Ere the winter sales begin

To the Rev June Robson it is a bustling parish, a place of opportunity and of retail therapy of every sort.

Vicar until May 2003 of St Mark's in Darlington, she is now chaplain of the MetroCentre, prompting a clerical colleague to observe that putting June Robson in a shopping complex was a bit like putting an alcoholic in a brewery.

"I've had to go a bit easy on the credit cards," admits June, an engaging, vivacious and extraordinarily courageous woman of 60 who, at a hospital in Bristol two years ago, became the first person in Britain to undergo pioneering neuro-surgery for a brain cyst.

If she has a fault, bless her, it's that she's a bit too keen on going clinically into the details.

"The operation was terrific, marvellous," she says, by which she means not the procedure - "I came out looking like Frankenstein's daughter" - but the change it has brought to her life.

Last Sunday, at any rate, the MetroCentre held its harvest festival service - all safely gathered in, ere the winter sales begin.

Most seem to be in pairs - a pleasure shared? - many in Newcastle United shirts, although a bright young lad wears the new Arsenal away top with "Henry 14" blazoned, brazzened, on the back.

None of the shops seem yet to be carolling for Christmas, though a notice in Woolworth's seeks seasonal staff while another announces that the local heat of the British bubble blowing championship - world record, 58cms - has been postponed "due to unforeseen circumstances".

Something gumming up the works, presumably.

All round are notices about the opening on October 6 of the new red mall, blessed by the chaplain two days ago. Precious people now pronounce it "maul", as in rugby scrum. Goodness only knows how they manage it.

Though Ron Woodman, the amiable centre manager, reckons Sunday to be the second busiest day of the year - and that "only the odd hairdresser" exercises the option not to open - few seem to be heavy laden.

It is as if the MetroCentre has replaced the traditional Sunday afternoon walk, the Great North Run followed by the great north shuffle.

The service is in Exhibition Square, next to the Body Shop and Millie's Muffin stall and with Woolie's offering things above.

The Salvation Army band from Newcastle is there, the choir from St John's at Castleside - June's a Consett lass - and maybe 60-70 shoppers, harvest home from home. Others look curiously down from the mall above, like starlings on a rooftop.

June, labourer in the vineyard, begins with a prayer for the Iraq hostages and for prisoners and hostages everywhere. We sing All Things Bright and Beautiful and Morning Has Broken and hear a reading from Ron Black, a lay canon of Newcastle Cathedral who is one of three honorary associate chaplains and also chaplain at Asda in Gosforth.

How does he do it. "You just go in and start cracking on with people," he says afterwards.

June engages with the kids, dishes out dolly mixtures, talks about sharing. "God gave us so many wonderful gifts, it's tempting sometimes to want to keep them all to ourselves."

At the MetroCentre, the thinking's rather different. The Samaritans' Purse charity is collecting for needy children in eastern Europe, Business in the Community is organising a collection of Christmas gifts for pensioners, one of the gaffers at Edinburgh Woollen Mills has proposed an "unwanted gift" collection in January to share among the needy.

"There are lots of opportunities to share what you have with others," says June, both shops and shoppers adding to the gift pile at the service and Keith Morley, the Salvation Army major, pleased that there's not much soup among it.

Heinz, changing their labels, had given them 400 "dated" cans just the day previously.

Afterwards, after "We plough the fields and scatter" - in which "The wind and waves obey him" has been replaced by "He fills the earth with beauty" - she talks in her office about the joys of being Centre stage.

On the wall are religious icons and pictures of Newcastle United, on her desk a framed Alan Shearer autograph inscribed to "June the Vicar."

Though technically she's not a vicar, most people call her that, anyway. "There are another two Junes around here, it just makes it convenient," she says.

Around 7,000 work at the MetroCentre - "not just in the shops: police, security, cleaners" - many times more visit regularly. She has introduced additional special services and two weeks ago was asked by an elderly gentleman's family to conduct his funeral after he'd collapsed at the MetroCentre bus station.

"It was a bit nerve wracking, I wondered if I could remember how to do it. My memory's suffered terribly after the operation, I have to write everything down now."

She's enjoying herself, enjoying the shop talk, for all that. "I just like being out among people and there are some really lovely people here.

"It isn't so different pastorally from being a parish priest and it was made so much easier because my two predecessors were brilliant.

"I'm here to support the tenants, the customers and the workforce and not necessarily with the intention of going out to convert people.

"I want to retire here. These days there's less chance of being carried out feet first."

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