The Nignog Club for children made its debut in The Northern Echo. It was run by Uncle Mac (Derek McCullogh, who also hosted the BBC’s Children’s Hour on the wireless) and Uncle Ernest (Ernest Noble, a Darlington artist who drew the cartoons). It was named after Nig and Nog, who were ‘two little imps who live in the Land of the Moon, their chief occupation to keep the Man in the Moon awake’. ‘Nig’ and ‘nog’ was also County Durham vernacular for ‘boy’ and ‘girl’.
Three months later, the club welcomed its 50,000th member – an expansion so rapid that the factory producing the blue-and-white enamel Nignog badges couldn’t keep up. A Nignog troupe toured village halls putting on entertainment shows, and all Nignogs raised funds to send less fortunate children to Cober Hill guest house near Scarborough. On 6 May 1933, Prince George, the Duke of Kent, visited the 400 children the Nignogs had sent to convalesce on the clifftops, and he was enrolled as an honorary Nignog.
However, on 1 September 1939, Uncle David – who had taken over the club in 1936 – suddenly appeared Nignogless in the paper, with just his ‘Children’s Corner’. The next day, both he and his ‘Children’s Corner’ disappeared without explanation and on 3 September, the Second World War broke out. Nig and Nog never returned.
(Lloyd: Attacking the Devil)