It was written by Leonard Barrass, and collected together with a number of his other tales of a fictitious, surreal version of Wallsend in the book Up The Tyne In A Flummox.

I was lucky enough, many years ago,, at Durham Folk Festival, to see Alex Glasgow and Henry Livings performing Northern Drift. I subsequently bought their LP (now gone the way of all my vinyl), and was given the book by someone who didn't know anything about it, didn't know I'd heard of it, but thought I might like it! I wish I knew what had happened to that, too.

As well as the humane butcher Arbuthnot Wutherfoot, I remember there being a fierce conflagration at a local factory, an uncle who was a communist anti-royalist (when it suited him), and some business with bicycles and policemen.