At Your Service: Keld in high esteem

JUST as, from time to time, it is tempting to leave a big white space with the message "He slept in last Sunday" - worse, "He couldn't think of anything to write" - so is it inviting to leave today's column to the Rev Kenneth Wadsworth, deceased.

It's about harvest festival at Keld, once a thriving lead mining village at Swaledale's western extremity. Now it is as lonely as it is lovely, and still not famously fertile.

Mr Wadsworth was minister to Swaledale's two United Reformed churches from 1967-81 and though Wadsworth not Wordsworth, he put things so much better.

An ode to autumn, his poem Harvest in the Hills has echoes of the Rev Eli Jenkins, who eulogised the village of Llaregyb set not beneath Kisdon Fell, like Keld, but under Milk Wood.

Lord, we have little here to show

This celebration day;

No grapes in our rough gardens grow

To make a fine display....

Eli Jenkins was probably Welsh Presbyterian, though, one of those who wear double strength dog collars and can correctly pronounce Machynlleth.

Though Keld now has no shop, pub or post office, two churches remain. The Methodist congregation chiefly comprises the family which, 50 years ago bought the pub, never noted for its strict adherence to Her Majesty's opening hours, and amid cries of "demon" and of "drink" closed it at once and for ever.

The URC gathering isn't usually much bigger. At harvest, however, they head thankfully home.

Keld has had a chapel since the 16th century, though it was derelict by 1706. This one was founded in 1791 by Edward Stillman, who raised funds by walking to London on a begging trip and claimed just sixpence in expenses. He stayed in Keld for 48 years.

Nearby were the literary institute, manse and tiny village school, closed 25 years ago when by moving elsewhere, a single family halved numbers on the roll to four.

There is also a village notice board, offering details of a talk on Dales surnames - Metcalfe and about three others - rural bus service information on days with a "t" in them and an announcement that the upper dales Christian Aid collection had raised £2,246. Clearly, they are as generous as they are hardy.

The service was at 2pm on a sumptuous autumn afternoon, an elderly gentleman in Sunday suit and commodious cap happy to point out beforehand the spot where Pennine Way and Coast to Coast Walk cross and to offer a short tour of the peaceful hillside graveyard.

"Not many places left," he said, in the manner of a market stall holder advising to buy while stocks last.

The church was full, chiefly with people but also with a Tricky-Woo sort of a poodle which, it should be said, behaved impeccably throughout. Had it been an Anglican dog, certainly a Catholic, it would have yapped its head off before the service and possibly during it as well.

The photographer recalled the belief, which may even be true, that in the 17th century, only King Charles spaniels were allowed to attend the C of E, since it was they who were the king's pets.

They'd come from Swindon, Southport and from Zambia - the Rev Kondwani Nkhoma and her friend Judith Mhango, a minister's wife, at the end - best till last - of a British tour.

A few miles down dale, Kondwani had talked at Low Row church that morning - "impassionedly" it was reported - on the AIDS disaster; Judith spoke of poverty and of hunger, of life as a minister's wife in a growing parish with nine churches. "It is very different from here," she said. "We also keep sheep, but not as many as there are outside."

The best summary, however, might have been that a woman's work is never done. "Thank you," said the Rev Gillian Bobbett, Swaledale's part time URC minister, "for proving that human nature is the same anywhere."

It was a happy harvest, a table at the sunlit end of the church laden as if to emphasise Mr Wadsworth's self-insufficient philosophy. There were baked beans and Typhoo tea, Crunchie bars, Baxter's jam and sundry delights from the Del Monte man. Cabbages on the window sills, though.

We sang Come Ye Thankful People and In Christ There is No East or West, read Psalm 21 - "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills" - heard again the old minister's vibrant verses. Afterwards, there was tea in the old school room, and a chance to talk to Mabel Calvert, church secretary for almost 40 years.

It was a bit of a struggle up there, she said, but they hoped to carry on. "There are people who don't come to church who'd help to see that it didn't go down.

"It's a wonderful area and a lovely little church. There are some good harvests in us yet."

Harvest in the Hills

Lord, we have little here to show

This celebration day,

No grapes in our rough gardens grow

To make a fine display;

No fields of rich and golden corn

These narrow valleys fill.

No orchard trees but twisted thorn

Beneath the windswept hill.

Stone walls climb up the steep fellside,

Where bent and heather grow,

Dales folk and sheep alone may bide

The winter gales that blow.

Summer is past and autumn now

Brings round this harvest day;

Our hands are hard and empty, how

Shall we bring an array?

But here's a fleece from my wool clip

And here's sweet smelling hay,

And many a shiny red rose-hip,

Picked by the old corpse way;

With russet bracken from the fell

To deck the chapel wall,

These simple gifts may truly tell

God's goodness to us all.

Ken Wadsworth