A LAST-minute clean-up by parishioners helped a church reopen for services at the weekend, seven days after gales brought one of four pinnacles on the tower crashing down through the roof.

When Our Lady and St Cuthbert's RC Church, in Crook, County Durham, was hit by the high winds, its organ, a Binns Instrument, which is regarded as one of the finest in the country, was the main casualty.

Although the fallen pinnacle was a fibreglass replica, it brought heavier stonework down with it when it fell on to organ pipes at the west end of the 150-year-old church, virtually demolishing half the instrument's mechanism.

With a gaping hole in the roof, services were at first switched to the adjacent primary school.

Brian Jones, who is responsible for pastoral matters at Our Lady and St Cuthbert's, is assessing the extent of the damage after meeting with insurers and organ specialists.

He said: "It is a great blow, as it could take a considerable amount of time to rebuild. We are looking at restoration costs of about £20,000 and are talking to our insurers.

"Apart from the organ, there was a great deal of general mess and dust. About a dozen or so people spent Friday cleaning the church ready for the weekend."

* With 3ft blocks of masonry lodged in the loft above her bedroom, Jeanette Laverick is dreading more high winds.

She was so frightened during the worst of the storms that she slept in her kitchen, and is frustrated that she can't start repairs or make her home safe until after an insurance assessor calls today.

The first gales, on Saturday, January 8, flipped a neighbour's flat roof on to her house in Mill Street, Willington, County Durham.

Part of the roof crashed to the ground, bringing down telephone lines and writing off her cherished Nissan Micra, as well as a neighbour's taxi.

She said: "I have no car, no phone and a house I don't feel safe in. If it rains, it could bring down the ceiling as well.

"I have a gaping hole in my roof, a piece of coping lying beside it and another balanced between two beams in the attic. It could come down at any time."