THE Rev George Hemming, soldier, missionary and occasional snake charmer, was almost 70 when invited to return to glorious Swaledale to lead the Congregational Church in Reeth.

Though he took little persuading ("I knew it was right") the church had just nine members, all female, and all but one older than he was. It was 1986.

"People had moved away and there were very few children. I expected over the years to take the funerals of those who remained and to close the church," he admits.

Though eight of the nine have duly passed on, the church remains. Last Saturday, more than 300 overflowed the 130-year-old building at the bottom of the green - "even sitting on the window sills, the most in anyone's memory" it is reported - to mark not its death but a new chapter and challenge in its re-birth.

The Rev David Gregson's induction as pastor was attended by people from as far south as Margate, in Kent, as far north as Gareloch, in Scotland. Anxiety when friends from his former church in Leicester failed to appear was relieved when the problem proved nothing more serious than a busted clutch.

Neither Mr Hemming nor the column had been present, either - he partly because of the emotion of the occasion and partly because he wanted it to be David's day; we, more prosaically, in thrall to football.

Next morning, maybe 40 are again in church for Mr Gregson's first service. He is 59, was born in East Boldon near Sunderland, was a teacher and Methodist local preacher around Huddersfield before feeling the call to the full time pastorate in 1984.

"The beautiful environment here is clearly a bonus but primarily we are called by God to serve the church," he says. "Dales people are lovely people, but they have to be won like everyone else."

Mr Hemming, also there, is now 86, retired again two years ago but still leads occasional services, lives above the nearby village of Fremington. "There are wonderful views from the kitchen window when I'm washing up," he says and smiles, affectionately, towards his wife.

He had been a Royal Corps of Signals captain at Catterick Camp, preached at Reeth in the early 1940s, returned to Swaledale after the war to become minister of Low Row Congregational Church in 1946 and of Reeth, jointly, the following year.

He also taught maths at Darlington College, from where he is said to have obtained the snake - there's still a photograph somewhere - which so vividly illustrated the Sunday School lesson about Moses and the serpent.

Charmed? Undoubtedly.

He became a missionary in India in 1952, many years later bought a holiday cottage in Swaledale, still loves its serenity. "As the psalmist put it, the lions have fallen under me in pleasant places," he says, and part of the attraction is that Reeth Congregationl Church remains both Bible based and strictly independent.

When the United Reformed Church embraced many similar congregations - including Low Row - on its formation in 1972, Reeth stuck out alone. "We have no bishops and no central conference. The local congregation is the church and is answerable directly to God," says Mr Hemming, though he confesses great affection for the Anglican liturgy with which he was brought up.

"I wouldn't go to the stake for any particular form of church government."

The new pastor, too, stresses from the start that it is a Bible believing church - which means with nowt tekken out, as a Dalesman might say, and not just in the least troublesome bits.

He enters, however, by tripping over a step, throws in a swift one liner about the mighty fallen, comfortably finds his feet. There are also references to the love of long distance walking which he shares with Elizabeth, his wife.

For a Christian analogist, steep and rugged pathway and all that, it is the perfect pastime.

The sermon will be a short one, he says, though it lasts 40 minutes - almost a Reeth lecture, as a BBC man might suggest.

It is powerful and uncompromising, often delivered with arms outstretched. The ungodly, he says, will go to hell.

"There are degrees in vice and doctorates in damnation - that's blunt, but we are back in Yorkshire and people are blunt here."

It is attended by none of the more histrionic manifestations of evangelical witness, simply a few murmurs of approval.

The family has moved a couple of doors away, offers coffee afterwards. Though he is a keen sportsman, rugby especially, he will not be watching Leicester Tigers on television because he doesn't accept Sabbath sport.

His new home village has around 500 people, of whom 21 are church members and more usually attend church. His policy, he says, is to make haste slowly.

"If there are 300 again next week, or in ten years time, it would be wonderful, but if there is one person who is genuinely converted in the next ten years, then that will be wonderful, too."