The event’s named S2 after a couple of saints. It could be subtitled ‘hanging on to your youth.’

APPARENTLY oblivious to the potential outcry from the wildlife lobby, Michael Turnbull liked to claim when Bishop of Durham a decade ago that the best way to get rid of bats in a church was to confirm them.

The inference was that, once confirmed, they’d disappear. Bats tend to hang onto belfries rather longer than the mainstream churches hang onto their kids.

“We can keep them okay until they’re 11, the end of Sunday School, but after that they just seem to vanish into the ether,” says Peter Moore, of St Matthew and St Luke’s church in Darlington.

The church is in Brinkburn Road, serves principally the long rows of late-Victorian terraces known as the Denes, celebrates its 75th anniversary next year and already has a more vigorous youth policy than many. The Boys’ Brigade has 62 members.

What it doesn’t have, since the retirement two years ago of the Reverend Brian Holmes, is a vicar. The diocesan plan is now to have a priest jointly serving St Matthew’s and the village of Heighington, five or six miles away. None is thought to have applied.

Last Sunday afternoon they tried once again to catch them young, a ground-breaking gathering called S2 – not really a service, it was explained – aimed at getting the overtens into church.

Durham Cathedral has been doing something similar, called Go Large, for ten years. This might be supposed Go Tenatively. Go Canny, anyway.

Today’s column should come with the caveat, however, that descriptions of what goes on, especially electronically, may appear a little vague. Even the Book of Revelation seems self-explanatory (and that’s saying something) compared to some of the winking, blinking gadgetry that’s second nature to the young.

S2? “It’s because we have two saints,” says Mavis Jubb, another church official. “Mind, what they’d make of it I really don’t know.”

It’s to start at 3pm. At 2.55pm only about ten are in. “There were nine in my youth group this morning and they all swore they were coming,”

says Pete. “I might as well go home and catch the four o’clock kick-off.”

Ten minutes later there are 32, inevitably weighted towards the distaff side. It’s almost always the same in the Church of England – save, of course, for the bench of bishops.

It begins with loud music: drums, percussion, guitars and gospel songs.

The young uns seem little enthused – not much jigging about as Eric Morecambe (or was it Bobby Thompson?) used to say, not much jumping up and down with their inhibitions in the air. The photographer, however, is tapping her feet like billy-oh.

Norma Town, church council secretary and long-serving former Darlington borough councillor, is blind but by no means deaf. “We thought we should do something for the youngsters,” she says. “I suppose we don’t do enough, but it’s very difficult.

We don’t know what they want.”

Mrs Town, it’s fair to say, doesn’t appear greatly to be enjoying the music. Norman, her guide dog, takes it all lying down, the equanimity for which the breed is renowned.

Thereafter there are all manner of imaginative activities, including a rather dab hand on the grand piano accompanied by some rather ad hoc – shall we say – percussionists.

It may be the first known symphony for piano, Nescafe catering tin and orange juice bottles. It may also be the title of an episode of Last of the Summer Wine.

There’s a chocolate fountain and smoothies – aren’t we all? – a graffiti wall inviting suggestions for the future, electronic games on a big screen – maybe it can’t pick up the Merseyside derby – and, pitched in a side aisle, a tent with fairy lights atop.

“It’s the chill tent,” someone explains, in the argot of the age.

Mark McKnight, a Methodist youth worker, is chatting with a few of them. “You talk about God,” one protests.

“What’s wrong with that?” says Mark, not unreasonably.

Most popular of all, however, are the doughnut eating competition – something for the young uns really to get their teeth into – and the dance mats, which may need an attempted explanation.

The doughnut challenge is a bit like apple bobbing, the confections suspended from a bamboo pole. No hands. Pete’s son, appropriately named Matthew, gets to the final, but is beaten by a young lady called Iona.

Jammy, or what?

The dance mats are in the centre aisle, electronically connected to another screen which offers step-bystep instructions. It’s a bit like electronic hopscotch.

It’s going well, the church filled with laughter and chocolate. Suggestions on the graffiti wall may be divided into two categories, youthful and more mature.

They include skateboards (“I don’t think so,” says Mavis), an X-box 360 (ditto), world peace, equal rights for women and bringing back Brian Holmes. Everyone signs up to that one.

It lasts until 5pm. There’ll be a meeting a few days later to assess how things went. “Perhaps we’ll do another one next year,” says Norma Town. Perhaps, by then, the bats will have returned home to roost.