THERE'S a bit in the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy about a land of wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates and things which translated - says David Armstrong - mean "Divvent forget your browtins up."

David's browtins up were in Crook, so the resemblance will at once be obvious.

His grandfather was a pit deputy and Sunday School superintendent on Stanley Hill Top, his father head teacher of Billy Row primary school and a long serving Methodist local preacher.

"Me dad did things differently from me, mind, preached at Waterhouses harvest festival 17 years running. I did it two years, then decided they'd heard me quite enough."

His uncle Ernie became vice-president of the Methodist Conference and deputy Speaker of the House of Commons; his cousin Hilary, North-West Durham MP and Government chief whip, has done a bit of preaching, too.

Not least physically, the Armstrongs are peas in a pod. They all support Sunderland, too.

"I wouldn't be here today but for people like that," he said. "They supported the miners' lodge, the Co-op, the Labour Party, the Methodist church and the Primitive Methodist chapel. That passage from Deuteronomy is the reading I'll have at my funeral."

Last Sunday was his swansong, though by no means his funeral. There's much life in the lad yet.

After leading 1,878 services over 41 years as an accredited local preacher - more than half at chapels which have now closed, every sermon written down word for word - he is stepping down from the pulpit two weeks before his 70th birthday.

"Two weeks?" said Keith Pearce, superintendent minister on the Barnard Castle circuit. "We can get another six services out of him before then."

The Methodists call it being on the plan. For David, Sundays will go according to plan no longer.

Sometimes he'd preached three times in a day, twice conducted baptisms. One was at the long closed little chapel at Witton Junction, where the railways for Crook and for Consett diverged.

"I hadn't the right book or anything, I just did it. I've worried about that poor bairn all my life," he said.

David became head of Deerness Valley comprehensive in Ushaw Moor and a national figure in the NUT. He now lives in Barney - Startforth, anyway - where he is a local councillor.

"I decided several years ago to pack up when I was 70. People go on far too long, whether it's the church, the Labour party or local government."

His final service was at Barnard Castle Methodist church. That its start synchronised exactly with the first ball of the fourth day of the fourth Test appeared not to have affected the attendance.

The church is transformed since last we were there, though a planned visit earlier this year still had to be abandoned when the pipes burst.

The large reception area is colourful, functional and warmly welcoming, the church effectively marrying old and new, an overhead screen projecting hymn words and other necessary information to the faithful.

For all that some of us can see, of course, it may as well be the previous day's football results. Thoughtfully, they provide clear print hymn books as well.

There, too, was Bill Bartle, whom last we'd seen one perishingly glorious Easter morning for a sunrise service around Captain Cook's monument, above Great Ayton.

Bill recalled that a friend of his was being baptised in the North Sea at South Shields at precisely the same dawning moment. He could hardly have been colder.

David, decidedly dapper, was even wearing a tie. "You complained last time I didn't," he said. That was a football match, though.

Looking much younger than his years - probably the haircut - he remains vigorous in both speech and body language, what modernists might call an interactive preacher. He's welcoming to visitors, famously good with children, even announces that someone has passed her driving test first time.

"It took me three goes. I have to say that driving tests, O-levels, A-levels and degrees are all getting easier."

His final theme is confidence - "I know that I don't just have to hope for the best, I know that Jesus loves me and loves you. That's enough confidence for me." His choice of hymns, preacher's prerogative, includes O Happy Day.

It is by no means, of course, a reference to the preacher's last amen.

His final sermon is brief and incisive - "a model of succinctness," says Keith Pearce - his admirers numerous.

"He's always been so encouraging, so good at putting things across. It's a bit of a mystery why he's packing in but he'll be very greatly missed," says William Bainbridge, from Egglestone.

"He's been wonderful on this circuit," says Anita Bainbridge. "Always remembers names and faces, does so much that people don't know about."

"A very interesting preacher and a very good councillor," says Mary Lowes. "David does so much in the community."

True to his browtins up, David insists he won't be going back on his decision. Keith Pearce isn't sure. "I think he'll yield to temptation, I think we'll see him again," he tells the congregation.

"At any rate, I very much hope so."

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