THOUGH there are many Methodists who these days enjoy an occasional tipple, and one or two for whom not everything is in moderation, the last time we were at Cockerton Methodist church in Darlington, they'd all just signed the pledge.

It was Easter 1998. "It is the inescapable nature of this column," began the report rather bleakly, "that at some point during the service we end up praying that the photographer will arrive."

Cockerton has kept handsomely to its pledge, given up cheerfully, saw the handsome benefits last Sunday morning. This time the photographer turned up to witness the celebration.

The pledge, collective and personal, was to raise £70,000 - it proved to be more than £100,000 - towards the restoration and renovation of the 126-year-old chapel and the Tardis "school rooms" out the back.

The project was fronted by the five-strong Way Ahead team. "Sometimes their families and spouses must have thought they'd been abducted by aliens," said Alan Smithson, the minister.

In total, with grants and other donations, it cost £250,000. On Sunday, they moved back after four months pew sharing at Pierremont, today - if finally they've shifted the workmen from out the back - the building squeezed narrowly onto Cockerton Green is open to all.

"It's not that we don't like our builders," said Jean Beadle, "but we'll be awfully glad to see the back of them."

It smelled like a show home, and had been as meticulously prepared. Officially the re-dedication, it could probably have been sub-titled Bless This House. A house warming, too, garments divested with the unashamed regularity of Salome herself. The boiler's new, an' all.

Externally, the two door appearance is little changed, because Cockerton's in a conservation area. Inside it's vividly re-born, pews replaced by chairs which can be bought in memory of a loved one, £70 each.

On the front of the weekly newsletter it asked for a bit hush before the service, but a full church's excitement was palpable - and audible - nonetheless.

"I thought that there might be one or two in," said the redoubtable Jim Reid MBE, chapel stalwart, former personnel manager at Shildon Wagon Works and chairman of the BR boxing club. (The MBE, he said, was for being good looking.)

The Girls Brigade formed up outside, smallest to the front; the Boys, numerically fewer, raised their banners; the tinies were greeted enthusiastically by a steward. All of them, oddly enough, appeared to be called Threepence.

"It seems an awfully long time since we left here but only five minutes since we began the building project," said Mr Smithson, who should not be confused with the Rt Rev Alan Smithson - the Anglican Bishop of Jarrow - but is, of course, all the time.

"I get some funny telephone calls," said the free church Smithson. "I expect that the bishop does, too."

The only sad note was that the Rev John Platts, the former Darlington district chairman, was unable to travel from Cumbria as planned because his wife had had a fall.

Fred Barron, a familiar Methodist supernumary - a retired minister - helped lead the service instead. "Don't panic," he announced, "I'm not going to preach a sermon at you."

Alan Smithson prayed that they might not settle back in their comfortable seats and reflect upon how well they'd done, but that they might look forward; Fred Barron asked that the church "might be a place of peace to all who enter, a fortress against all hatred, envy and pride."

Folk kept looking round, as shouldn't. The column (ditto) kept looking round at them.

Terry Dodd, retiring after 30 years as a Girls Brigade officer but continuing as much else, presented a woven pulpit frontal with the Brigade motto - Seek, Serve, Follow Christ.

"If more people went by that, the world would be a better place to live," she said.

Mr Smithson, determined that the church should be for all the family, uses a "magic bag" for his sermons, from which all sorts of visual aids (including several Tellytubbies) have been known to appear.

"Let's see what's in the bag today," he said - wasn't it Playschool, or something, which had a similar beginning? - and produced from within a musical box that played Brahms' Lullaby. Whilst continuing (naturally) to pay heed to the sermon, the column fell also to wondering if Brahms' Lullaby is these days played on anything else except the musical box and whether in the circumstances Brahms should possess an apostrophe. The grammatical probability is that it should.

We sang The Church's One Foundation also And Can It Be ("it wouldn't be a Methodist celebration without that one," said the minister) and afterwards they'd arranged a team picture, lest (presumably) the Echo man again forget himself.

"You're supposed to say sausages," said the church photographer. It never fails, honestly.

The school rooms - they'd like to think of a more relevant name - are no less wondrously transformed, and (more miraculous yet) have even satisfied the building inspectors. There are more loos than some chapels have congregation. "It's a thriving church and the work has brought people together," said Mr Smithson. "Now we have to look at ways of keeping it that way, and of fully using these premises."

Because the builders' gear was still out the back, they were unable to offer the usual refreshments. What the good folk of Cockerton had when they got home is another matter, but if they raised a glass in acknowledgment of a pledge fulfilled, they had most abundantly deserved it.

l Today's open day at Cockerton Methodist Church is from 10am-2pm, refreshments throughout and light lunches from noon. Usual Sunday services are at 10.30am and 6pm. The Rev Alan Smithson, who has details of how to "buy" a chair, is available on (01325) 463546.

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