AMONG the particular responsibilities of learned columns such as this one is from time to time to explain the meaning of arcane ecclesiastical terms with which the general reader may be unfamiliar.

One of these is "benefice service", or sometimes "united benefice service". It is a Church of England expression, meaning "lie-in".

A united benefice is a group of parishes or churches usually - for we live in straitened circumstances - served by one priest. On special occasions, or on the blessed fifth Sunday of the month, all meet under the same roof. That's the idea, anyway.

The terrible temptation to remain abed, should there be no church service between home and the paper shop, may grow horns on the morning when the clocks go forward and loom larger yet when it's hardly stopped raining for a fortnight.

At 9.50am on Mothering Sunday, the Tempter - should there really be a capital T? - seems to have prevailed at the 13th century church of St Mary, Wycliffe.

"There's always a rush about a minute to ten," forecasts Christopher Cowper, the rector, and in the event is rather ahead of their time.

By ten past, getting on 50 are present, including 15 or so bairns of all shapes and sizes and the column's old friend Geoff Moody, once a polliss in Barnard Castle - "an old-style polliss, they don't have them any more", he says - and before that in Woodland, in west Durham.

Also in attendance is the delightful Maisie Humphries from Richmond, six the Sunday previously, whose weekend stay at the Rectory is not unconnected with the fact that the engaging Mr Cowper has offered a proper Christian burial to Freckles, her goldfish.

"I just said a simple, appropriate prayer," he says. "I think Maisie was worried that her father was going to flush Freckles down the toilet."

Wycliffe is an originally Saxon hamlet of hall, old rectory and four or five cottages on the seething south bank of the Tees, south-east of Barnard Castle.

John Wycliffe, who was raised there, inspired both the first English translation of the Bible and the scorn (and worse) of some of his peers. As often is the case, he is much better regarded today.

The church is in the County of Durham but in the Diocese of Ripon and Leeds, thought to date from around 1260 and Grade I listed. They had John Grundy visit once, him off the telly, though (it's said) he didn't have his whiskers on.

Mr Cowper, assisted by his no-less splendid wife Christine - also a priest - has a benefice which also includes Barningham, Hutton Magna, Scargill and sundry other settlements either side of the A66.

Their car has conked out on the way, victim of the floods, a sympathetic parishioner happily on hand to drive them home again for the spare.

In the porch, a handsomely calligraphical scroll announces "How lovely of you to come" and in a style both eternal and maternal talks of how an old lady enjoys company and how any lady - "Young or old" - can look better by attractive adornment.

Filled with historical artefacts going back to the 7th century, St Mary's needs little additional adornment.

"We don't keep it open because it's so wonderful," says Thelma Jackson, one of the churchwardens, the apparent contradiction entirely understandable. Someone even pinched the door scraper.

In the 1990s they raised over £100,000 for a new steel roof, subsequent maintenance worries much eased when they were left a house by Audrey Keilar, a maiden lady of Thirsk, with the stipulation that the Church Council could do whatever they wanted with the proceeds.

Unfortunately, says Christopher, it didn't run to giving the Rector and his wife a weekend in Paris.

"It was a bit of a mystery, no-one seemed to have heard of her," says Thelma, though when part of the legacy was used to restore the churchyard they discovered her grandparents' grave and made the connection.

The house sale raised £87,170. The only downside, says David Graham - the other warden - is less incentive to have fund raising social events.

"I used to enjoy the sherry mornings. The farmers around here would do anything for a free glass of sherry." (The farmers would also know, of course, that there's no such thing as a free glass of sherry.)

The 35 minute service has been devised by Christine, a former teacher, whose son-in-law has given their expectant daughter a Mothering Sunday present of a cheque for a charity which provides birth care in the Third World.

"I know mothers-in-law are supposed to be awkward, but it moved me to tears," says Christine.

It proves a thoughtful and enjoyable occasion with hymns like Morning Has Broken and One More Step, the theme both earthly mother and Mother Church.

There are prayers for mothers in Iraq and the Middle East, for mothers struggling to make ends meet and at the end of their tethers, for their "brothers and sisters" in Sri Lanka.

(The order of service actually says "bothers and sisters". It is possible to suppose that it's a misprint.)

The organist plays English Country Garden as the children collect daffodils, and little nosegays, for their mums.

Geoff Moody says how lovely it is to see the bairns enjoying themselves in church - though there are those, of course, who would argue that all of us are still bairns (and some much more than others).

Little Maisie, Freckles' demise temporarily forgotten, sings a little song and skips about with her flowers, her picture abundantly telling the story.

The column now has a break until Palm Sunday. Until then, mum's the word.