As the nation mourns the death of the Queen Mother, Mike Amos joins a hilltop congregation celebrating the triumph of life over death

THE dawning after the Queen Mother passed away, a congregation of 30 people and a dog named Zacchaeus gathered on a high hilltop to celebrate the Resurrection.

It is Upper Weardale and then some, Easter bunnies playing chicken - if a rabbit may reasonably be said to do so - all along the ebony ascent.

Up through Eastgate and Westgate, past Daddry Shield and St John's Chapel, beyond the hamlet of Newhouse - once, perhaps, long ago - and vertiginously to Middlehope Common, 1500ft above the sea and two miles from anywhere at all.

"Wet and misty in the hills," says the 5.55 weather forecaster, and might have added that it is Paschal perishing, an' all.

When the lady wrote Morning Has Broken, she may not have had in mind a rood awakening in the middle of Middlehope Common.

A triumph of hope over experience, the Church knows these occasions as Sunrise Services, nonetheless, and it is as if awaiting that solar late arrival that the service begins five minutes late.

"A bit fresh," someone says, and at once wins the Captain Oates award for understatement.

It is 6.20am - the previous day it would have been just turned quarter past five - and as the sky lightens there are views to Bleak Laws, to Rakes Sike and to Longstaff's Allotment.

The minister's map, in truth, is on so grand a scale that it is possible not only to discern Longstaff's Allotment but to suppose that Longstaff needs to do a bit weeding up there.

The Weardale Methodist circuit's early Easter service had begun in 1990 at the suggestion of Kevin Watson, the then minister's son. His father led the proceedings, his mother made the communal breakfast.

On the first occasion, it's recalled, not even the local taxi driver could track them down, though she finally managed to familiarise her passengers with breakfast.

Regulars are substantially insulated, a woolly hatted lady remarking to her friend that she's surprised to see her at such an hour.

"The Lord woke me," says the other - risen, indeed - "and if it wasn't Him, it was Suzannah."

Zacchaeus, a chapel going chihuahua named after the tree climbing little chap in the Gospels, is carried in a shopping bag, only occasionally sticking his head over the well pleated parapet to check that meteorological pessimism remains well founded.

It is therefore a tribute to the Rev Les Hann's sense of piety and of occasion that when the service began he courageously removes his cap.

We form a semi-circle in front of him. "If the sun comes up it'll be over Les's right shoulder," someone says, but clearly the sun has forgotten to put the clocks forward.

The minister wishes his people a Happy Easter, a salutation to which eagerly they respond. "I just wanted to check that you were still working as well," he says.

It is a careful, simple, joyful service, elevated still further by the inclusion of Christendom's greatest hymn. More regular readers will know that this is Thine Be the Glory, Risen Conquering Son.

Though there are references to heavy hearts and times of sadness, there are none directly to the Queen Mother - which is by no means to say, of course, that she is not in many thoughts.

Afterwards, the minister having replaced his cap, we head in coldly convivial convoy down to Westgate Methodist Church hall for breakfast - toast, hot cross bun fight and the unofficial Weardale all-comers egg jarping championships.

The words of "Jerusalem", England's green and pleasant, are on the wall and an illuminated scroll commemorating Westgate's Primitive Methodist dead in the First World War.

Les Hann, who physically resembles the original Zacchaeus but remains a pastor of very considerable stature, stands on a bench to announce that breakfast donations will go to home missions.

"I'm always six feet above contradiction," he adds.

There is big breakfast debate (again) about how left footers - you know, Roman Catholics - come so to be known, a discussion of Weardale's plans to mark the anniversary of John Wesley's first visit thereabouts and speculation over the provenance of some splendidly preserved blackcurrant and apple jam.

"It's Elizabeth's," they conclude.

"Which Elizabeth?"

"Frank's Elizabeth."

"Oh, right."

Mr Hann is also contemplating a re-enactment of Wesley's horseback journey from the historic chapel at Newbiggin-in-Teesdale over the North Pennines to High House chapel in Ireshopeburn, if not of Wesley's habit of reading the Bible whilst riding backwards.

It was a late June afternoon, still sufficiently cold - and Wesley sufficiently exhausted - for him to move the planned open air service indoors.

"I'm looking for what I call a rag man's horse," says the minister, "one that's half asleep when walking."

A stimulating morning proves memorable for all sorts of reasons - and in that, perhaps, is the message, and the darkest before dawn triumph, of Easter. In its joys and in its sorrows, life goes on.