KEITH JACKSON – Methodist minister, proud dalesman and lovely chap – has died, aged 86. With sad irony, his funeral was one of the last to be held at his beloved Reeth Methodist Chapel, in Swaledale. Its final service is on August 28.

He’d probably feared closure, declaring in 2010 that visitors to Reeth’s galleried chapel – which he likened to the City Varieties in Leeds – often outnumbered locals.

“Last week I gave the bread and wine to 28 Roman Catholics,” said Keith. “I’m not sure that the Pope knows about that.”

The year previously, we’d been together at the final service at Catterick Village Methodist church when Keith listed the Swaledale chapels – Marske, Hurst, Low Row, Muker and Keld – which had closed in his time. “Probably something to do with my preaching,” he added, though he preached vividly and effectively.

Only Arkengarthdale, Gunnerside and Reeth churches then remained. Arkengarthdale closed three years ago. When Reeth says its last Amen, the once stoutly Methodist dale won’t have a chapel in the 20 miles between Richmond and Gunnerside.

“They’re cathedrals, palaces, but they’re all for the high jump if we don’t do something,” forecast Keith in 2009. “You do wonder where it will all end up.”

He was born and raised in Reeth, remembered the arrival of scores of wartime refugee children from Sunderland. “We were told to welcome our friends from the north and were a bit surprised when they shook their fists at us from the bus,” he recalled. “We soon learned that it was just their high spirited way of trying to make friends.”

The language proved a bit of a barrier, too. “If ye divvent shut yer mooth aa’ll clatter ye,” translated with difficulty into Swaudle.

Keith also told tales of the Reccies – the Reconnaissance Corps – similarly billeted, along with the commanding officer’s beagle pack, to Reeth.

“We weren’t afraid of the soldiers, rather we emulated them. We’d make uniforms out of brown paper, rifles out of wood. If we needed barbed wire, we’d pull up a few thorn bushes and crawl through them.”

He worked as a water board engineer, became a minister in 1986, served for ten years in the Doncaster and Chesterfield circuits and then returned, rejoicing, to Reeth. He had major heart surgery in 2005 but remained in much demand as a preacher.

“It’s quite challenging,” he once said, memorably. “Here’s everyone else telling them that they’re going to hell in a hand cart and here’s me telling them that they’re saved.”

His funeral was, of course, at Reeth Methodist Church. It was filled.

SHEILA BROWBANK, a truly delightful lady, but unwitting witness to these columns’ most egregious error, has also died. She was 83.

Like Keith Jackson she was a stalwart Methodist, like Keith a servant to whom the adjectives “good and faithful” might without hesitation be applied.

Denis, her husband – chapel steward, retired village school headmaster, Durham County Cricket League umpire – survives her. Like Keith’s, and two others which ordained attendance, Sheila’s funeral was while we were on holiday.

Sheila was also an enthusiastic Northern Echo reader. “I’m in bed every morning with Mike Amos,” she told a service at New Brancepeth Methodist church – west of Durham – in 2007, though a fellow worshipper was more equivocal.

“Mike Amos is all right, but I prefer Horace and Doris,” she said.

It was one of Sheila’s flower festivals, so conscientiously organised that she’d even written the thank you letters before the event. “I asked the Lord that if He had need of my soul, could He possibly wait until next Tuesday,” she said.

They were wonderful, warm, community conscious occasions though scene in 2005 of the five-star faux pas flagged fearfully above. Announcing the glorious hymn Love Divine All Loves Excelling, the leader said – or at least we thought he said – that it was to the tune Blindworm.

It was, the column supposed, a funny name for a hymn tune. Readers reacted in harmony. It was Blaenwern, Welsh for “edge of the swamp” or some such. “I’m surprised at you, what with your wife being Welsh and all,” wrote Clarice Middleton, from Richmond.

Like the biblical serpent, the subsequent column crawled upon its belly, confessing all and noting that the blindworm was neither blind nor a worm (nor come to that, the tune of Love Divine.) “Apart from that, as they almost said to Mrs Lincoln after the theatre, we were damn near word perfect.”

THAT column back in 2005 was just an extended apology. We’d also bumped into the ever-amiable Allen Armstrong, warden of the Anglican churches around Butterknowle in west Durham, who murmured that the last time he’d featured we’d got his name wrong. Typochondria, we’d called him Alien Armstrong. It had been nine years previously. Some things take a little longer.

MIKE CLARK was an Echo colleague 30-odd years ago, became Middlesbrough council’s head of communications – Ray Mallon’s ghost, so it’s said – had been since 2011 a caring and community-conscious member of Stockton Borough Council.

An Oxford history graduate, he wore his learning lightly but was a very clever feller, nonetheless.

He’d also make irregular contributions to the Gadfly column, everything from the etymology of the term “toe rag” to the story of John Lilburne, 17th Century son of Shildon (and, Mike thought, Ken Livingstone lookalike.)

Ten years ago, following the death of the American artist TJ Kitaj, Mike got in touch to recall the rumpus – “a minor earthquake” someone had called it – aroused by Kitaj’s exhibit in the Cleveland International Drawing Biennial in 1979.

Called Communist and Socialist, it portrayed a naked couple in bed. The gentleman, as the phrase now goes, seemed very pleased to see her.

“If people want this sort of thing there are magazines,” said Boro council leader Arthur Pearson. Mike assumed he didn’t mean Radio Times.

He was just 61, lovely lad, married to fellow councillor Carol. A humanist service was held on June 17.

…And finally, a happier note. On holiday in Cornwall, we come in the West Briton newspaper across the story of Nicholas Andre, said to be “from Durham”.

Similarly chilling – the term may be appropriate – Mr Andre was walking the coastal path when he heard a commotion below. A young basking shark had been left behind by the tide.

At once into action – “there was no real access, but I legged it down the hill, anyway” – Mr Andre joined another holidaymaker, took the four-metre shark by the tail (probably the sensible end) and finally heaved it back into the briny.

“It was like a light switch had been flicked. It just flew off,” he said.

It seems probable that, like Clark Kent on the Daily Planet, Supernick returned north to modest anonymity – but on the Lizard he basks, like the shark, in glory.