THE Rev Chris Wardale has celebrated 25 years of usually happy, always dedicated and sometimes eventful priesthood, his long time partner Malcolm Macourt - and Malcolm's elderly parents, Billy Macourt himself a former archdeacon - foursquare in attendance.

Dr David Jenkins was there, too, energetically recalling that when he was Bishop of Durham, what a person did in his own bedroom was no concern of his.

Granville Gibson, retired Archdeacon of Auckland, said that he was only very sorry that the Church had not found it possible to make life more comfortable for couples like Christopher and Malcolm. Their Christian commitment was there for all to see - or at least, all who wanted to see it.

Another 200 or so, friends and parishioners, were in Holy Trinity, Darlington, to give thanks for Chris's ministry. He has been vicar there since 1992.

Afterwards there were little eulogies from people like the mayor ("He is esteemed throughout the borough"), from the head of George Dent nursery school ("the children love the Reverend Chris, a really good story teller") and from former Holy Trinity curates like the Rev Christine Blakesley.

"I can't repay you for all the kindness and all the goodness you showed to me," she said.

The gay agenda had shifted, or possibly been shredded. Maybe it had long since.

Chris Wardale, who is an old friend, was born in Saltburn in 1946, a time when it was in Yorkshire - doubtless he believes it still to be - attended the Sir William Turner grammar school in Redcar and decided at 15 that he wanted to be a vicar.

His own parish priest suggested that he get a degree, work for 20 years and then think about it again. Degree suitably obtained, he worked for eight years, received a little nudge while attending a service in York Minster, became curate of Cockerton, Darlington, in 1979 and a priest the following year.

In 1984, he moved to South Tyneside as vicar of Hedworth, Boldon Colliery, met Malcolm - a Newcastle University academic - and returned to Darlington a further eight years later.

"My arrival was not a particularly happy time for some people," he wrote in the June parish magazine. "I'm told it wasn't a very soft landing," said Archdeacon Gibson in his sermon.

Nor was it. A churchwarden resigned, the mother and toddler group - mother and toddler group, for heaven's sake - raised a petition, The Northern Echo was flooded with letters of protest.

"The Church of England has finally hit rock bottom," began one correspondent, subsequently suggesting that it was he himself who was pretty close to the nadir.

'Of course, those who object to the appointment of the new vicar of Holy Trinity in Darlington are bigots, and if the description implies ignorance then so be it," wrote the Gadfly column (thank goodness).

He, they, are still there. "The roof didn't collapse," Chris wrote in the magazine. "The work of God went on."

It had been billed simply as a parish eucharist, but was different from normal, not least in that so many arrived with presents - many of them apparently bottle shaped - and that the retiring collection was for the Diocese of Durham's Aids appeal.

There was Dr Jenkins, Bishop Stephen of the Celtic Orthodox church, Granville Gibson, who retired to the parish of Holy Trinity because, he said, Christopher Wardale was its priest. "When you come here on a Sunday morning, you never quite know what is going to happen and what's been done in the church.

"You will never hear the hymn Sleepers Awake at the end of one of Christopher's sermons."

We heard the Bible reading about varieties of gifts, sang hymns like Who Would True Valour See and Come Down O Love Divine, heard Linda Peall, Holy Trinity's present curate, gives thanks for Chris's ideas and insight into the meaning of the cross and "what it is to follow Christ in today's world".

There were speeches and supper, one rather getting in the way of t'other, Dr Jenkins cheered for decrying the "absolute stupid nonsense in the church against homosexuality" and how it denigrated both God and Bible. "In my 81st year," he added, "I am fed up with what goes on in the church."

There were balloons and indoor fireworks, cake and camaraderie, people from the theatres, schools, colleges and other organisations with which he is much involved.

Chris thanked everyone for the past 25 years, for their friendship, for helping make him what he was. "If any of it has rubbed off on you," he said, "I'm told you can get something for it."

Somewhere amid the throng, Malcolm Macourt applauded with the rest of us. Since the church roof still hasn't fallen in, the ministry goes on.

BUILT on coal if not from it, Christ Church in New Seaham celebrates next weekend the 150th anniversary of the laying of its cornerstone. Designed by Lady Londonderry, it was consecrated five years later.

The occasion will be marked by a four day flower festival, starting with a wine and cheese preview evening on Thursday (tickets £5, from Matt Finkel, 0191-581 4454) and culminating at 10am on Sunday, July 24 with a thanksgiving service led by the Rt Rev Stephen Sykes, an assistant bishop of Durham.

The festival will be open from 10am-8pm on Friday and Saturday and from 12-6pm on Sunday, with refreshments available.

The church has always been linked to the Londonderry owned New Seaham colliery and has memorials to the 21 men and boys killed in an explosion in 1871 and the 164 who lost their lives nine years later.

A beam recovered when the bodies of the 1880 victims were found carries an inscription from 44-year-old miner Richard Cole: "Bless the Lord, we have had a jolly prayer meeting. Every man ready for glory."

Much more from New Seaham in the column two weeks hence - but you wouldn't bet against Christ is Made the Sure Foundation, would you?