The reincarnation of St Thomas's, Stanley - destined a decade ago for closure - is proof that miracles can happen.

AMONG the things they still talk about on Stanley Hill Top is the afternoon of January 31, 1948, when Stanley United played Yorkshire Amateurs - "entertained" them may be inappropriate - in the second round of the FA Amateur Cup.

It was even bitterer than usual on that parlous plateau, wind unhindered from Alaska and freezing rain so greatly adding to the discomfort that four players were obliged to seek shelter before the end.

They were all from Stanley, who lost 4-1. That's chiefly why they still talk about it.

Though goodness knows it was cold enough, though the breath visibly distilled and the temptation was to nip out during the collection in search of a cup of Bovril, it is for altogether more invigorating reasons that they will long remember the afternoon of December 8, 2002.

Sometimes known as Mount Pleasant and sometimes as Woolley Terrace, Stanley is a former colliery community high above Crook and should not be confused with Co Durham's other Stanley, in Derwentside.

They're confused all the time, of course.

St Thomas's parish church was built in the mid-1870s and on Saturday November 19, 1893, burned down again. "A fearful gale of wind prevailed at the time and the flames spread with such mighty rapidity that in about half an hour the whole building was gutted," reported the Auckland Chronicle.

The rebuilt church opened a year later, survived what the parish magazine calls "many storms and changes, both administrative and physical" but was still shattered by the news which blew in in 1995 with the Ven Granville Gibson, Archdeacon of Auckland.

St Thomas's, said Archdeacon Gibson, must close. "Over my dead body," said retired miner Ernie Stoker, organist and much else, and that may have been the least of it. (Sunday's order of service was perhaps being careful with its words. "Granville incurred Ernie's wrath," it said, simply.)

Whatever it is they say about ill winds, however, was to prove abundantly true at Stanley.

The small congregation pledged to join Ernie in fighting for the church of his forebears; Archdeacon Gibson gave them six months. "Prove you can fan the embers and I will help you all I can to do it," he promised and thereafter became their inspiration. They fanned the flames and built a beacon for Britain. On Sunday afternoon the Bishop of Durham led a service officially to bless and dedicate three splendid new Celtic glass windows but effectively to celebrate St Thomas's reincarnation.

One window was dedicated to Ernie Stoker, who died, a second to Archdeacon Gibson, very much alive, the third to remember Workers' International Memorial Day, April 28.

"A solemn warning to the corporate world of the consequences of capital being more important than people," it was said.

Over £50,000 had been raised to revitalise the church and to broaden its community base, a substantial sum wheedled by Archdeacon Gibson out of the Ecclesiastical Insurance Group from damage to windows - gale damage, almost inevitably - that had occurred 25 years earlier.

"They were so busy fighting Category D they forgot to claim for it," he said. "I simply told Ecclesiastical Insurance that as a Yorkshireman and a priest I was inviting them to be generous."

The archdeacon, retired but by no means inactive, also recalled his early days down Woolley pit - the one in Sheffield - and rather haughtily being asked at his installation as Rector of Bishopwearmouth, Sunderland, from whence he had graduated.

"Down a coal mine, it took ten years," he said.

He'd not known about the window dedication until he got there. "The monkeys," said Archdeacon Gibson.

Among the other inspirations was David Ayre, mufflered like a latter day Bob Cratchit, who was born in Crook on the day his father was finished at the pit - "I was a bad omen," he said - and shifted to Stanley as a baby.

David, said to be so persuasive that English Heritage now rings him to ask how much he wants, is both churchwarden and one of the region's most prominent trades union leaders.

Other familiar political figures at Sunday's service included Pat Buttle, former Mayor of Darlington, and Durham County councillor Bob Pendlebury, who'd been on the hill top on that red raw Saturday in 1948.

"By," said Bob, "but it was fearful up here that day."

A great occasion and a well filled church was mirrored in a splendidly appropriate service, music from Amazing Grace to the Trimdon Grange Explosion, readings from the Book of Micah to more prolific works of the Rev John Stephenson.

The Bishop, the Rt Rev Michael Turnbull, appeared not to be reading from his notes but from the Episcopal Book of Superlatives. "It really is a wonderful occasion, a marvellous thing that you have executed," he told them.

"You have made this church a magnificent place to walk into, but if you'd said it ten years ago, no one would have believed you. Miracles do happen when Granville Gibson is around."

Another 52 churches in the Diocese of Durham he added, had recently been similarly renewed. "Our Church is sure and is alive, perhaps in many of our communities more alive than for many generations."

Afterwards there was good food and mulled wine, much welcomed. They still needed a bit more to finish one of the windows, said David Ayre, still hoped for a few bob to rekindle the heating.

In truth, however, it was one of the most warming occasions in memory: Stanley Hill Top 1 Rest of the World 0, and none now doubting St Thomas's.