OUR memories of Stan Deere last week "brought tears to my eyes," Josey Durham, of Clifton, York, tells the Diary. "I remember him because my father was also a rag and bone man and knew Stan."

Her dad was Billy Barker. It was up to him to provide for his wife, seven sons and five daughters, who lived in Little Stonegate, so he went out in all weathers.

"I used to love going out with my dad and shouting 'any old rag and bone' down the streets, and going to Clancey's to get some money," recalls Mrs Durham.

Those who answered the call and handed over their unwanted bits and pieces to Billy would receive in return a bag containing a comb and a bar of soap, or on another day, a goldfish.

Some of the items he was given were far better than scrap. "I can still remember him riding down Stonegate on a penny farthing bike.

"I wish we had some of the booty our dad came across. Grandfather clocks, furniture galore. You name it, Billy Barker had it. Talk about Steptoe & Son - our house was worse than that."

He donated some of the most impressive pieces to the Castle Museum.

"Dad would try anything to earn a living, selling logs in winter, sharpening knives, collecting paper by the ton and selling it in Hull, painting farmers' barns - all of us kids would help him," Mrs Durham says.

As a treat, Billy would take his family for a ride in the country on his pony and trap.

"We were brought up rough and ready, but to always respect our elders. I don't know how our mother managed but she did and even though there was a lot of us there was also plenty of love."

There were fights, but they were quickly forgotten, said Mrs Durham. "I was proud - and I know all my brothers and sisters were - to be Billy Barker and Dot's kids."

OCCASIONAL New Labour rebel John Grogan seems to be back "on message". In the Commons last week the Selby MP quoted the Labour manifesto "which I carry with me at all times..."

INSPIRED by the Evening Press's new upbeat feature, Feelgood Friday, the Diary launches its own series - Five Days Of Death.

Every day this week, we will publish a quirky epitaph found on a North Yorkshire gravestone and reported to that much missed magazine Yorkshire Notes & Queries (1904-1908).

Some might regard this as a rather miserable spin-off from the Friday feeling, providing nothing more than a feelbad factor. But we found the inscriptions strangely uplifting.

And with cremation so popular, the Diary is prompted to ask: is the epitaph a dying art?

Here are two to start with, both spotted in Selby churchyards by our ancestors 100 years ago...

This tomb is a milestone;

Ha! How so?

Because beneath lies Miles, who's Miles below.

Here lies the body of poor Frank Row,

Parish Clerk and grave-stone cutter;

And this is writ to let you know

What Frank for others us'd to do

Is now for Frank done by another.

Updated: 09:19 Monday, July 18, 2005