After delivering my lecture on the management of book groups, I met my old school mates for another of our ad hoc reunions.

The location of the venue was meant to be a surprise. When I opened my eyes I saw that I was standing next to a Dunlop factory on the edge of a new housing estate, with a small town visible in the distance.

The others asked me to guess where I was. They congratulated me on my suggestion of the Midlands, then held up postage stamps that commemorated the 150th anniversary of the Stockton to Darlington railway in 1975. This was rather confusing: Stockton and Darlington are not in the Midlands. Could they think (incorrectly) that York – with its railway museum – was?

My school mates deemed York a very poor guess. They announced the right answer (inexplicably) as Durham.