FRUSTRATED by the ones that got away, the Diocese of Durham placed a now famous situations vacant advertisement a couple of years ago in the cloistered columns of the Church Times.

It sought a "house for duty" priest for the parishes of Gainford and Winston, in Teesdale, and emphasised not the spiritual depths - though doubtless, they were pretty near unfathomable - but the fishing rights at the bottom of the vicarage garden. A bit like the Lorelei, a pretty picture sat alongside.

Hook, line and sinker, Maureen and Tom Alderson were reeled in - she the priest, he the angler. "I'm a fisher of men," says Maureen and adds, because you have to do these days, "of women as well".

She's originally from Stockton, he from over the bridge in Thornaby. After 40 years in the Birmingham area, they'd bought a retirement bungalow in Northallerton and were within weeks of moving when the Archdeacon of Auckland so artfully cast bread upon the water.

"It was the picture which caught my eye," says Maureen, now 63. "I wouldn't mind two pennorth of that myself," said Tom. Catch of the day, they both love it.

We'd last been to St Mary's in Gainford in April 1999, when the village's Anglican, Roman Catholic and Methodist churches signed a Local Ecumenical Partnership - known as an LEP - committing themselves to greater unity.

Geoff Taylor, a key figure both at St Mary's and in the diocese, had forecast that within five years, Methodists and Church of Englanders would every Sunday be worshipping together in the same building.

One giant LEP? "I think we might have to extend it a bit," said Geoff last Sunday, in the manner of a man accepting that some things take a little longer.

It was the patronal festival, a united service at which ladies had been invited to wear their summer hats and gentlemen to sport a buttonhole, and where there was sherry at the back of the church afterwards.

"We don't usually have sherry," said Maureen, lest anyone suppose that a weekly wassail attends their worship.

A lovely, lively lady, she spent much of married life as a housewife and mother, became a lay reader in 1985 and wanted God to show her if there was a next step.

On holiday, she went into York Minster, prayed for guidance, and afterwards crossed Petergate into the church of St Michael le Belfry, where above the altar hung a banner with the inscription "Behold, I send you."

It was the Road to Damascus moment.

At 50, she was enrolled at theological college. "I think I struggled a bit - I hadn't written an essay for 25 years but I have to say when God calls, he equips. Coming here was another twist but it was God's plan. Sometimes you have to take a risk."

After several years as a priest at a traditionally high church in Birmingham - clearly the Marian kind - she now happily tells tales of the County Durham riverbank and welcomes warmly to Sunday service.

There may not be a milliners' millionaires' row in Gainford, but there are some pretty nifty titfers, nonetheless. There are diffident hats and different hats, hats for church parade and hats for parade ring - whoever may have the best hymns, the Church of England has the best hats.

There's also a feller in a number eight football shirt, but he's just walking his dog through the churchyard.

The bells of St Mary's are giving it a patronal what fettle, the 800-year-old church floribundant for the occasion. The service begins with Morning Has Broken, and altogether more brightly than the meteorologists had supposed.

Among the 80 or so present is Fr Michael Melia, priest at St Osmund's Catholic Church, who reads the gospel but is unable to accept the general invitation to take communion.

Maureen's sermon is inevitably devoted to St Mary - "a remarkable story, the modern tabloid newspapers could hardly have dreamed up anything more sensational," she says.

Alongside us sits Tom Alderson, retired teacher and active LNER enthusiast - as might well be a man born within whistling distance of Thornaby motive power depot. The following day, he's off to the Isle of Man, fishing.

Afterwards over sherry, we talk about the LEP, acknowledged once a month with a united service and by frequent other activities. Geoff says it's going very well, with an acceptance that the churches are "very much" linked together.

"We want to move as fast as we can but not ahead of the national picture. We don't want to become the Church of Gainford," he says.

"Churches Together is very much part of the village scene now, but we don't want to move people forward to where they don't want to be.

"We've been frustrated by the attitudes of the Catholic hierarchy, especially in Rome, but I think we can fairly say that those frustrations are shared with the St Osmund's community."

Maureen Alderson agrees but is glad of the covenant - "it commits us to making it work."

Her retirement is on hold. "I really love it here and both churches are served by very resourceful people. I have all the benefits of the ministry while still being able to enjoy the countryside," she says.

They have been happy landings. Clearly it pays to advertise.