opportunity to have a walk in the wintry landscape of the Causey Woods, and take a pleasant train journey.

THE ALDERMASTON CANDLE AUCTION
One of the untainted pleasures of being English is the astonishing range of traditions, events and ancient festivals which have managed to survive to the present day despite all the odds being stacked against them. Here in the north-east we have two Shrovetide football games and three fire-barrel festivals. No-one knows why they build the ‘penny hedge’ on Whitby beach every year and, elsewhere in England, you can find morris dancers blacked-up and dressed in rags, antler-men, obbyosses (‘hobby horses’) and men dressed from head to foot in wild burrs. There are hundreds of examples of what seems to be a uniquely eccentric English compulsion to maintain traditions well beyond their sell-by date and even well after the reasons for them have long been forgotten.
A listener called Michael, who lives in Benwell, called this morning to ‘remind’ me of another that takes place today in the south-east of England; every three years, December 13 is Aldermaston Candle Auction Day. A parcel of land called Church Acre (actually more than two acres in size) is leased to the winning bidder and the ceremony has taken pace since the parish’s common lands were enclosed in 1815. The good burghers of the small Berkshire town push a nail into the side of a candle and place the candle on a tin plate. The auction begins when the candle is lit and ends with the noise of the nail falling onto the plate when the wax melts down to it. I guess it’s a pretty neat way of bringing order to what could be a fairly rowdy and disorganised event. But were auctions of this kind ever common? And why does it happen only once every three years? It seems to me that Aldermaston should be as famed for this event as it is for the CND marches which started there every Easter in the 60s and 70s.

AN ALPHABETICAL SENTENCE
Amongst the pointless and fascinating trivia supplied by Maureen the other day – see blogpostings passim – was that the sentence ‘the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’ uses every letter of the alphabet. When I mentioned this on-air, I added a kind of Nightshift challenge; could anyone dream up a sentence that uses each letter of the alphabet once and once only? Well Kev – whom God preserve – has come up with ‘Mr Jock, tv quiz PhD, bags few lynx’. It almost makes sense, Kev. If I was allowed to award a prize, I would.

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN

NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.