Mass appeal

WE’D last been to St James’, Coundon, in December 2002, the launch of the church’s roof appeal.

Clutching a leek, for reasons which even now don’t seem entirely apparent, Father Gary Nicholson was pictured out on the tiles.

The headline was “High hopes”, and in two words said a great deal. It wasn’t only that they were working from the top down, but that St James’ is vertiginously Anglo- Catholic, so high that you need giddy pills.

Inevitably there are comparisons with St James the Great in Darlington, an Anglican church which (as previous columns have supposed) overlooks the Basilica.

Fr Gary declines them. “We’re on the coach to Rome,” he says. “They’re travelling Eurostar, first class.”

The Easter Sunday mass is pretty heady, nonetheless. There’s incense, sprinkling of holy water, votive candles, Hail Mary, much genuflection and signing of the cross, not only bells and smells but bells and whistles, too. More of that in a moment.

Coruscatingly arrayed, Fr Gary wears a 300-year-old chasuble that he bought on eBay and atop it a yet more splendoured cope which took his former parishioners in Spennymoor two years to embroider. He’s also been to Poland to buy vestments.

Around his waist there’s a cincture, or girdle, on his head a zuchetto, which sounds like a favourite pudding in an Italian restaurant but is an ecclesiastical skull cap.

He’s from Sunniside, above Crook, gained a psychology degree and a higher education qualification, taught at Aycliffe School (or whatever by then it was called) before training for the priesthood.

He came to Coundon, the church he now calls the Holy House on the Hill, nine years ago. “There were 20 buckets just to catch all the water coming through the roof,” he recalls. “It was clear we had to do something.”

Like the parish priest, the 135-yearold church now looks magnificent – and, high fashion, Fr Gary is a man who clearly dresses for the part.

AS with that old headline, the occasion is doubly meaningful.

It’s not only a glorious Easter morning, but the launch of the church’s Learning Porch, a community and educational exercise that was part of the Raising the Roof programme.

They’ve generated getting on £300,000, £70,000 of it through efforts in and around the former pit village in south-west Durham, still need another £75,000 to complete all that’s envisaged. There’s a new toilet and kitchen, too. For a deprived village, says Fr Gary, they’ve done quite wonderfully.

Maybe 60 are present at 9.15am Mass, all properly proud of what’s been achieved but one slightly disappointed because he has misunderstood “At Your Service” for “Are You Being Served?” and apparently expects me to be Mr Rumbold.

A little lad wears a T-shirt proclaiming “Parents for sale”, Jeff Moon has made his usual pilgrimage from Bedale, none appears to be from Coundon Conservative Club FC, an organisation with which in recent years we have had rather more dealings.

Fr Gary thanks them for their Easter cards, notes that they’re almost all the same shade of canary yellow, surmises that they’re a job lot from the Pound Shop. “Don’t worry,” he says, “it’s the thought that counts.”

Appropriately, for such services are carefully and conscientiously choreographed, the first hymn is Lord of the Dance.

There’s a blessing both of the Easter garden and of a couple of baskets of Easter eggs – “which I bought for every member of the congregation,” says Fr Gary, “from the Pound Shop” – and a Gloria accompanied by little whistles with twirly bits on the end.

The practised can almost make a tune out of it. Sheryl Forster sings a splendid solo, This Glorious Eastertide.

The address is impromptu, enthusiastic, almost ecstatic. “There’s been an explosion of life and an explosion of faith that’s bursting out everywhere,” says Fr Gary.

“Everything this day seems bursting to bursting point and you can’t get any more bursting than bursting point.”

It’s a happy mix of ceremonial and Easter exuberance. In the entrance there’s yet more to learn.

THE learning porch, for which they received a £50,000 Heritage Lottery grant, was the vicar’s idea, too. It’s partly a history trail through church and village – Lambeth Palace even found a picture of the original St James’, built in 1834 – partly a nature trail around the surrounding greenery and woodland.

“Churchyards are sanctuaries for the living as well as for the dead,” says one of the panels and just about all they don’t seem to have in there are great crested newts, so rare that usually you can’t stir for the blighters.

Much of the research and artwork has been done by Denise Stewart, a churchwarden, by Freda Staveley and by Barbara Scott, who lives over Butterknowle way and is also the organist.

Denise talks of how greatly the village has rallied around, even those who wouldn’t come to church unless they were carried in feet first, Barbara says how lovely everything looks but also has praise for Fr Gary (who doubtless looks lovely, too.) “He just has a passion for it. He’s uplifted the whole place, socially and spiritually. Everything’s been transformed since he came here and congregations are growing, too.”

The vicar himself talks of his work with the village school, his hopes that a bishop will come at Christmas to bless the revitalised Holy House on the Hill. None is in a hurry to leave; high hopes realised beyond imagination.