Cakes - but no strong ale

There'd also been a weekend long flower festival, garlanded by the ladies of Peterlee Flower Club - "A long time," said the Rt Rev Stephen Sykes, "since I've seen a flower festival of such great quality."

They called the pit the Nack, something to do with the nickey-nack sound of the nearby windmill. They call the church the Miners' Church - built on coal and still carrying the scars and bitter-sweet memories of that black economy.

At the east end is a memorial garden to the 164 men and boys who died at Seaham Colliery in an explosion in 1880 and to the 26 who perished there nine years earlier; on the walls hang lodge banners; near his once-accustomed seat sat the Rev Peter Holland, Vicar during the 1984 miners' strike and a priest unafraid to get his hands dirty.

Christ Church stood squarely with the miners, organised twice weekly lunches which could feed up to 1,000 people each time, accommodated almost 1,500 at Christmas.

"I was Father Christmas, had 500 children on my knee, lost my voice at the end of it," recalled Frank Taylor, a church council member and miner for 34 years.

Peter Holland, now retired to Teesdale, reckoned the strike both his most memorable experience and the time he felt closest to God. Not everyone thanked him for his compassion.

"The strike was a time when the people of the coal communities showed that they cared for one another and were prepared to suffer for what they believed in.

"It was hard but it was lovely, the sense of humour was terrific, but what we did was also very controversial.

"The management didn't like me at all. I had some run-ins with the polliss and with clergy from other churches.

"We were very isolated at the time, but for another two or three fellow parish priests in east Durham, the rest of the clergy just stood back and kept a safe distance. What is sad is that they haven't retained the wheel, or the big tower, or anything. It's like they want to forget coal mining ever existed."

Frances Anne Vane Tempest, was just 19 and already owner of extensive colliery interests in the Pittington and East Rainton areas when, in 1819, she married the Marquis of Londonderry, a 40-year-old widower. A High Court action by one of her guardians failed to stop the union going ahead. The Marquis bought the Manor of Seaham in 1821, opening the harbour soon afterwards.

Stephen Sykes, a former Bishop of Ely who is now an assistant bishop of Durham and a professor at Durham University, had clearly done his homework on her - but wasn't sure, he said, that he would have warmed to her brand of aristocratic paternalism.

Her new husband was ambassador to the Imperial Court of Austria, known as the Golden Peacock because of his love of dressing exotically; Benjamin Disraeli reckoned the marchioness the finest lady in London.

'She was a very imperious character," said Bishop Sykes, "Vane by name and vain by nature, but her husband doted on her."

Disraeli also noted that Frances Anne preferred to stay at Seaham Hall - "surrounded by the German Ocean, her pits and her blast furnaces" - than in the family "palace" of Wynyard, 20 miles away near Stockton.

Seaham Hall, of course, wasn't exactly a colliery back-to-back with an outside netty, either. "It is a remarkable place and the hostess a remarkable woman," wrote the Prime Minister, himself clearly dizzied by the beautiful chatelaine.

In a locomotive shed at Chilton Moor, the marchioness also threw a huge banquet for her 4,000 workers, vast sides of beef and a ton of plum pudding washed down by 50 barrels of strong beer and with the choir of Durham Cathedral singing grace.

Deputed so to do, a miner called James Cuthbertson told by way of vote of thanks of his marrers' "tableau of loving and grateful hearts" - the marchioness further rewarded with a standing ovation.

Durham miners spoke well in those days said Bishop Sykes, slyly, but supposed that, 50 barrels of strong ale notwithstanding, "a careless and slack minded mine owner wouldn't have received that standing ovation."

Peter Holland disagrees. "I think they were very hard and cruel. While the Londonderrys were throwing parties up above, men were dying down below."

It was a splendid service, two rows of civic dignitaries seated where perhaps the Londonderrys once held court. Eddie Bell, Seaham's mayor, had been a Christ Church chorister and became the Evenwood polliss, playing both cricket and football for Evenwood.

We sang The Church's One Foundation and Lord For the Years, heard the parable of the mustard seed, gave thanks for 150 years and retired to drink sherry - no strong beer - to cut the cake and talk of the bad old days.

Congregations had fallen sharply during the strike, said Frank Taylor - "Though the church and pit came together like no-one could have imagined, they weren't all miners, they didn't agree with what we were doing" - but were starting slowly to recover.

The Rev Paul Harrison, now in Washington, becomes vicar in October when the parish unites with Dalton-le-Dale.

"When you think that we were the only town in the country with three big pits (Seaham, Dawdon and Vane Tempest) it's amazing how we've recovered," said Alan Charlton, another former collier and church council member.

Collieries exhausted, vigour replenished, they look confidently to the future. A great occasion; Seaham is believing.