Working model

WHATEVER happened on Christmas Day in the workhouse, on New Year’s Day the inmates – as still they were called – really did seem to get a shift off.

Thus it was that on Monday January 3, 1910 – 100 years ago last weekend – The Northern Echo all but overflowed with reports of what might in a later generation have been called Workers’ Playtime.

In the Darlington workhouse they’d been entertained by the Mayor and Mayoress – Alderman and Mrs Prior, doubtless as in commitment – at Sedgefield they’d dined on rabbits provided by Lord Boyne while the poor of Chester-le-Street were entertained by Sir Lindsay Wood, though whether there were rabbits is, sadly, unrecorded.

So it continued. It was as if some Edwardian Mandelson had been employed to spin the unalloyed delights of institutional existence, work for idle hands.

The downside, as our Ferryhill readers may have grumbled at the time, was that the village’s new Primitive Methodist chapel had also been opened on January 1, 1910 – built for £1,160, able to seat 384 people, replacing a much smaller church – and the Echo offered not so much as a column-filling fleabite with which to mark the occasion.

The new PM chapel in Seaham Harbour opened its doors the same afternoon. At least they got four lines.

Back then, that mid-Durham mining area had six or seven chapels – the Bethel and the Broom, Dean Bank, East Howle, the Central, the Westcott, the Zion and maybe one or two others – now only the former Primitive Methodist remains, yon end of the market place.

Last Sunday, they gathered to celebrate its centenary. It was time for the Echo to make amends.

A IMED at broadening its community base, the chapel underwent a £210,000 refurbishment in 2006 – even the Age Concern keep fit group meets there now – further glorified by last year’s £90,000 roof replacement.

The service was at 6pm, the tea at four, the mood of jollity and of celebration further enhanced by news that Manchester United had lost in the FA Cup, and no matter that it was to Leeds who mayn’t be everyone’s favourite second team, either.

The tables overflowed. “Take some home for supper,” they urged.

Ferryhill may indeed be one of those happy County Durham communities which believes in four square meals a a day – breakfast, dinner, tea and supper – with maybe a bite of something before going to bed.

Mostly they are elderly; snow had decreased their numbers. Had it trapped us there for six months, as at one point seemed entirely possible, it’s unlikely that any would have perished for want of nourishment.

Among those still vigorously in attendance was Fred Haswell, 88, whose father helped build the chapel, who himself was a steward for more than 50 years and who a week tomorrow will deliver his final sermon as a Methodist local preacher.

Save for wartime RAF service, he never left Ferryhill. “The country had got itself into a bit of bother.

They wanted me to get them out of it again,” he said.

His first chapel memories were of Sunday School anniversaries when they’d erect a stage and everyone was expected to fragment his piece: I am a little soldier I’m only four years old I’m here to serve Lord Jesus And to do as I am told.

H E also remembered the annual trip to the seaside, Alderman Benfold there to hand sixpence and a bag of cakes to each of the bairns. “You thought you were royalty,” said Fred.

He is himself but a bairn, however, compared to Arthur Bulman – organist at Ferryhill for 50 years, at Ferryhill Station for a long time before that and seemingly untroubled by losing a thumb in a work accident when he was 18.

Arthur will be 96 next month. “My hands are still all right,” he said. “I’ll be playing this organ for as long as I can sit on that stool. You could say it’s my hobby. I just love playing the organ.”

There, too, was John Oyston – belonged the Baptists, it’s said – but attended the Methodists each Sunday evening and every week can be seen in Ferryhill market place selling War Cry for the Salvation Army.

Bill Tate, Ferryhill’s minister from 1958 to 1962 and again from 1989 to 1996, now lives in retirement just a couple of miles down the road.

“They always said that if a Methodist minister did something wrong he got stationed to the Shetland Islands,” said Bill, affectionately.

“With me it must have been Ferryhill, but they’ve always been such friendly, supportive people.”

His wife Kathleen is church council secretary and had written a short centenary history, though it wasn’t for sale until afterwards. “If I sell them now,” said Kathleen, “they’ll read them during the service.”

FRED Haswell had recalled when 150 or more would attend on Sunday evenings, when 200 would be in Sunday School, when Dean Bank had 350 kids in Sunday School.

Now between 40 and 50 are present, the service led by the Reverend Michael Pullan, precious few under 60. There isn’t a Sunday School at all.

“I know lots of people who were baptised here, married here and expect to be carried out from here,” Fred said.

“It’s just a matter of catching them for all the bits in between.”

It’s a great occasion for all that, hymns ranging from Hark the Herald Angels – it’s still Christmas – to Blessed Assurance and perhaps the most rousing rendition of And Can It Be in the 100 years and two days of Ferryhill chapel’s existence.

“It was always a good singing chapel,” Bill Tate had said. “How am I supposed to follow that?” asks Mr Pullan, about to begin his address.

He speaks of the continuing journey, of community and commitment, of the need to be thankful for the past but to focus on the future.

Still faithful, still friendly, still thinking ahead, they’re urged to take a doggy bag before they go. As may never have been reported on New Year’s Day 1910, Ferryhill’s working well.