FOR reasons that few understand, but which are thought to involve Admiral Lord Nelson and to be rude, superstitious cricketers regard the figure 111 as unlucky. Mr David Shepherd, the celebrated and somewhat portly test match umpire, is even in the habit of standing on one leg whilst the total remains on that number, remaining thus imbalanced until someone further troubles the scorers.

It is not to suggest, of course, that the good Shepherd doesn't have a leg to stand on. Whether it is possible to begin with a digression must remain a semantically moot point, but we mention it because Brompton-on-Swale Methodist church marked its 111th anniversary last Sunday - an occasion that proved entirely propitious.

Not only were they a warm and welcoming little group, their sunlit chapel manifestly cared for, but the address by the Rev Graham Carter - chairman of the Darlington Methodist district - was epochal in its excellence.

There are good and bad sermons and very many that slumber fitfully in between. No matter that the chairman talked of problems becoming opportunities and that the last person we'd heard on a similar tack was a psycho-Babylonian - red braces, smarty pants - driving us laterally to distraction, this was one of the precious few occasions where the temptation at the end was to stand up and roar "Alleluia."

North Yorkshire has three Bromptons, literally a settlement by the shrubs. Holy Trinity, Brompton (known to its friends as HTB) is the London parish church that became the evangelistic crucible of the Alpha movement. It should not be confused with Brompton-on-Swale, nor is ever likely to be.

This one's east of Richmond, just below the Great North Road and alongside the traffic jams that await the Sunday morning car boot boys at Catterick racecourse.

Mother Shipton prophesied that the village would flood, one of the old lady's less spectacular predictions. An Iron Age sword found in the 1930s suggests habitation 500 years before Christ; the Romans came, too, and thereafter generations of curriers, cordwainers and corn millers. Since the village was also on the Richmond to Lancaster turnpike, there were at least nine pubs - the Cowslip, the Robin Hood, the Ingle Nook - and until 1956, Fryer's Brewery to keep them supplied. The village centre remains distinctively attractive, the Anglican church of St Paul - built 1838, looks older - at one end, the chapel in the middle.

Dorothy Rawnsley's splendid poem to mark its centenary - "This is my story, a 100 year tale, of a chapel of glory in Brompton-on-Swale" - also acknowledges declining numbers.

They say times have changed and the people have, too

And this is reflected in each empty pew.

Precisely 17 are gathered for the anniversary, believed by the district chairman to be the 121st. The column, four times a failed O-level mathematician, gently subverts his subtraction. "We live in an eternity, anyway," says Graham.

Among the faithful is Grace Norman, the treasurer, who has brought the centenary history but not the village history and agrees before the service to nip back home to search for one. "We'll wait for you," says Graham, evoking the joke about the chap who rings Accrington Stanley (it's an old joke) to ask what time they kick off.

"What time can you get here?" asks the receptionist.

Grace having promptly returned, the chairman apologises for his croaking, swallows another tears to the eye throat sweet and proceeds. He is the Methodist equivalent of a bishop, his patch embracing 215 churches from Swaledale to north of Durham City and most of Teesside. We had had previously had the pleasure.

The first part of the address - the Methodists like to have at least two bites - uses an old orange and a fresh orange, draws an analogy between segments of an orange and divisions of the church, suggests that "the people you would rather not have around" still have a purpose.

"We even use the skin of the orange for marmalade and fruit cake," says Graham.

"It's very good in the bath, too," interjects an elderly lady, though for what purpose we have never discovered.

The second part addresses the way things are: membership in the Darlington district has fallen by 2,000 in the past five years, the Methodist church nationally has 70 fewer ministers than it considers the minimum necessary.

Was he downhearted? "We could paint quite a bleak picture for the life of the church and the life of the world, but we have a message of hope and a message of joy."

So far, so conventional....

"My radical thought for your church anniversary is that it may be that to follow Christ we have to give up our church.

"I don't necessarily mean here, but there are some places where that's the way Christ is leading us and we have to accept it as a possibility. Following the cross means leaving behind some of the things we hold dear.

"It may mean uniting with some other chapels or some other denominations. Only you will know when Christ is calling, but you have to ask what being the church in this place really means."

The Sunday morning shorthand has rarely been so vigorously tested, nor a preacher quoted for 100 words and (more or less) verbatim.

Grace Norman said they were always receptive to change and worked well with their Church of England neighbours; Arthur Wheeler, a former Royal Horse Artillery captain who married the girl next door to the chapel in 1936, said they'd want to fight to preserve it.

Graham Carter had on any argument ensured that none would forget the anniversary. Swale fellow well met, Mr Chairman.

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