ALL that needs to be understood about how completely the Sabbath has changed over the last 50 years may be gleaned by walking around Chilton on Sunday teatime.

The lads are in the Wheatsheaf, glued to the Newcastle match. Lest they grow weak through lack of nourishment, the Golden Fry fish and chip van simmers aromatically in the pub car park. Down the road, the Chilton Chippy and the Chilton Chinese fry for custom.

The betting shop lures similarly the six-day labourers, newcomers offered 33-1 on England to beat Slovenia. Winnings, insidiously, are paid in further bets.

Ever-open, Sainsbury’s seeks souls, too. Beautopia (“Beauty and tanning”) is, admittedly, resting between treatments; Doggy Divine is a beauty parlour for pets.

Perhaps most improbably of all, the parish council notice board offers croquet lessons.

Several streets away, an ice cream van chimes, mordantly. Whatever the tune, it’s not Thine Be the Glory, Risen Conquering Son. Just down the street from the odds-on betting shop, Windlestone Methodist Church prepares, after 104 years, to say its last Amen.

CHILTON’S a former pit village, equidistant between Durham and Darlington. Once there was Chilton and Windlestone, divided north and south by a railway crossing. Once there were three Methodist chapels alone.

Though there’s abundant new housing (“From £79,996”) none seems to have been occupied by what formerly were termed non-Conformists.

In the 1960s the chapel had 49 members, by 1988 there were 23. When the At Your Service column attended harvest festival in 2009 it had further fallen to 15.

Four years earlier I’d spoken at an old Methodist tradition called the stripping of the silver tree, and come away with a bottle of wine.

Now the average attendance is six, maybe eight on a good night, most services held in the adjoining hall because they can’t afford to heat the church.

“I got married here and I was hoping to be buried here. Now it doesn’t like look I will,” says a woman in the pew in front, as if still trying to hedge her bets.

The Rev Janet Titterton, the minister, admits that for some people the last service is itself like a funeral. “They’re saying goodbye to an old friend. There’s sadness, there’s resignation, there are questions. Could we have done more? Could we have done things differently?”

For the final service the church overflows, Methodists from across a circuit that now extends from Sedgefield to yon end of Weardale. The average head is grey, the average age perhaps 70. None save the clergy – “the professionals”, someone says – may be under 50.

Chapel regular Derek Slater, one of the breed now known as pitman painters, hopes his centenary painting will hang in the doctors’ surgery instead. No fear of the docs’ ever shutting.

“It’s very sad but it was only really being used for funerals and things,” says Derek. “It’s all about young people; unfortunately we haven’t got any.”

CHAPEL stalwart Aubrey Elliott reads a lesson – his sniffing must be supposed a cold – while former superintendent minister Michael Pullan speaks of “many saints” at Windlestone down the years.

Hymns include the one about the power of the Lord moving in this place.

Janet Titterton, a relative newcomer, says it’s often suggested that it’s she who has closed the church. It was the members’ decision, she insists, and she’d have supported them had they wanted to retain it.

In a quite splendid sermon she suggests, as well she might, that the world has much changed since the church was built (for £1,025 18s) in 1913.

“It isn’t just about money; we can’t be a church without people. We can’t continue without new life, new ideas and new vision. For many the church is like a comfortable old chair, but sometimes we don’t notice that the chair is wearing out.

“I don’t think that God is finished with the Methodist church, but perhaps we need to do things differently. We aren’t leaving God behind. God is coming with us.”

Afterwards there’s a feast to feed the five thousand – “a proper chapel tea,” says Janet – and a chance to reflect. They don’t know what will happen to the building, hope that it can be converted into a home, fear that it will be demolished.

Though the region has many hundreds of redundant churches, the faithfulness of these folk is striking. Faithful to the end.

THREE days later, last Wednesday, to Auckland Park Methodist Church for the harvest broth lunch and beetle drive, an entomological exercise hitherto unencountered.

Like Chilton, Auckland Park is a former colliery village and has new housing named after bishops and saints. The two are not always synonymous; nor do new homes necessarily mean new blood.

The chapel’s a polished, pristine place, a memorial stone recording the death in 1904 of William Henry Liddle, killed down the pit. The Durham Mining Museum lists another 98 deaths at Auckland Park and the connected Black Boy collieries, boys and men aged between 12 and 63.

The list, it adds lugubriously, is by no means complete.

Still they keep the 1995 column, broadsheet back then, of the At Your Service visit to Auckland Park, the family service led by the late and lovely John Littlefair. “I’m not an ogre, just a kindly old man,” he told the bairns.

On the back of the cutting, there’s a promo for Sharon Griffiths – “the region’s liveliest columnist”. They meant second liveliest.

The circuit plan now puts membership at 14, though two or three have long-term illnesses. They’ve heard about Windlestone, worry a bit, are determined to continue.

Getting on 40 have their feet beneath the parlour table – it’s been on the circuit website, they say – both broth and folk warm and welcoming.

Sadly the beetle drive is scuttled because not enough stay. Like the beetles, we leg it.

THE glorious little Methodist chapel at Wind Mill, just off the A68 in west Durham, celebrates its own harvest festival on October 22 at 2.30pm – once again with the Rev Richard Bainbridge, a man of good Teesdale farming stock. Last Saturday’s paper was probably mistaken, however, to suppose that Richard will “leave the service”. More likely he’ll lead it, and not leave until sharing the wonderful harvest tea which, night as day, will follow.

...AND finally, a note from the dear old Church of England. Talk among Durham Cathedral stewards is of the buggy-pushing family who arrived the other day, gazed down the nave to the font and asked if they did christenings.

The steward explained that the cathedral was indeed a working church, with regular christenings, weddings and funerals.

The young mother pointed to the bairn in the buggy – “’Cos I’d love to have him christened in the same place that Harry Potter was.”