Top of the tree

BEARPARK is a former colliery village a couple of miles west of Durham, the surrounding area once home to rather a lot of deer but not – so far as reasonably may be ascertained – to too many grizzlies.

Nearby was the ancient manor house of Beau Repaire, owned by Durham’s monks. Though it may be supposed to translate as “good nick”

it actually meant “beautiful retreat”.

Bearpark, built around the pit after it was sunk in 1872, is thought to be a mispronunciation of Beau Repaire Park. There were eight long terraces, each with 30 houses. Only their mother might have thought them beautiful.

The village now has two churches, Anglican and Methodist, almost across the road from one another. St Edmund’s claim to fame is that, in 15 years of the At Your Service column, it remains the only church about which I’ve written without actually crossing the threshold.

It was September 1996. I was inadvertently late, and they’d started.

Since it seemed rude to interrupt, much of the resultant 1,000-word column was based on a 50-word notice board, that and a bit of research into their saint.

Edmund was being touted as a possible alternative as England’s patron saint to the historically iffy George.

Besides, we added, rumour had it that the altar frontal at St George’s Chapel in Windsor was modelled not on the great dragon killer but on Ms Lily Langtree, who slew them for other reasons.

Last Sunday was a Methodist occasion, a weekend-long Christmas tree festival in a bid to illumine the festive season.

They’re smashing, dedicated people and had worked terrifically hard.

The service was thoughtful and innovative, the trees lovely, the hospitality tremendous, the effect magical.

They’d even put out dozens of extra seats in expectation of fresh faces and may now be pondering if it were a triumph of optimism over realism.

At a guess, they supposed, there were just two people who mightn’t ordinarily have attended Sunday morning service and quite a few who might sometimes have come and hadn’t.

Though they missed an exuberant occasion, is the message of Christmas to be “Well, you tried”, or to be “Close, but no banana?”

ONCE there were three Methodist churches, the Primitives meeting in two houses in Dodds Street but so greatly overflowing on big occasions that they were obliged to gather in the pit granary. The Wesleyans had one of County Durham’s tin chapels – there may be a good book in those – the New Connexion Methodists congregated in what became known as Central Chapel.

The present Methodist church, serving the whole village, was opened 40 years ago. A lugubrious litany on the wall lists the “men and boys” killed at Bearpark colliery before its closure in 1984. There are more than 50.

In several years, three people had been killed in separate accidents. It may have been a mercy to close the coalhouse door.

Its also recorded that a late-19th Century local preacher called John Atkinson would rather walk from Annfield Plain, perhaps ten miles away, than take a trap or train and thus make someone else work on the Sabbath.

THEY’D asked each of the 17 businesses or organisations in the village to give a Christmas tree. Twelve said that they would, ten did.

One’s sponsored by the Royal Balti – described as Bangladeshi, tandoori, halal and pizzeria and clearly a pretty cosmopolitan operation.

“We’ve tried to make the tree look Indian, but I wouldn’t look too closely,”

says Gwen Henderson, the chapel steward.

The NFU Mutual Insurance Society also has a tree – “the farmers have been really thoughtful,” says Gwen – and so has a local care home, the residents responsible for the decoration.

The Thursday Club’s tree is decorated with biscuits, food for thought on how they might spend their afternoons.

The service is led by Linda Kinchenton, training in Durham to be a Methodist deacon. Once a teacher, she felt herself called to church work, she tells the congregation, while awaiting an appendicitis operation.

Around 100 had visited over the weekend, appreciation overflowing the visitors’ book. Probably fewer than 40 are there on Sunday morning.

“It is a bit disappointing,” says Gwen. “I don’t know what we have to do to get people here. It’s just an attempt to bring the spirit of Christmas into the village in a very special way.”

Particularly aiming at the five or six youngsters, Linda retells the story of John the Baptist – all locusts and wild honey – as Bushtucker Trials.

Her props include a jar of honey, a blindfold and a packet of jelly worms. “They’re not to know they aren’t locusts,” she says.

A boy of ten or so, himself called John, volunteers. “You’re a brave lad,” says Linda. A little girl is dancing on the pews.

Hymns embrace the traditional and the more modern, accompanied on the organ by Norman Alderson, who’s also the local undertaker. “My specialities are The Lord’s My Shepherd and Abide With Me,” he says self-effacingly. “I can’t do anything else.”

A plaque on the organ records the service as organist of Jonathan Brown, Norman’s uncle, for 20 years previously. O Come All Ye Faithful appears to have gained an extra verse. Probably one of Charles Wesley’s.

Near the end, a young lady in the congregation is surreptitiously checking her texts, perhaps yet another alternative way of receiving the Christmas message.

The message of Bearpark is that these are trees both of life and hope.

To those good folk and to all, a very happy Christmas.