Total immersion

EDGE Court is just off Sunderland Road, a mile or so to the east of Durham city centre. If not quite precipitous, those who live on the Edge may find life a little confusing, nonetheless.

The A-Z describes Edge Court as “not continuous”, a headache presently made worse because access from Sunderland Road is blocked because of “flood alleviation”

work.

Somewhere amid it all is Durham City Baptist Church, by no means the most splendoured place of worship in that architecturally awesome city, last Sunday celebrating its 60th anniversary.

The rain poured upon righteous and upon unrighteous alike. Flood alleviation? More total immersion, as a good Baptist might possibly observe.

The curious thing is that, until that first gathering on November 19, 1950, Durham didn’t have a Baptist church at all. They met in the Shakespeare Hall in North Road, moving a year later to the St John Ambulance hut in Gilesgate – baptisms took place at Ushaw Moor church – and on November 7, 1959 to the present building, for which the faithful had weekly collected donations on neighbouring estates.

It rather resembles a school classroom of that era. “People expect to see a big stone building when they think about Baptist churches,” admits the Reverend Ronnie Wynd, the pastor. “We still love this one the way it is.”

The Echo, perhaps unsurprisingly, failed to report that infant gathering in the Shakespeare Hall. Instead we recorded a unanimous decision by County Durham’s medical officers to ignore a County Council instruction to join a closed shop, that eight people had been hurt in a bus crash at Blackhall and that Norman Walsh had beaten Les Kellett in the wrestling at Middlesbrough baths hall.

Elsewhere, Darlington’s mayor was complaining about the town’s “dismal” bus station – “the worst between York and Newcastle.” At least 60 years ago they had one.

FOR the 60th anniversary, the Baptists organised 60 prayer days, aimed at renewing themselves, the church and the community.

For the 50th they produced a church history, Freda Moon – the first deaconess – recalling that things hadn’t always been straightforward.

At her first meeting with the church elders, she said, they’d told her that they really wanted a man but couldn’t afford one.

“They had to accept me because the leadership of the church was deeply divided,” she said, also remembering her difficulties in preaching when there were two Bible professors in the congregation.

“When one didn’t agree with what I said, he put his head in his hands.

The other would look out of the window.”

Things have much changed. Talk for ten seconds about Durham City Baptist Church and you’re bound to hear the word “welcome”. In from the storm, so it proves.

A BOUT 60 are in, including a three-strong music group and the Reverend Derek Tidball, the special preacher, who’d been a Durham University sociology student in the 1960s.

“So long ago it was when England won the World Cup,” says Pastor Wynd.

Only two days previously, a funeral thanksgiving service had been held for Anita Nicholls, 88, who with her husband Dan had been among the founder members.

There’s also a big screen for the hymns, though some of us still like to hold a hymn book – all 2,200 hymns, Volumes I-IV combined – like that kid in Peanuts with his comfort blanket.

The aroma of Sunday lunch, another side to the celebration, wafts appetisingly from the hall out the back.

Mr Wynd’s voice is going, or has been and is tentatively finding its way back. After three minutes someone brings him a glass of water.

After 90 he’s going to need a bucket.

Chiefly, he agrees, they’re a neighbourhood church for the Sunderland Road area of the city – though, of course, committed Baptists come from much farther.

“Most people come because it’s a church where they feel welcomed.

That said, there aren’t many in the church who can just sit at the back and do nothing.”

They’re both evangelistic and enthusiastic, this month forming a youth group to run alongside the Sunday School and a Girls Brigade unit that’s been running for 41 years.

The Sunday School has also produced an anniversary frieze. “Nothing can stop us,” it says.

Mr Tibbald is a little more cautious.

“The church in Britain has suffered a remarkable decline since I was a student here in Durham. One thing we lack is confidence. We need to gossip the Gospel.”

Mary Walker has been coming for 59 of those 60 years, admits that numbers have declined, loves it still.

“The fellowship is wonderful. Walking into this church is like coming home.”

The welcome also extends to a lunch invitation, regretfully declined.

Most of the others clearly need no second asking. Flood alleviation notwithstanding, they happily dive in.

■ One of the great highlights as Christmas approaches, the annual Coffee and Carols service takes place at the wonderful Newbigginin- Teesdale Methodist chapel, the oldest in continuous use, at 10.30am on Tuesday, December 7.

Mince pies, scones, male voice choir and (with luck, June) we might even have Joy to the World.

■ Older and more venerable yet, Escomb Saxon church, near Bishop Auckland, holds half-hour Silence by Candlelight services on the four Wednesdays of Advent, beginning on December 1. “Following the success of the Big Silence television programme, we’re offering a Little Silence,” says Richard Deimel, the vicar. The services start at 7.30pm.

■ Darlington Churches Together has a splendid website – churchindarlington.org.uk – listing more than 100 Christmas services in 23 venues between tomorrow and December 28. Among the first, for all the town centre churches, is a Service of Light in St Cuthbert’s, tomorrow at 6.30pm. More of that next week.