AMONGST especially faithful At Your Service readers the church of St John the Evangelist, Lynesack, may ring a distant bell. We'd visited in 1997 on the occasion of its 150th anniversary, observed that The Northern Echo's almost omniscient library was bare between Lythe and Lyke Wake Walk, noted a 1920 Parochial Church Council minute of "animated discussion" on how some of the congregation might be dissuaded from "careless behaviour" during the service.

Last Sunday we returned for the 20th anniversary of the Lynesack handbell ringers - a campanology follower, it might almost be said.

Forget immediately, however, whatever discordant notions might arise at mention of an octet of ladies having a ding-dong.

This blue clad band played Beethoven's Ninth and Purcel's Trumpet Voluntary, Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring and Alleluia, Sing to Jesus and in every respect rang true. Like the Northumbrian pipers in last week's column from St Mary's Cathedral in Newcastle they were enchantingly, hauntingly, brilliant.

"We're not nearly so serious as we look," someone said. "It's just that you have to concentrate so hard."

On a scale of one to a mile, Lynesack doesn't exist at all. The Ordnance Survey gets really OS before that dot of a place is acknowledged.

It's just beyond Butterknowle, in west Durham, once comprised of church, vicarage, house and school, latterly the home of the much lamented Butterknowle Brewery.

Woodland and Copley are thereabouts, too, the civil parish still known as Lynesack and (whisper it) Softley, the population recently much diminished.

The ringers were formed ("set away" they say in those parts) by Dorothy Butt, energetic wife of a former vicar for whom it had long been an ambition.

Unable to learn the ropes, they at first played by numbers - the old one-two. Now they really know the score, all read music, have played in Durham Cathedral, at the MetroCentre, for countless local organisations and, recently, in the Bowes Museum at Barnard Castle - "in the ceramics room, along with the other ancient relics," notes the parish magazine, jovially.

(The magazine also records that they were there from 11am until 4.30pm, playing three sessions. "We were rather disappointed when we read the review in the Teesdale Mercury stating that there had been a short performance.")

Sunday marked harvest festival, too, the church as bright and as vivid as the column's birthday tie, though possibly just a touch more tasteful.

Michael Shearing, vicar both of Butterknowle and the adjoining parish of Cockfield, made reference not only to the tie but to the "dubious distinction" of having taught English in Hartlepool in the 1970s alongside the column's kid brother.

Ordained in 1966, he taught for 21 years and played cricket for Hartlepool II, becoming priest-in-charge of Wheatley Hill in 1987, then for two years Vicar of St Nic's in Sunderland, moving to Teesdale shortly before Lynesack's 150th anniversary.

Since there are but 20 minutes between us, last Sunday was our kidder's birthday, too. He remembered Mike Shearing affectionately.

Allen Armstrong, the pony tailed churchwarden, was familiarly welcoming; Joan Simpson, the ringers' secretary, said that if they'd known the occasion they'd have played Happy Birthday. They'd made a cake of their own, anyway, passed in pieces round the congregation.

Mr Shearing, comfortably constructed, talked in his sermon of his own school days in Croydon and of a "ferocious" teacher called Mr Day who had built a sort of electric shock machine with which to charge the recalcitrant.

"I always thought that my ginger hair stood out enough without it standing on end," he said, addressing the theme of "Change". Perhaps the instrument of torture might have been employed upon the congregation of Lynesack, circa 1920.

The vicar also read The Bright Field, a poem by another pretty formidable character called R S Thomas, a Welshman and Anglican minister - "a fierce, aggressive sort of man whose intensity could be quite bruising" - who died two weeks ago.

If the Christian priest had Christian names, not even his obituarists knew them. What they agreed on more than anything was that he hated the English.

At Lynesack on a glorious English autumn morning we sang All Things Bright and Beautiful and Be Thou My Vision, prayed for those "for whom it has been a very hard year", were buoyantly played out by the handbell ringers to the tune of what at Timothy Hackworth juniors was known as The Fling at Mallow.

They are Helen Moss, Joan Simpson, Dorothy Dowson, Vera Dalkin, Irene Armstrong, Evelyn Pattinson, Jean Redfearn and Jean Neal - "the foreigner," she said, and a southern accent confirmed as much.

Afterwards they stopped for a chat, each chiming in as bell ringers might, each clearly happy to be there. (Once there were men, too: "they chickened out," someone said.)

They dress in royal blue hand-knit waistcoats - identically, as ringers also might - have a repertoire of over 50 tunes, wear white gloves like a snooker referee or (say) Princess Margaret, practise diligently for two hours each week and play at most services.

Afterwards they were off for a celebratory lunch at the Malt Shovel, before returning for yet another musical interlude.

"We're becoming quite well known in our own way," said Joan Simpson. "At last we're putting Lynesack on the map."

l Sunday services at St John's, Lynesack are usually at 11am and 6pm. The Rev Michael Shearing is on (01388) 718447. Joan Simpson, who deals with bookings for the handbell ringers is at Thistlemead, Quarry Lane, Butterknowle, Co Durham DL13 5LM (01388 718662).