True faith?

FOR reasons not wholly unconnected with the grab-agrandee laws of libel, it would be unwise to suggest that the Reverend Canon Robert McTeer was being economical with the truth, though goodness knows there is a great deal of such thriftiness about.

Canon McTeer’s a good egg, an At Your Service irregular, the dedicated and much-loved parish priest at St Helen Auckland. He just told a little fib – a fibula – that’s all.

I’d rung to seek permission to attend the service of thanksgiving to mark the end of a ten-year restoration programme at the partly 12th Century church.

“It’ll just be a straightforward 1662 Evensong,” said the vicar – and at that point, like Pinnochio, his nose may so greatly have grown that it stopped the traffic on the A689 outside.

Nothing about worship at St Helen’s may ever be said to be straightforward. It’s Anglo-Catholic, what folk call High Church, a practised fusion of cense and sensibility.

Everything is carefully considered, coruscatingly choreographed and musically magnificent.

Last Sunday was more memorable yet, the 150-year-old organ sounding and resounding after a major restoration of its own, evensong splendidly sung by the St Anne Singers, the Bishop of Durham in fine fettle from the pulpit.

The presence of the Right Reverend Tom Wright was, in truth, one of the evening’s biggest and most pleasant surprises because in six years as bishop – and with Auckland Castle just three miles away – he’d never previously set foot inside St Helen’s.

“I’ve many times come along the road and waved and prayed as I passed. It’s fine to be here at last,”

he said.

The church, serving the growing communities of West Auckland, Tindale Crescent and St Helen’s Auckland, is one of those parishes which sought alternative episcopal oversight – in this case from the “flying”

Bishop of Beverley – after the Church of England’s decision to ordain women priests. They fret still more greatly at the prospect of female bishops.

It’s almost appropriate that Bishop Tom in a conciliatory address speaks of the lion lying down with the lamb – he even essays a joke about it – though who is lion and who lamb it would be impossible (and unwise) to suggest.

The joke’s about the Los Angeles zoo which finally has coaxed the two animals side by size. “The only trouble,”

says Bishop Tom, “is that they need a new lamb every day.”

THE good folk of St Helen’s realised getting on 15 years ago, much the same time as the new vicar arrived, that their church had seen much better days. “It was a very dark place, both physically and metaphorically,” says Val Bryden, one of the churchwardens.

The cost put at around £400,000, work has included floodlighting, electrical rewiring, new oak pews, major redecoration, damp course, heating, sacristy refurbishment and, of course, the organ.

A leaflet with the order of service talks of the organ’s tubular pneumatic action, of super octave and mixture stops, of great soundboards and swell soundboards and (a common problem) of wind leakage.

Philip Hall, the organist, puts it more simply. “It was completely shot,” he says.

The money was raised, the work done, without taking their eye off the global ball. They have also raised £5,000 for a church in Kibi, Ghana, another £2,000 to help pay Ghanaian priests, £10,000 for the Church of England Children’s Society.

“Canon McTeer would never let us just think of ourselves,” says Mrs Bryden.

The church overflows, some even on the floor. “It’s a good thing we aren’t subject to health and safety legislation,” says Canon McTeer.

There’s a group of local councillors, too, perhaps anxious to avoid the European election results.

Among those whom it is a particular pleasure to see – for the first time in 34 years – is Father Ross Naylor, an Australian who was St Helen’s curate in the 1970s and who later became a Roman Catholic priest.

Recently stood down after ten years as an Australian air force chaplain, he had been awarded the Order of Australia for his front line work – mainly with orphans – in East Timor.

Ross unsuccessfully tried to decline it, the refusal refused. We head for the pub afterwards; the order of Australia is, as always, a beer.

The service is as magnificent as those who know St Helen’s would expect, Canon McTeer anxious to give credit to his congregation and they to him. “It’s all down to his vision, inspiration and wit,” says Mrs Bryden.

The vicar says that God had a hand in it, too.

The bishop wisely declines to single out individuals, speaks of the nearness of heaven and of Yuri Gagarin’s reaction when, first man in space, he failed to bump into God up there. “It’s probably just as well, really,” adds Bishop Tom.

He also reveals that he had two years’ organ lessons before – “stupidly”

– giving it up. “I almost brought along my Bach for Beginners, in the hope that they might give me a go.”

It ends with a “solemn” Te Deum, so solemn you almost want to dance to it, the organist roundly applauded.

Afterwards there’s the sort of feast in the parish centre for which Anglo- Catholic parishes have also become renowned.

Philip Hall’s still playing up the organ – “I hope I’m still as good after 150 years” – Val Bryden talks of the need to build on the bricks and mortar in other areas of the church’s ministry. Already they’ve a youth and community worker on a threeyear contract; next summer they hope for a curate.

It’s all been mystical, musical, memorable – and that, Fr Robert, is the truth.