THE Rev Peter Christie Holland was a very old friend. Probably I’d last heard him preach, at Etherley, in 2005. “My declining years,” he began, “are a mixture of Last of the Summer Wine and One Foot in the Grave.”

Figuratively, at any rate, both feet are now interred. Quite wonderfully, his funeral service was held last Tuesday. He was 80.

Peter was a priest who demonstrated belief in action, though there were those – not least during the miners’ strike of 1984 – who believed that he acted beyond his calling.

He had a chuckle which, bottled, could have been prescribed as an anti-depressant and saved the NHS billions and a faith which not only could have moved mountains, but persuaded them to dance a two-step with him.

Whether or not in a pit parish, Peter believed in ministry at the coal face.

John Christie, his cousin, spoke in a eulogy about Peter’s youthfulness, his joyfulness and his Christian goodness; Jill, Peter’s eldest daughter, had written a very splendid ode: I’m so very proud that he was my dad But oh there times when he drove us all mad...

God bless, Peter.

HE was a coal merchant’s son from Hurworth, near Darlington, recalled that the poor folk would collect half a bag a week on the handlebars and the posh would have three bags delivered.

They lived in Bowburn House, which itself sounded quite posh. Bowburn, a rather embarrassed Peter insisted, was where his dad got the coal.

From Stockton Grammar School he was one of four contemporaries ordained into the Church of England, and no matter that all four failed scripture after studying for the wrong exam. The others were David Jones, last at Staindrop, Les Welsh – fondly remembered at Wolsingham – and Bill Hall, a high-profile chaplain to the North-East arts community.

Peter studied sciences at Dundee, theology at Cranmer College, Durham. At Dundee, his cousin recalled, he became so anxious as finals approached that he had to visit the doctor.

“You’re clearly very nervous. Why don’t you take up smoking?” said the doctor. Times change, said John.

At Cranmer, said Jill, her ever-practical father bypassed his student electricity meter and obtained his supply directly from the principal’s.

He became a curate at St John’s in Darlington, delighted that it was a working class parish, and had a second curacy in Sunderland before becoming vicar in the 1970s of Tudhoe Village, near Spennymoor, and it’s lovely little tin tabernacle. It’s where we met the Hollands – Peter, Carole and their three daughters.

A good and caring priest, he became involved in much beyond the parish boundary. Canon Neville Baker, for 40 years vicar of the adjoining parish of St Andrew’s, recalled that they’d joined forces to campaign against the Top Hat night club in Spennymoor becoming some sort of regional gambling centre.

“It went all the way to the Home Office, a real ding-dong,” said Neville. “Peter was brilliant; we won.”

FROM Tudhoe he moved to Christ Church, New Seaham, a pit town on the Durham coast which still had three working collieries – Seaham, Dawdon, Vane Tempest – and where almost every family suffered real hardship in the 1984 strike.

Inspired by Peter, the church served 1,000 lunches every week, 1,500 at Christmas. Some called it Socialism, others Scargillism; Peter probably called it pragmatism.

“The strike was a time when the people of the coal communities showed that they cared for one another and were prepared to suffer for what they believed in,” he once told the column.

“It was hard but it was lovely. The sense of humour was terrific but what we did was also very controversial. The management didn’t like me at all. I had some run-ins with the polliss and with clergy from other churches.”

It split his own parish, too. Peter, it was recalled, had stood physically and figuratively between police and pickets. Too many of his clergy colleagues, said Peter, just stood back and kept their distance.

He left Seaham after a “misunderstanding” which can’t satisfactorily be explained in print, appointed to a parish in Bedfordshire where initially he was regarded suspiciously, something (he thought) of a northern barbarian.

The NUM had made him an honorary member; Seaham town council gave him a certificate of solidarity. David Powell, his best man, recalled last Tuesday that some down south had called him the Red Vicar.

Strange Beds fellows, anyway.

THEY grew to embrace the barbarian. Peter even organised a parish holiday – to Durham. When they visited Seaham, the town band turned out in welcome.

When finally he returned north, and to retirement, one of his Bedfordshire congregation wrote a poem, too: The sermons were grand, PCH lad Though some thought them a tad over long; And slept for an hour or two, lad And only woke up for the song.

He and Carol moved to Woodland, Teesdale home of another tin tabernacle. The funeral was held at the nearby church of St John’s, Lynesack, where our old friend Allen Armstrong – getting on 80 and still pony-tailed – is now styled churchwarden emeritus.

“I’m not sure, but I think it means I’m here for ever,” he said.

Peter had continued to lead services when asked, even receiving a standing ovation at Newton Aycliffe. Whatever for? “I can’t possibly imagine,” he said.

His sermons lasted at least 20 minutes, the second half perhaps semi-formal, but the first was what the At Your Service column described as “a sort of soliloquy with the neighbours that might be conducted while popping out to cut a cabbage”.

How odd, he mused, that he heard so many sermons which never once mentioned God.

Carol, to whom he’d been happily married for almost 55 years, had also been at Etherley that Sunday morning, remembered a call from someone in Shildon after one of Peter’s sermons at St John’s.

“How come you’re spending £219 at the supermarket?” the caller asked.

“There’s nothing safe with Peter,” said Carol.

At Woodland he also took up painting, enjoyed long walks with the dog, broke his leg after falling on the ice late one night. Great man, it was whispered, but not the world’s best patient.

He also conducted rather a lot of funerals. “I count it a very real privilege,” he said. “I actually believe in what God says. It isn’t a gate closing, it’s a gate opening.”

For his own funeral he’d chosen music, prayers, hymns which included Dear Lord and Father of Mankind and even the lovely, twinkling, flat-capped photograph which adorned the order of service.

Thoughtful and beautifully balanced, it was a fitting send-off – in turn a very real privilege to have been there, and to have known the Rev Peter Holland.