While detained at her majesty's pleasure, Peter O' Sullivan saw the light - and is now the life and soul of Northland Methodist Church

IT was in the part of Holme House prison in Stockton known as the Black Hole of Calcutta - still less commodious than the usual cell - that Peter O'Sullivan found God, or possibly vice-versa.

"It was the only time in my life I'd been arrested for something I hadn't done," he volunteers before Sunday's service begins - and there were, he concedes, an awful lot of things which he had.

He'd been sentenced to eight-and-a-half years for manslaughter and robbery after a murder charge was reduced, extended a couple of other stretches for grievous bodily harm by his unfortunate habit of damaging both prison cells and prison officers, had a record like a Leonard Cohen LP, long and thoroughly depressing.

While holed up in Holme House, however, an illiterate cellmate asked him to read a passage from the Bible. "I read for an hour-and-a-half and by then it was like a light had come on. My life has never been the same again."

Now he is officially "Worship leader" at Northland Methodist Church in Darlington and has been on a preacher's course, insists that his aggression is wholly melted away but still doesn't look the sort of chap into whose face you'd kick sand.

"Peter's the salt of the earth," says the Rev Graham Morgan, the minister. "People here know who he is and where he's been and fully accept that. He does a really good job for us."

Northland, almost opposite Morrison's in North Road, is remarkable for several other reasons, not least that the column had never been through its doors. (We'd never been to Morrison's, either, and there was more chance of the church's aisles than the supermarket's.)

North Road Wesleyan, the original church on the site, was erected for £3,206 12s 11d in 1872, could seat 1,200 and when North Road railway workshops were in full vigour and Gipsy Smith and them came to preach, possibly sometimes did.

"It was built in the balmy days when people had nothing better to do than go to church," observed the local minister in the 1960s.

Described by the official opener as a "grand endeavour" and by the Northern Despatch as "very startling", Northland replaced not only North Road but the nearby Methodist churches at Hopetown and Rise Carr. It cost around £25,000, seated 250, is spacious and rather splendid.

Around 80 are there on Sunday morning, the atmosphere hugely fraternal, the welcome memorable. "It was one of the reasons I first came to Northland," says Brenda Nicholson, whose husband had been Darlington's town clerk.

"There were lots of churches I could have gone to, but none as welcoming as Northland."

There, too, is the delightful Ethel Gibbons, who at 93 still regularly rings the editor of The Northern Echo for a chat ("I try to keep him right") and is famed for her apparently limitless supply of Polo mints.

It is said of Ethel, indeed, that the first thing she will do upon entering the golden gates is to offer St Peter a Polo.

Graham Morgan had said that it would be just an ordinary Sunday morning, yet it proves extraordinary in its seamless mix of faith and fun, of conviviality, camaraderie and commitment.

Two bonuses: we sing O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing - something pretty akin to it, anyway, the Methodists have several versions of Charles Wesley's greatest hit - and several former Shildon folk are in the congregation.

"When people asked me about Northland in the first five years I was here, I'd probably say that it was ticking over," says Graham. "This past year, I don't really know why, it seems to have gone up a gear."

Since this weekend marks the church's 38th anniversary, the music group essays the premiere of a song specially written to the tune of Come and Join the Celebration, a couplet of which runs:

Wise men journey, travel down the Great North Road,

Come to Northland, all the people flock when Graham is preaching....

"I notice," the minister tells them afterwards, "that you didn't mention in which direction they flock when Graham is preaching."

His sermon's invigorating, recalls Albert McMakins - the trucker who first drove Billy Graham to church - reasons that if they can't all be Billy Graham, they can at least be Albert McMakins.

"The sign of a good church," adds Graham, "isn't that you come out saying what a good minister we have, but what a great saviour we have."

The minister's canny an' all, mind.

Peter O'Sullivan leads the intercessions, prays not just for the world's trouble spots but - poacher turned preacher, if not exactly gamekeeper - for the "intolerable situation of violence which is dragging this once great nation into the gutter".

Though doubtless the tune has a Sunday name, the collection is taken to the strains of Maisy Dotes and Dozy Dotes and Little Lambsy Divies, or whatever it's called. Everyone smiles; God loves a cheerful giver.

The Methodist hour lasts 65 minutes and has never passed so swiftly, so thoughtfully or so thoroughly enjoyably - and that, as Peter O'Sullivan might have observed, is definitely the inside story.

* Northland Methodist church in North Road, Darlington, begins birthday celebrations with a coffee morning, entertainment and lunch from 10.30am-1pm today, followed by a special service at 10.30am tomorrow. The Rev Graham Morgan is on (01325) 465913.