W HAT is the point of social networking sites or Twitter when we've got the benches on the corner of Derby Street and Ball Haye Street?

It's where all of Leek passes by at some time or other and, should any politician feel the need to conduct an opinion poll, then all they have to do is sit down in that small enclave for a minute or so. That's if they're brave enough.

I met an old friend there the other day and although I wouldn't exactly describe our social networking as a two-way conversation (he was regaling me with what he and countless thousands look upon as the injustice and folly of those pay awards for senior staff at Moorlands House when six park keepers have been made redundant), it was riveting to say the least and as far from "twittering" as you could get.

Actually, my role was merely that of the listener for as he became more irate over what he felt was the gross unfairness of this whole sorry business, his voice got louder. By the end it was positively booming, a sort of Moorlands Ian Paisley. He really did care.

Two young mothers sat on the next bench, their young offspring wrapped up in buggies while three of their brood did their best to get entangled in the legs of the passers-by bound for the busiest of all the zebra crossings in Leek, that by the wedding gown shop.

After a while my friend rose to move on, and with a departing shout of "See thee surree" he moved forward, only to be obstructed by two of the toddlers. One of the mums shouted "Let the master by" and they instantly obeyed.

Those two words "surree" and "master" were a brace of echoes from the past; ones I suspected had passed away from our local vocabulary but were obviously very much alive and kicking in Leek.

"Surree" is a corruption or variation of "sir" or "sir-ee", from the mists of time. "Master" (or sometimes "mester") mirrors our industrial past when there was a hierarchy within the population.

Those at the top of the social scale – silk mill owners, foremen and the like – were the "mesters" and we others all knew our place. Believe it or not our civic leaders were also looked up to. They were also "mesters". How times change.

That much-maligned word "duck" seems to have seen better days as well. It's a rather strange greeting, and is one used in an area stretching from the Potteries, around Leek, and on to Ashbourne and Derby.

In fact when we hear "Aye up mee ducks" it has nothing to do with our quacking feathered friends.

Although, sometimes, it is now looked upon as an amusing phrase it stems from the same roots as "mester" and "surree"; it's a corruption of the Latin "dux" meaning just that – master or leader.

Oh that those mesters and dux would return to our fold. Of course there were good and bad 'uns around in the past just as there are now, but there was also a regard for those at the top.

Nowadays we may not agree with how some of our predecessors got there but they commanded authority, and that respect still has, today, to be earned.