At Your Service: 'It's just like the good old days'

TEN days after the Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle had led centenary celebrations at the Roman Catholic church of Our Lady and St Thomas in Willington, the At Your Service column - better late - pitched up, too.

Fr John Reid, perhaps the only Sunderland supporting priest in the diocese - Hexham and Newcastle's clergy appear almost universally to be black and white - announces the visitor's presence before Mass. Maria Dover, if none other, is delighted.

Her mother's funeral service had been held at the church the week previously. Joan Dover, bless her, was a Mike Amos fan.

"She never missed your columns," says Maria. "She'll be saying 'Eeh, fancy that, this one must be for me'. She'll be chuffed to bits....."

Justifiably described in the following week's Auckland Chronicle as "exceedingly fine", the new building was dedicated on July 5, 1905. Church and presbytery had cost around £5,000, met partly by £700 collected in sixpences. The seats still hadn't come.

Next day, The Northern Echo also reported that three Italian ice cream sellers had been fined five shillings apiece at Chester-le-Street for breaking the Lord's Day Observance Act - the headline read "War against Italians" - that Matthew Bowman of Evenwood had also been fined five bob for being drunk in charge of a horse and cart at seven o'clock in the morning and that "a peahen had taken up abode among the pheasantries at Flessendale, Hambledon Plain."

All the news that's fit to print, or simply exchanging pheasantries?

Willington, like much of south-west Durham, had been built on coal. An "inconspicuous" chapel-school had been built in 1877 to serve the town's growing Irish Catholic population - the school still survives - the church's replacement inspired by Fr Aloysius Hosten, a Belgian who remained parish priest from 1877 until his death in 1923.

The dome was said by the Auckland Chronicle to be "somewhat imposing for a country church", the tower had tubular bells (as had Mr Mike Oldfield), the wonderful murals behind the altar were the work of the Belgian artist Louis Beyaert-Carlier.

Said in Dr Leo Gooch's centenary history to have been "free from recusant gentry influence" - working class, in other words - the parish flourishes, now as then.

There was a football team - Temperance Shamrock - a League of the Cross, an Ancient Order of Hibernians. One hundred years later, Mass attendance remains more than twice the diocesan average per head of Catholic population.

Shirt sleeve order, around 100 are present last Sunday morning; another 100 or so had attended the vigil Mass the previous evening. Bordered by recently rediscovered banners, the church looks lovely.

On a wall by the door are injunctions against mobile phones, chewing gum and chattering. There's no one phoning a friend or gum in cheek, anyway.

The organist plays Be Still for the Presence of the Lord; if it's a hint, it's unavailing. Catholics, here as in most places, are also notoriously bad time keepers. Some even arrive after the sermon.

Were it Brancepeth colliery, upon which Willington's coal black economy principally was founded, they'd have been quartered - if not necessarily hanged and drawn.

The service begins with Morning Has Broken, Fr Reid's subsequent homily touching upon Eleanor Farjeon, the hymn's composer, and her love of nature. Seven young servers are immaculately attired.

THERE are prayers for the Muslim community - "That they may worship their God in peace, and show peace to others" - for the London bomb victims, the emergency services and the people of Iraq.

The Mass is over in 45 minutes, the talk thereafter of Willington's wonderful community spirit. Mary Teresa Alderson, 80, says she was born in Crook, retired there, but found it wasn't the same and quotes the scripture about a prophet not being without honour except in his own country.

"This is a beautiful church, really peaceful, and the people of Willington are lovely. Everyone says good morning."

Gerard Giblin, retired Crook bookie, has been coming to the church for 60 years. His uncle was a priest - "I suppose I couldn't have done much else," he says, but loves it, nonetheless.

Fr Reid, born in Castle Eden - "when it was Nimmo's 4X country" - returns to the presbytery to make coffee. His Sunderland scarf hangs from the coat pegs, a Tow Law Town scarf from the 1998 FA Vase final at Wembley - he's parish priest of Tow Law, too - is draped over one of the pictures.

He also keeps hens - "The girls," he calls them, and may call the marauding fox something else entirely. "We've even caught it on closed circuit television, it gets up to all sorts of things."

He's been at Willington since 1991, loves it. "The parish is in good heart, the community spirit generally excellent, the children's liturgy thriving. It's just like the good old days here."

The offer to stay for lunch is reluctantly declined - other fish to fry, more columns to erect. This one's for Joan Dover.

l Willington's weekend Masses are at 6pm on Saturdays and 10.30am on Sundays. "Nazareth in Willington," Dr Leo Gooch's excellent history of Roman Catholicism in Willington, costs £2 from the presbytery.