Vital organ

Faced as usual with Spennymoor services at 8am and 10am and with Whitworth sandwiched between, she arrives – fully vested – at 8.58am.

The organist plays O for the Wings of a Dove. It is doubtless coincidental.

Whitworth, most famously, is the parish of Bounder Bobby Shafto though Mark, his forebear, seems to have been a bit of a lad, too.

That gentleman, who bought the estate in 1652, was known (it’s said) as Six Bottle Mark on account of his fondness for port wine – though some accounts reckon it was only Three. The phrase about port and storm comes to mind regardless.

The church guide describes his memorial plaque, in Latin, as “delicate”.

Translated, it reads: “He was a most estimable man, in all his life amiable, an example of piety towards God, liberality towards the poor, hilarity among friends, humanity towards all, easier to be praised than imitated.”

There may have been very much worse epitaphs than that.

Many centuries older, two effigies lie outside the west wall, their origin mysterious. One, thought to be of a knight, may be from around 1290.

The other, perhaps his lady, is reckoned to have had a cat at her feet.

Maybe she fell over it.

The effigies’ restoration is Whitworth’s next project – but we’ve not yet mentioned the present one.

THE first Whitworth church, it’s reckoned, was built around 1183, about the same time as the famous fallow deer arrived in the adjoining park. An early-19th Century replacement, erected with flat roof and sash windows by the parish priest, was described subsequently as “a hideous looking structure” and restored 50 years later. Robert Gray, who became parish priest in 1834, wrote that a great portion of his parish and of Byers Green were “no better than infidels”. Tudhoe, he added, was in much the same state – “with a little leaven of Romanism”.

Gray later became Bishop of Cape Town. His wife knitted Dr Livingstone a mosquito net.

The present church is simply lovely.

There’s a Shafto family vault beneath the chancel, another in a graveyard described in James J Dodd’s 1897 History of Spennymoor as “the ideal place to be buried in”.

The organ, built in 1886 by Harrison Brothers of Durham, cost £150.

Now they face a bill of £40,000 (ineluctably including VAT) for its complete restoration and have enthusiastically and effectively set about raising the money.

“You can have a church without a choir, but not without an organ. It just isn’t the same,” says Verna McEneny, a churchwarden.

Lynda Gough, meanwhile, had to help find what folk call millions – and may only slightly be exaggerating – to relaunch the church hall and community facilities at St Paul’s.

“It wouldn’t have been fair to get her involved with this one as well,”

says Vivienne Lowe, leading the project.

“We offered to do it ourselves”.

So far they have about £25,000, £10,000 from fundraising efforts and donations, the rest from trusts. Work – “an act of faith,” says Vivienne – begins in November. Verna’s equally confident they’ll reach their target.

“In Whitworth we have a saying: “If God wants us to have it, we’ll get it.”

AROUND 25 are present, just one from the parish and she from a group of five roadside houses known locally as Newtown because that, apparently, is what it was meant to be. The rest just didn’t get off the ground, though they still used to send bus loads from Newcastle University, it’s reckoned, just to admire the hand-made bricks.

The parish also includes Page Bank, across the Wear, a once-populous pit village until swept away, effectively and entirely, by the great flood of November 5, 1967.

Page Bank had previously been in Willington parish, but was transferred for what the tabloids might suppose an undisclosed fee.

“Page Bank funerals” remain a regular source of income while the church is also much in demand for weddings – not least since the residential requirement was nationally eased to something akin to the statutory qualification for inclusion in the Republic of Ireland football team.

Lynda, from Darlington and once a nurse at the Memorial Hospital, had felt called to the Church, but initially wanted only to be a deacon because she was opposed to women priests. By no means for the first time I find myself wondering where the Church of England would be without them.

She begins her sermon surprisingly.

“It hasn’t been the best of starts, but I guess it’s not the worst of starts, either.” It’s a reference, inescapably, to the previous evening Green-gaffe game with the US.

Lynda recalls that England’s first match of the 1966 World Cup was also drawn, talks of the importance of getting the right people in the right positions, recalls – “it shows my age” – Mr Nobby Stiles.

“Perhaps you could say he wasn’t in the top 11 players in England in 1966, but look at what he brought to the team. The secret is in motivation, blending. Everyone plays his part.”

Michelangelo also gets a mention alongside his countryman, Capello.

There’s further talk of “Islamic commentators”, though whether Asia’s answer to John Motson I forget.

Lynda and the church team, Whitworth united, will be back for another fundraising event – strawberries in church – that very afternoon.

They’re a winning squad. The organ sounds stronger by the minute.

■ Whitworth church invites sponsorship of a foot of organ pipe – it has about 400 – for a minimum of £5. Cheques made payable to “Whitworth Parish Church” – with “organ appeal” on the back – may be sent to Mrs Verna McEneny, 5 Kirkdale, Spennymoor, Co Durham DL16 6UH.