Sunniside up

WHETHER an attempt to pierce the region’s perceived meteoroligical murk, or simply to create a helio-tropical taste, the North-East seems to have an awful lot of places called Sunniside.

It’s a village above Crook with a laugh-a-minute pub called The Comedian, another near Whickham, on Tyneside, a third a part of Sunderland prominently signed from the city centre – though goodness only knows where it is – and, further radiance, a fourth that’s a little community above Houghton-le-Spring.

The last should not be confused with the refulgently named Shiney Row, nearby, or indeed with Brightside which, memory suggests, is that part of Sheffield represented in Parliament by Mr David Blunkett.

The settlement above Houghton had begun as three pit terraces – North, South and Middle – church folk meeting in one another’s homes until the Methodist chapel was built in 1899.

It was there on Tuesday evening, the weather suitably agreeable, that the Reverend Alf Waite was officially welcomed as superintendent minister of the 13 churches in the East Durham circuit and the Reverend John Wall as a new, but manifestly experienced, supernumerary.

Interesting chaps, these, effortlessly bright and buoyant. Alf Waite’s a former Lancashire farmer and minister in Peterlee who breeds award-winning rabbits and held a hugely successful Christmas party one July.

“Good washer-up, too,” they say.

John Wall’s a 77-year-old former Darlington Grammar School teacher who now lives in Forest Hall, north of Newcastle, and who thinks nothing of making the 40-mile round trip to his new patch by bike.

“Don’t get me on about it, I can be very boring about cycling,” he says but – what goes around – this proves a hugely enlightening evening in Sunniside.

“Perhaps Alf and I could do a double act round the clubs,” says John.

They could never be the Shadows.

ALF WAITE was born near Preston, farmed for 20 years, remains suitably down to earth.

He went to Bible college – “I needed to get four O-levels” – but then discerned that he didn’t have a call to the ministry after all.

He worked instead on the college staff, finally heard a calling, asked upon ordination to be sent to a rural circuit with four to six churches within 90 minutes of Preston – his mother was unwell. They sent him to Peterlee.

“It was the right place,” he says. “I had seven good years there, but I was working so hard that if I hadn’t stopped, I’d have died, I think.”

He moved to Haworth, Bronte country, spent five years there. A coach load of Airedale folk is there on Tuesday evening, the driver having a fag on the step. Bus drivers do.

He doesn’t set foot in church. Bus drivers don’t.

It was also in Haworth that the minister started keeping Dutch blues. “People had been telling me for 20 years that I should have a hobby. I was keen on bantams, but there was a covenant on the house, so I chose rabbits instead. Rabbits don’t make a noise.”

They’re named after Bronte characters – Bramwell, Heathcliffe, Kathy and the like – and already have won national prizes. “I’m really looking forward to the shows up here,” he says.

John Wall (whose parents came from Shildon) has been a minister across the country, including Stockton and Ponteland. He officially retired 12 years ago, maintained active ecclesiastical involvement – “It’s the Protestant thing, you can’t sit idle, but I was only playing at being a minister”

– and was one of many retired clergy who received a letter from Leo Osborn, the district chair. They wanted a supernumerary – a parttime minister – for East Durham.

“I thought I’d just go to the back of the queue. I must have been the only one applied,” says John. “I’m fit and healthy. I’m just happy to be of use. As John Wesley said, I’d rather wear out than rust.”

ABOUT 160 are crowded into Sunniside church, more than for many a day. Keith Dowell, the church steward, recalls that Sunday school anniversaries once so greatly overflowed that they had to put planks between the two tiers of pews in order to accommodate the excess.

Another sign of the times, the roof is encircled by barbed wire. Now there’s no Sunday school, an average Sunday attendance of about 15. “Alf seems a grand feller, we’re really looking forward to working with him,” says Keith. “Who knows what might happen next.”

Leo Osborn’s address welcomes not just the new superintendent, but “Mopsy, Flopsy and Cottontail” – what would the Brontes have said? – wonders what such welcome services might properly be called.

A licensing? An induction? An institution?

“The church does sometimes seem like a madhouse, doesn’t it?” says Leo.

He prefers a commissioning, a new beginning.

Whatever the word, they’re rather less formal than Anglican licensings, all canonical obedience and episcopal plurals as befits the established Church. An episcopal plural is the same as the royal we.

Tricia, a circuit steward from Airedale, tells the gathering how Alf would rarely take his days off – “I was a farmer, I’m used to working 24/7” – and how he had a tendency to overrun meetings.

“Take an alarm clock, set it for 9.30 and don’t let him go on any longer otherwise you’ll be there until 10.45, my record.”

Though not as nomadic as once they were, the Methodists still like their ministers to move about a bit.

This time he’d included the North- East among his options.

“Alf laughs a lot, rejoices every day of his life,” says Tricia. “You’re very lucky to have him. You’ve got a real good ’un there.”