A songs of praise service to mark a flower festival captured spring in full bloom.

CLEASBY is an exceptionally pleasant English village, save for the fact that the Al motorway, headlong nearby without so much as passing thought, cannot so easily be ignored by those within ineluctable earshot.

A recent vicar wrote that it was also something of a forgotten village, with a road that went nowhere in particular and a parish church that similarly had suffered.

There's an attractive village hall which once was a Quaker school, a leafy byway called Wild Duck Lane and a telephone box with a warning from BT that unless folk start putting in more twopences - or whatever the present payment for such purposes - their line will be disconnected.

There's no school and no pub, future licensees perhaps discouraged by a warning in 1615 that unless the alehouse keeper's wife renounced her Catholicism - and he his "disorderly carriage" - he was going to lose his licence.

The village is on the southern bank of the Tees, three miles south-west of Darlington, its best known former inhabitants John Robinson - who became Ambassador to Sweden as well as Bishop of Bristol and of London - and Comet, who was a bull of prodigious proportions.

One was described as having "a grandeur of style and courage which baffled description", the other of "grave and venerable appearance... good humoured and charitable but not very competent".

Bishop Robinson was the latter.

There'd been a chapel on the site since medieval times, another in the 18th century funded by the munificent Robinson, who provided a parsonage house, too. The present church, dedicated to St Peter, was built in 1829 for £515.

It was there last weekend that a quite splendid flower festival was held in aid of church funds, the highlight a songs of praise service on Sunday evening at which the Rt Rev James Bell, newish Bishop of Knaresborough, was to preach.

Bishop James proved an enthusiastic singer, too, one of those clerics who sways in time to the music, as if rehearsing for Strictly Come Dancing. A super waltzer, probably.

The flowers, in turn, had been choreographed - "arranged" always seems too feeble a word on these occasions - by Eileen Hauxwell and the ladies of Hurworth Flower Club.

Saturday's gales, no good at all for the outside decorations, had given way to a wonderful, late spring Sunday evening. A single cottage chimney smoked vertically into a bluebell sky, St Peter's fragrant and floribundant.

"It's quite a small building," someone said, "but it takes some filling wi' flowers."

The Rev Alan Glasby thought the church "remarkable", praised Eileen and her team for enduring all the heartache. Officially he is team rector, in overall charge of 14 churches in north North Yorkshire and thus a sort of ecclesiastical old woman who lived in a shoe.

The difference, of course, is that Alan Glasby knows EXACTLY what he's doing.

Normally around 15 or so might attend Sunday service at St Peter's, officially Cleasby with Stapleton. Now there were around 50, the robed choir all but overflowing the stalls reserved for their purpose.

Sheila Dodsworth, church council member for 37 years and churchwarden for 30 - Barbara Liddle, her fellow warden, has served for 16 - said they managed pretty well. "We have some very good givers," said Sheila, and that small parish gave £1,000 to the bishop's tsunami appeal, as well.

We sang How Great Thou Art, I The Lord of Sea and Sky and All Things Bright and Beautiful - all but obligatory on such occasions - and others from a book called Hymns Old and New. Number 871, we noticed in one of those inattentive moments, was called One Hundred and Fifty Three.

Something to do with all the fish in the sea.

The bishop, preaching from the chancel steps as if reluctant to endanger the glorious display around the pulpit, revealed that he says "Thank you" to the cash machine at the bank. "You might say that that is a tad excessive, taking good manners a bit too far, but I have to say I would rather be that way than the other."

His theme was thoughtfulness, his welcome for Tony Blair's views on anti-social behaviour guarded by the belief that you can't legislate for respect.

Outside thereafter, he stood for ages in the evening sunshine, making episcopal hay like one of those heliotropic plants which doesn't quite know what to do when it's dark.

The hope now is that more will grow towards St Peter's. It had been a joyous village occasion: as the Bishop of Knaresborough would say, thank you.

* Cleasby's mid-summer fair on the green is from 7-9pm on Friday, June 24. Attractions include Scottish country dancing and Morris and clog dancing, a fairground organ, table top and craft stalls and wine and a savoury for £1.

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ANOTHER flower festival, from June 17-19, helps marks the centenary of Saltburn Methodist church in Milton Street - near the railway station.

Today there's an art exhibition - 10am-2pm, admission free - with concerts by the Dalesman Singers on Friday, June 24 and by the Middleton Singers on Friday, July 22, both at 7pm and costing £3 at the door.

The actual centenary service, led by the Rev John Platts and with the At Your Service column once more beside the seaside, is on Wednesday, June 29 at 7pm.

The church is also staging a memorabilia exhibition throughout June, has produced a centenary brochure and made a centenary banner and is selling mugs for £3.50 apiece.

The flower festival is open from 2-5pm on June 17 and 19 and from 10am-5pm on June 18. Details of all events from Liz Chadwick (01287) 623145 or Roger Lobley (01287) 623416.