MORE newt news. As reported last week, the discovery of great crested newts on land earmarked for Derwenthorpe has put the whole model village in question.

Before building 540 homes on the land near Osbaldwick, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation must investigate whether the two amphibians spotted there "migrated" on to the site or whether an established Newtown exists.

John Rawcliffe, who lives close to the proposed development, emails to suggest it is very definitely the latter.

"Over 40 years ago, when my friends and I walked the fields currently earmarked for development, great crested newts were a common find in spring. At that time, children were encouraged at school to collect the eggs of frogs and toads and regularly did so in this area," he writes.

"Children often took an extra jam jar for newts and usually returned with one, two and sometimes three newts. My recollection from that time was that the male with its greater size, crest and colours was prized over the females.

"It is difficult to remember precise locations but my finds were not in ditches but in open fields which held long, narrow patches of water. These, I'm certain, were in the depressions I now understand were created by the ancient 'ridge and furrow' farming.

"Although the newts may have been recently rediscovered, they have been present there for many decades and, judging by the numbers that I observed 40 years ago, they had been present for decades before that."

Mr Rawcliffe reported the newt colony to the city council in a letter dated September 3, 2003.

NORTH Yorkshire vicar turned bestselling author Graham Taylor is turning into a one-man tourism bandwagon.

His runaway hit novel Shadowmancer, set on the North Yorkshire coast around Ravenscar, has already attracted a host of literary tourists to the area - so many, in fact, that a map company wants to publish a Shadowmancer Walk.

"One woman from Ravenscar was complaining she had six people in her garden with my book in her hands," Graham tells the Diary.

Two sequels to Shadowmancer are set in London. But he will return closer to home with a different series of stories.

"The books will be based around a four-turreted hotel in a coastal town in the early Victorian period," he says. "They will be murder/ mystery/ thriller/ ghost books - and the setting will be based on Scarborough's Grand Hotel.

"If we sell a million copies of that around the world..."

Bet the resort's businesses can already hear the cash tills ringing.

THE Diary is taking a few days off to undertake an emotional and hazardous odyssey in search of an NHS dentist.

We will return, editor willing, on Tuesday.

Write to: The Diary, Chris Titley, The Evening Press, 76-86 Walmgate, York YO1 9YN

Email diary@ycp.co.uk

Telephone (01904) 653051 ext 337

Updated: 09:40 Wednesday, June 02, 2004