DURING the course of each month, a fascinating variety of parish magazines find their way on to my desk. They come from a wide area of the countryside, ranging from industrial villages to the north of the county in which I live, via seaside resorts to remote inland villages.

Some bear the appearance of newspapers complete with illustrations, while others are modest productions little larger than a birthday card.

In most cases, however, they serve more as newsletters for rural communities than purely church-linked circulars and there is little doubt that the advent of home computers, with their desk-top publishing facilities, have enabled these vital periodicals to be produced with greater speed and in greater numbers at a very modest cost.

For those of us living and working in the countryside, the parish magazine is an important source of information, usually embracing a wide variety of topics, a high proportion of which are unrelated to the church.

However, the role of the church, in whatever form it takes, is central to these publications - and in many ways, the church remains a focus of genuine village life.

For all our modern attitudes, births, marriages and deaths do have a habit of remaining stubbornly linked to the church - for some people baptisms, weddings and funerals are the only occasions they visit a church, while hatches, matches and dispatches can guarantee a keen readership!

Most parish magazines include reports from local activities which are not in any way linked to the church - these include the work of children at the primary school, the WI, the Yorkshire Countrywomen's Association, local history society, gardening club, photography club, various sports activities ranging from the football team to darts teams in the local pub, not forgetting the work of the parish council or local councillors who serve at county or district level.

Our parish magazine serves two villages and lists the services in the Catholic and Anglican churches along with a note about Methodist services in the district, and sometimes others such as the Society of Friends. To these regular features can be added notes about periodical Christian events, such as Remembrance Day, Christmas, Easter, church unity meetings, Christian Aid functions and other charity-orientated occasions, not forgetting coffee mornings, garden fetes, church lotteries and other parish-based fund raising schemes.

There are often features about local people and personalities, as well as students doing well at university, being involved in astonishing work overseas or helping to collect rubbish from the village street - all this kind of information is so essential in a small community. Without these welcome snippets, we would be unaware of what is happening in our own community.

It is this kind of knowledge of the community around us which makes village life so rewarding - and it helps to acquire that vital community spirit.

One parish magazine which came my way recently included a range of other matters which affected the community. For example, there were notes of recent vandalism in the village, a warning about confidence tricksters who prey on the elderly, raids on churches nearby and a catalogue of recent burglaries and thefts.

While this kind of information might be considered alarmist, it does keep the community informed and alert, and, it is hoped, reminds people to take more care of themselves and their neighbours.

Another magazine regularly updates important telephone numbers such as those belonging to the surgery, the council, the police, local bus and taxi services, hospitals, electricity and water suppliers, the citizens' advice bureau and other essential services.

Inevitably, the work of producing a parish magazine falls upon willing volunteers and there are times I feel the work they undertake is not fully appreciated. It takes dedication, stamina, imagination and sheer hard work to produce a monthly periodical of any kind, especially when cost is such an important consideration.

Some parish magazines rely entirely on sales but most seem to survive on a combination of sales and advertisements - just like any commercial magazine.

While we are full of praise for parish magazines, no article about them can ignore the wonderful, unwitting humour they sometimes generate, such as "A gale lashed the church and blew all manner of rubbish around the interior, including the vicar's sermon" or "The fundraising is for the deathwatch beetle which has been confirmed by the vicar in the church roof". There was this advert "Grand God As New Sale" and this report: "The bishop walked among the congregation as they ate their picnics and during the afternoon 'O Rest in the Lard' was sung by a large crow."

Games people play

Following my notes about children's games, I have received a fascinating letter from a reader living in Marton, near Middlesbrough. His memory of past events is remarkable and among the games he remembers are: in and out of the windows; sheep, sheep come home; cakes; gathering knots of May; wallflowers, a- hunting we will go; poor Mary stands a weeping; oranges and lemons; the farmer in his den. round and round the mulberry bush; I wrote a letter to my love; and Bobby Bingo.

On dark nights, the children played "Jacky, Jacky, show your light", or "felto, a form of hide and seek." He recalls that, in playing many of the games, one of the children had to be the catcher; the term used was that he or she was "on". To determine who was "on", the players stood in a circle with one of them in the centre. Those in the ring had to extend their fists into the centre, then the child in the centre recited one of the many rhymes that were used in "catching" games, touching each fist as he or she went around the ring. During this, one of many rhymes would be chanted and my correspondent remembers this one:

Piggy on the railway picking up the stones,

Down came an engine and broke Piggy's bones,

Well, said Piggy, that's not fair,

Well, said the driver, I don't care.

The player whose extended fist was touched as the word "care" was chanted had to place it behind the back. The chanting continued until one of the players had two fists behind the back - and that child was now "on", that is, the catcher.

This chant was just one of many used in these kind of chasing games. My correspondent also mentions "One potato, two potato, three potato, four ..." and "Eeny, meeny, miny, mo", the additional words of which may now be considered politically incorrect.

Another was "Ink, pink, pen and ink, I smell an awful stink; I think the stink came from Y-O-U." On the shout of U, the fist was touched and the arm was put behind the back, as in the piggy verse given above.

I am sure children continue to play similar games in the playground, and that their inventiveness will create more games which match the interests of modern youngsters.

A simple man

I was delighted by the letter from M Middleton of Darlington who describes me as a simple countryman while admitting to being a townie with a touring caravan. Such comments speak volumes about the attitude of some townspeople - which I won't develop at this point - but I was intrigued by M Middleton's notion that my Heartbeat character of Oscar Blaketon (or should that be my book character of the same fellow?) contains elements of myself.

Personally, I don't think so but M Middleton has inspired a wonderful idea - now that Blaketon is a businessman in a rural village, I think he might be persuaded to develop a caravan site. That's something I would never do - even if it does get the dreadful things off the road