SAINT Swithun would probably not have lasted very long at the Meteorological Office - about as trustworthy as a piece of second-hand seaweed. He was a ninth Century Bishop of Winchester, renowned in death not only for his association with miraculous cures but for the downpours said to be another manifestation of his peculiarly posthumous power.

His "day" is on July 15, last Sunday, perhaps less readily remembered by the church than by generations of weather watchers:

St Swithun's Day if thou be fair

For 40 days shalt rain no mair,

St Swithun's Day if thou be wet

For 40 days....Oh, I forget.

We had spent the weekend at Staverton, in Northamptonshire, the Sunday best bells of the church of St Mary the Virgin calling the faithful to morning observance, whilst at the nearby conference centre the merely hopeful were summoned simultaneously to the feet of the Football Association.

The sun shone upon righteous and unrighteous, fair weather fans, one and all.

As if part of a Southern Tourist Board marketing campaign, the homeward deluge began precisely at Wetherby, perceived gateway of the North, and followed the line of the A1 thereafter. Home, touch base, swift shower and out to join the "Elderflower Evensong" at St Andrew's in Sadberge.

Sadberge is a couple of miles north-east of Darlington, an ancient church where once we had attended a Christingle service, the Christmastide event best remembered for candles stuck luminously into an orange.

"Remember me?" said a friendly lady on Sunday. "I'm the one who set myself alight."

There's been a new organist since then, a young chap called Stephen who also plays the tuba. "I'm a great believer that a church can do without a vicar but not without a musician," said Robert Cooper, the self-effacing and much admired vicar.

Elderflower Evensong has been shared these past seven midsummers with the Darlington parishes of St Mark, St Herbert and Holy Trinity, anticipated not just for the changeless charms of the "Prayer Book" liturgy but for the rapturous repast which follows.

Usually it's held in the vicarage, this time in the village hall. "We are playing host to our daughter's fiance's household goods," announced the vicar. "There is hardly room to swing a kitten, never mind a cat."

The elderflowers are from the vicarage garden - "a gift from nature, such a lovely, distinctive smell" said Robert - though freely augmented by Morrison's mineral water to make the celebrated, strictly non-alcoholic elderflower cordial from which the occasion takes its name.

Elderflower cordial is not normally the column's cup of tea, as it were, but was infinitely to be preferred to anything we had been able to imbibe in Northamptonshire.

The elderberry wine is more potent, though the cordial bottles - like ginger beer - have an unfortunate habit of exploding through the kitchen ceiling.

(Readers of these serried columns would not expect the moment to pass without a scholarly digression on the word "cordial" which also - of course - means friendly. The etymology is identical, and from the same root as cardiac and other things heartfelt. A "cordial", as imparted to poor Gulliver after the Lilliputians had cut him down to size, is simply a restorative, an elixir of life.)

For the service, St Andrew's choir was joined by Holy Trinity, so good together that they might have been matched by Computadate. Though largely comprising elders and betters, the congregation had a healthy number of youngsters, too.

The reading was of Jacob wrestling, the memorable eventide sermon embraced sources from Robert Shelley to Donald Swann. We prayed for those affected by foot-and-mouth disease, for the frustrated as well as the fulfilled, sang "Now the day is over" for the first time since Timothy Hackworth juniors.

It was in Timothy Hackworth juniors, come to think, that we always kept a weather eye out for St Swithun.

In the village hall, Phyl Cooper - the vicar's wife and fellow florist - poured glad handedly. Others talked of how co-operation - entente cordial, it might almost be said - might further be strengthened between local churches. Christine Blakesley, of St Herbert's, thought there might be punch at Christmas and a wassaillers' return.

As night drew nigh, so also the rain clouds regrouped. If St Swithun were right, the last of the summer wine had been hugely enjoyable, nonetheless.

Published: 21/07/2001