Turpin rides off

From today, I will no longer be terrorising the folk of Yorkshire, robbing the powers-that-be of their pomposity and generally scouring the highways for laughs.

But before I go, here are a few highlights from the past few years...

Starry nights

These pages have featured more celebrities than Oscar night. Who could forget the experience of Jo, the York woman who stepped into a New York hotel lift to be confronted with three cool dudes in dark suits?

When one of them barked, "Hit the floor!" Jo didn't hang about. She flung herself face-down, to the floor of the lift pleading: "Take my bag but don't hurt me, please!"

Gales of laughter broke out from the guys behind her. They had only meant she should press the button for the floor she required. Later, Jo found out her room bill had been paid... by US comedian Eddie Murphy, the man who told her to hit the floor.

Posh Spice should have been called Posh Dice when she was in the back of a limo driven by York businessman Dave Black. After delivering her to a Radio 1 gig, Blackie was despatched by Victoria to buy a game of Monopoly. Talk about rock'n'roll...

York landlord Barry Stickney was also once wheel-man to the stars, transporting Gene Pitney from Leeds/Bradford Airport in the Sixties. "I was expecting a woman! I'd never heard of Gene Pitney," explained the Phoenix host.

York panto star Dame Berwick Kaler knows how to treat a guest. When he played host to Suzi Quatro a few years back, he didn't take her round the Minster or to a fancy restaurant. Not till he'd been round B&Q first.

Meanwhile Robbie Williams still dines out on the story of how he met Barnitt's manager Ian Thompson on holiday in Barbados. A snap of the two of them appeared in the Daily Star.

Best news of all, Alan Titchmarsh was ritually burned outside Selby. Don't panic, fans of the green-fingered wordsmith: it was only his cardboard cut-out, which had been keeping guard on a building site.

Funny folk

Plenty of these down the years. York's Paul Ruxton was featured in 1998 with his artistic, but odd, business... immortalising beloved dead pets in MDF. "It is better than having them stuffed," he advised.

Then there was Herbert Stratton, once owner of the Barkston Ash filling station near Tadcaster. His lifelong interest in incarceration led him to try to buy the gas chamber from the San Quentin jail in California, and he had a bizarre collection of souvenirs from Alcatraz.

And perhaps I shouldn't mention again the York firefighter who was off sick with vertigo, or - still with heights - the owner of "Viagra Scaffolding: Complete Erection Guaranteed."

One man who did not need that service was city hairdresser Lawton Henry, who appeared on a Channel 5 documentary spilling his bedroom secrets, creating much embarrassment all round.

And we mustn't forget the fist fight which broke out at the James Bond theme party. As the two men grappled, the various 007s and Miss Moneypennies watched in amusement, thinking it was the cabaret.

Crazy creatures

Turpin brought you the barking tale of Neil Watson, of Sheriff Hutton. He was runner-up in a national competition to find the owner that looked most like their dog, along with his mutt, Treacle.

Then there was the sticky business of York toddler Jordan who kept eating snails. He's yet to come out of his shell...

Inn excess

Turpin never frequents licensed hostelries, but my team of spies brought reams of stories from behind the bar. They discovered a unique sign in the beer garden of The Swan in York: "Misbehaving children will be sold into slavery". Bet that's been a nice little earner.

And Stan Lucas, supremo at the Waggon and Horses, Lawrence Street, will never forget the day he locked himself in the lavatory, thanks to this page and the long memories of his regulars.

Then there was the four-strong party from The Maltings in York who went on a London pub crawl. Only one made it back home. One stayed the night in a London phone box, one arrived in Nottingham and the other at least managed to get to Doncaster.

On the move

Transport has proved a fruitful theme for Turpin. Who can forget the boss of Arriva Northern waiting for one of his trains at Northallerton station... having forgotten that ongoing track repairs had cancelled all the services?

And cyclist Mick Thomas was so fed up with adverts on the buses warning: "Four homes in Etty Avenue do not have TV licences", he responded with the slogan: "Four homes on Stockton Lane don't have bicycles".

Strange - but true?

Out of this world Turpin scoops have included the sighting of UFOs over Hopgrove roundabout, and a ghostly apparition in a photograph of St Mary's Church, Sandsend, near Whitby.

And drivers certainly got a fright when they saw a skeleton at the wheel of a Deans Removals van in Micklegate. Had he been stuck in York's jams too long?

Appropriately enough, my final memory is of Richard Pickles, the carpenter who can knock you up a bookcase - which doubles up as a coffin. Turpin was delighted to nail that one down.

So it's goodbye from me and Bess. I leave you with one of my "Defining Moments", which sums up the reason for my departure...

"Work: the refuge of those who have nothing better to do" - Oscar Wilde

Updated: 11:48 Saturday, May 31, 2003