A PRECIOUS chain of office medal belonging to York Motor Club has been returned to them - thanks to me, arch-villain Dick Turpin. My who-does-this-belong-to? appeal featured here last Saturday after barmaid Lorraine Carter came across the past presidents' chain of office during a clear-out.

I was bombarded with phone calls from club members past and present saying they had been trying to trace it for about ten years.

Martin King, club awards co-ordinator, says: "I'm absolutely overjoyed that it has been found. It's a complete mystery how it went missing. The last time I saw it was in the early 1980s. I will make sure it's taken good care of until it's reunited with our current president."

Former president, Charles Clarke, says: "When I used to sit on the committee the question of who saw it last and had it last used to get raised, but we never found it."

Matthew Whattam, the present chairman, says the chain will be shown to club members at the next meeting. "I'm over the moon to get it back. Nobody has known of its whereabouts for years. We will be getting in touch with the woman who found it to pass on our thanks."

York Motor Club was founded in 1903 at a meeting in the Black Swan, on Peasholme Green. It was re-established after the Second World War and now meets every Wednesday at the Fox Inn at Stockton-on-the-Forest. It organises motor rallies each year and holds a number of monthly car tests.

Mr King says: "I want to pass on my thanks to Lorraine who found it and to you, Dick. I don't think you're such a bad rascal after all!"

Unusually for me, given my reputation, I'm delighted that something has actually been returned to its rightful owner!

See Yesterday Once More in Monday's Press for a full feature on York Motor Club

u POLITICAL rivalry seems to have been forgotten by two opponents united in support of Alzheimer's Week.

North Yorkshire MPs Anne McIntosh and Phil Willis are singing from the same hymn sheet to back the week, which starts tomorrow - so much so they seem to be writing their press releases together.

Usually at each others throats, Tory Anne and Lib Dem Phil's comments on improving food for sufferers of dementia are identical - with only the names of their constituencies changing.

Both said: "People with dementia in Harrogate and Knaresborough/Vale of York deserve good quality food regardless of whether they live at home, in hospital or in a care home." Write on!

u HERE'S a right to-do for you. How come the biggest jobs agency in the country - the Job Centre, or as my mate Big Duff calls it, the Nat King Cole (dole) - isn't on the Internet? What happened to Blair's big promise of a hi-tech, information-driven society?

u MORE out-takes by eagle-eyed sub-editors from my pixie pal from Paisley Tom Sweeney who works on a national daily paper based in Belfast and reads Turpin every week on www.thisisyork.co.uk

Dear Psychic Sandra, Not being able to have children runs in my family...

A ruthless Irish gangland boss was beaten to death then buried alive in a shallow grave.

"We've been hit!" he shouted in a barely audible voice on a radio link to headquarters.

She said: "After seven months I went back to work for a couple of hours in the morning three nights a week."

The stretch of water is notorious for its dangerous currants and has been the location of many accidents.

Irish interest rates are set to rise by a huge half per cent.

HERE'S a loo-ed tale about some new lavatories. A new toilet experience will soon be on offer to York drinkers as unisex loos open in a city bar. Bar 38, set to open soon on Coney Street, will be the first York pub to offer mixed lavatory facilities to its punters.

Styled on the toilets seen in TV lawyer drama Ally McBeal, the loos will offer shared hand-washing facilities around a water fountain. Although the male and female cubicles are separated, all hand-washing and mirror-peering is done in the unisex area.

"Bar 38 turns a simple trip to the bathroom into a quirky fun experience," says general manager Steve Ellison. "Members of the opposite sex can meet and greet at the large silver fountain".

In the gents side of the toilet there will be a fountain-shaped urinal, offering men the chance to spend a penny in a circle.

This will be the eighth Bar 38 to open, with others already open in Leeds, Manchester, Scotland and London. The bar opens at 10am next Friday.

Here's loo-king at ya, kid.

Picture - Matthew Whattam, chairman of York Motor Club, with the medal returned to him by Dick Turpin