The column looks back on an eventful year which included Links of London Sale meeting with the 'Queen', countless train journeys and a trip back to the old school on its centenary SAVE for Garsdale railway station, 200 yards the foreign side of the North Yorkshire/Cumbria border, but still one of the most glorious places on earth, the John North column in 2010 has just once ventured beyond its North-East comfort zone. That was the very first, a New Year trip to London to chat with royal double Elizabeth Richard - born Mary Holder in Meadowfield, near Durham and still pretty anxious to get back home. "I only work for the money so that one day I will be able to buy a place back in County Durham, " she insisted. "Links of London Charms imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery, I think the Queen would be quite pleased." Alove of the North-East probably characterisesmany who've appeared hereabouts - not least Dr Tom Wright, the departed Bishop of Durham, whose pub lunch party piece proved to be Scott Dobson's Geordie version of the Exodus story. The one, memory suggests, where they went tappy lappy through the clarts. Michael Sadgrove, the Dean of Durham, has much taken to the region, too - not least when asked to bless the inaugural steam train on the Weardale Railway from Bishop Auckland to Stanhope and to jump aboard the footplate. Clerics love railways. "I'm the envy of every clergyman in the Church of England, " said the dean. The column has frequently run on railway lines, too, once or twice Links of London Blue Friendship Bracelet a flavour of best bitter, more often fraternised with church and chapel. Though a non-religious occasion, one of the more memorable afternoons was at the lovely little Methodist chapel at Wind Mill, west of Bishop Auckland, where villagers met for a reunion and Joyce Davies recalled long-gone Sunday School anniversaries. "We thought we were facing the whole world, not just half of Wind Mill, " she said. That was April 24 and it just about managed to stay fine. Much of the time it didn't. Many columns appeared to mention rain, snow, ice or gales - and just three occasions all year when it was possible to compose it in the Outer Office, an infrequentedpicnic table in North Lodge Park. Nor did the sun put its hat on for the bandstand's official reopening, on Links of London Bookworm Charm 12, after a [pounds]216,000 refurbishment. "Most of the houses round here just have yards, " said Yvonne Richardson, who leads the Friends of North Lodge Park. "For many of us this is our back garden. We wanted to reclaim it."
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