The congregation at a post-Christmas service at a newly-illuminated church was small but perfectly formed... all the more mice pies and friendliness to go round.

IN rural parts where a priest may have several churches, umpteen hats and a timetable like Clapham Junction at rush hour, it has become customary to have a "joint service" when there is a fifth Sunday in the month.

It is a chance for the priest to take the Sabbath a little more slowly, and for those in other than the host village to take it lying down.

Asked to explain themselves, the stayabeds would jointly and severally plead the Fifth Amendment. Today's, indeed, can truly be said to be a fifth column.

Though the Sunday after Christmas offers particular temptation to the tepid, it was a very great pleasure, nonetheless, to join the 16 or so - about a quarter of the population - at the joint service in St Mary's, Eryholme.

Eryholme needs explanation, both location and pronunciation - the first syllable not as in eagles' nest, but as in airy-fairy.

Once much more populous, it's a hamlet on the Yorkshire bank of the Tees where that maligned and much meandering river seeks to plot a convoluted course south of Darlington and in doing so essays more U-bends than a plumbers' convention.

Few may have heard of it, save through the exploits of village cricketer Charlie Walker, a Backtrack column favourite known invariably as the Demon Donkey Dropper of Eryholme because of the deceptive style of his bowling.

The most delightful of men, Charlie has lived there all his 60-odd years, used to pump the organ for sixpence a service, and was in church again last Sunday.

He is a turkey farmer, not the bulimic birds familiar at the check-out, but the sort of prize turkey - "What, the one as big as me?" returned Dickens' boy - which the repentant Scrooge sent round to Bob Cratchit's on Christmas morning.

This Christmas Charlie reared 1,400. There'd be pork for Sunday lunch, he said.

A church has stood on the hill top site since Saxon times, an earlier building burned down - with many villagers locked inside it - when Vikings sailed up the then tidal Tees.

Legend has it that they mistook the longship prows for the head of the fearsome Sockburn Worm, a more southerly cousin of Lambton's which roamed thereabout until despatched by a bold knight with a falchion, a two-handed sword.

Until 1800, incoming Bishops of Durham were presented with a falchion (worms for the slaying of) at the ford between Eryholme and Neasham on their ceremonial entry into the diocese. Now the falchionry take place on Croft Bridge, upstream, lest the new bishop gets his wellies wet.

In the 14th century, Eryholme residents paid more tax than anywhere else in the district except Richmond; in the 17th, Squire Calverly fought for the king against Cromwell; in the 18th the village was on the coach road from York to Newcastle.

Now life pretty much passes Eryholme by - the school closed in 1935, the shop even earlier - which may be why it's such an attractive little spot.

St Mary's is built of red sandstone, largely Victorian, though much Saxon evidence remains. A nearby pasture is known simply as AM Field, and AB's short for Ancient Briton.

Particularly this Christmas, the small congregation is celebrating the installation of new church lighting, a £4,000 project which they'd hoped to have switched on for the Millennium but designed without the diocesan architect.

"His first lights were dreadful and the next ones even worse," recalls Robert Sale, who by virtue of having been a main board director of Barclays Bank may be among Christendom's more financially astute Church Council treasurers.

They visited many churches before finding true illumination at Barningham, near Barnard Castle. The result, says Eryholme stalwart Jessie Turnbull, makes St Mary's look "palatial".

Sunday's was a "Prayer Book" communion, carols including While Shepherds Watched and In the Bleak Mid-Winter - Mr Bob Johnson might presently prefer to call it a dreich mid-winter - and a sermon about shepherds from the Rev John Wraight.

Mr Wraight retires in the summer after a ministry which has taken him to Shildon, Newton Aycliffe, Darlington, Scotland, Carlisle, southern Cumbria and now the churches in Middleton Tyas, Croft and Eryholme.

His effective address so greatly extolled the virtues of shepherds - "dismissed by city people as unintelligent country bumpkins" - that it might have been written for the National Union of Ovine and Ancliliary Operatives.

Sheep had a mind of their own, said Mr Wraight - "particularly Northern sheep" - but the role had changed little since Christ's time.

It is unlikely, of course, that the Bethleham shepherds had 4x4s, nor a mobile telephone via which to demand tea on the table at the moment of their return to the fold.

After the service there was cheerful coffee and mince pies - "Eryholme is lovely," said Mr Wraight, "just like a big family coming together" - though there is concern for the long term future.

Robert Sale believes that they have inherited a lovely church and must pass it in good condition to their successors - "We won't let it fall down; we've done quite a lot in recent years" - Charlie Walker fears that whatever they do, St Mary's days are numbered.

"Look how many young 'uns are here today," said Charlie and the answer, of course, was none.

Alec Turnbull, farmer and churchwarden, concedes that they're under pressure.

"They always say that there's no threat to small churches in rural areas but they talk about it at every meeting."

For the moment, however, Eryholme is agreeably enlightened. A festive fifth, a very happy new year.