JUST as there are football supporters who claim a particularly enriching atmosphere at floodlit matches, so there is something special about being in church after dark. Memories of Christmas Eve, perhaps.

There are differences, of course, though the singing may often be comparable. Church is usually warmer - there have been ecclesiastical exceptions - doesn't do such good Bovril and swears, if at all, sotto voce.

Nor, it should be said, is there anything remotely special about the evensong attendance graphs these past few decades, though there was twice the usual gate last Sunday.

It was the dedication of a new stained glass window at St Mary's Church in Cockerton, Darlington - a November evening service that began at 6pm. Light into darkness, it worked wonderfully.

The window was provided for in the will of Mrs Belle Piggford in memory of her husband Tom, a former St Mary's choirboy and for many years, a white-aproned, open-all-hours shopkeeper in Cockerton and elsewhere in Darlington.

"Death of Mr Cockerton" announced the Darlington and Stockton Times headline in March 1990. "He knew literally everyone in the village," said Flora Banks, whose father Jim had been both Tom Piggford's business partner and cousin.

Mr Piggford had also been a regimental sergeant major, three times declining a commission in order to return to Darlington, and to his eight shops. He retired at 57; his widow died last year.

With a little help from his friends, or help from his little friends, the window had been designed by the Rev Chris Wardale, former St Mary's curate and now Vicar of the neighbouring parish of Holy Trinity. It was made by Cate Williamson, from Newcastle.

Mr Wardale talked about it, squeezed into the pulpit - "I used to be able to get in quite easily," he said - admitted that he'd been in a bit of a flap over the commission.

"What do you do if you're in a flap? You consult the experts. I went to Cockerton school."

A young man appropriately named Christopher Churchman had proved particularly inspiring.

"My windows are like games, like puzzles with things to work out," said Mr Wardale, who confessed to doing most of his preliminary sketches not on the back of envelopes but ("you know me") on beer mats.

This one, he said, had symbols of remembrance and of mortality.

"I hope you will grow to love it, if not always, perhaps, to like it."

Cockerton's children also presented a most captivating tableau around the Easter story, the window's theme, with music where Elgar met Shine Jesus Shine and with the half forgotten poem with the lines about "In this world of darkness we must shine; You in your small corner and I in mine."

The column had not only recited it 50 years ago at Shildon's coronation celebrations but been presented with a box of dominoes as a prize. The coronation was thus responsible for a lifelong addiction.

Other music had been carefully chosen, ending with O For a Thousand Tongues To Sing - Christendom's second greatest hymn - and also including Teach Me My God and King. The second verse reads:

A man who looks on glass

On it may still his eye;

Or if he pleases, through it pass,

And then the heavens espy.

The reading from Genesis mentioned windows, too. The Book of Revelation, as is its wont, was too busy opening doors.

The new window was illuminated from outside and dedicated by Fr Richard Wallace, Cockerton's vicar, a good chap who looks a bit like a Giles curate, circa 1968, but is much more important than that.

After a simple, lucid and highly effective service, there was wine and nibbles and a chance to seek Flora Banks's verdict. "I absolutely love it," she said.

ANOTHER stained glass window on the world - this the last of a series of 12 dedicated earlier this month at St Clare's Parish Church, Newton Aycliffe.

Completed over ten years, the previous 11 had religious themes. This one celebrates the once new town, built in an area where the coal and railway industries had long predominated.

The window also trumpets the Aycliffe Angels - women munitions factory workers during World War II on what is now the industrial estate. Modern industry has a place, too.

The windows were designed by Sussex-based Denise Miller, who used friends and family - including Martin Leonard, formerly in Heighington - as models. They were made by Heritage Stained Glass in Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire and dedicated by Canon Bill Broad, Aycliffe's team rector.

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