Flower power was abundant at a centenary service to serenade the swinging Sixties at the Methodist Milbank.

STATION Town was what might have been supposed, and without too much locomotive effort. The railway from Sunderland to West Hartlepool and Stockton ran in from north to south, the branch from Ferryhill - having called, cursorily, at West Cornforth, Coxhoe Bridge and Trimdon - arrived, eventually, from the west.

There's a reprint of Bradshaw's 1922 Rail Guide here. One station was called Wellfield, it says, the other Wingate.

They were adjacent, nonetheless, they were in Station Town and it is at this junction that we should explain that Station Town and Wingate Methodist Chapel - known usually by its original name of Milbank - is celebrating its centenary. We shall return, rejoicing, shortly.

Wingate and Station Town seem barely separable, though some would say a great gulf divides the two communities. The first was built around the pit, the second around the railway.

An information board alongside the nearby Miners' Heritage Trail notes that between the wars Wingate not only had two stations but "several" banks, "more than 60" shops and the A J Dawson Grammar School.

Thanks to the asinine attentions of the spray can of worms, the board also records that Jimmy and Cassie were here. "It's a pity they didn't bring their shared brain cell with them," said the lady of this house, much irritated.

Things are much changed, of course. The pit was spent in 1961, the rail branches lopped a bit earlier. The Co-op and the Catholic Club are closed, even the bookie's boarded.

Commercial premises these days include tanning parlours with names like Elysian Fields and Tanarife and a tattoo studio called The Queen's Colours. The miners' heritage trail, a verdant footpath and cycleway which almost encircles the village, borders meadows of corncockle, pignut, cowslip and pheasant's eye and has jolly wooden sculptures to help identify them.

If only it weren't for the wreckers. "The miners' heritage," said the lady, "is morons."

Wingate had three Methodist chapels, plus the gospel hall and Salvation Army, an' all. The Cornish chapel was built by the west country miners who sank the pit, the Wesleyan and North Road chapels soon followed it.

Now all are gone, the faithful following finally to the Milbank, at Station Town, like field mice scampering, nest to nest, from the approaching corn cutter. A splendid photograph on the chapel wall records the stone laying at the Wesley, the crowd so populous that the polliss was called out to keep an eye on them.

Though it was a 70 degree Sunday, several houses across the road in Church Street had sandbags piled on the front step, as if the weather forecast had said "changeable".

The marvellous Milbank folk are staging anniversary events every month during 2004, one for each decade. Last week a four-day flower festival serenaded the swinging Sixties, the era of yellow submarines, of flower power, of Lily the Pink and of going to San Francisco.

They'd have gone to Station Town, only it didn't scan.

The church looked lovely, the people were lovely. "A lot of preachers tell us how welcome they feel in this chapel," said Jack Bramfitt, so it seemed a shame that only a dozen or so attended last Sunday evening's service, decorating - as usually is the case - the back of the church only. "There's a few missing and quite a few more who are very good at putting money in the envelope but won't come to church," said Jack, who recalled that at one time Wingate and Station Town were like New York and Manhattan.

"Wingate," he added helpfully, "was New York."

Most seemed quite elderly, but since "elderly" has become almost pejorative let's say that they were in their swinging sixties (and that one or two had swung a bit further.)

Iris Brown had been born on the same day as the Queen - April 21, 1926 - her first son arriving two days before the Prince of Wales.

The Queen, she said, had never so much as sent her a birthday card. "Mind," added Iris, "I never send her one, either."

The service was led - sometimes chattily, always thoughtfully - by Eric Watchman, a Methodist local preacher from Durham. "You'll be happy to hear I haven't any pairs of flared jeans left," he told the sixties-somethings. "If I had, my wife wouldn't let me out of the house."

We sang appropriate hymns like For the Beauty of the Earth and All Things Bright and Beautiful - "You couldn't have a flower festival without that one," said Eric - and considered the lilies of the field, as St Matthew irresistibly invites us.

A happy, refreshing service ended precisely on the Methodist hour. The centenary celebrations continue all year, a memorable Station in life.

* The flower festival arrangements were completed within a week by Jennifer Champley, Cath Crawford, Joyce Golightly, Joan Shutt, Sheila Venables and Margaret Wells. Milbank's usual Sunday service is at 5.45pm.

Born on a wing and a prayer

HEATHER Patterson, Milbank chapel secretary and bright sparking livewire, was born on January 9, 1971 - the day after an RAF Vulcan bomber crashed on Station Town.

"My mother went into premature labour," she says. "It wasn't every day that a bomber came down at the back of the Co-op."

The Northern Echo on the day of Heather's birth recorded that a serious fire had been discovered as the plane crossed Northumberland, that three crewmen had bailed out near Otterburn and that the pilot and co-pilot had tried to guide it to RAF Leeming, in North Yorkshire.

They, in turn, ejected near Wingate. "The pulse of a Durham pit village stopped beating yesterday as a doomed RAF Vulcan bomber streaked towards it," the Echo reported.

"Screaming children fled from the playground as the ball of fire dive-bombed towards their school. Seconds after the plane had steered a trail of terror over Wingate, relieved villagers were talking of a miracle which had saved their homes - and their lives."

None of the RAF crew was seriously injured; Station Town escaped almost unscathed, though the Vulcan excavated a 25ft crater in the store field and debris bombarded nearby homes.

The incident came at a time when Durham County Council's plan effectively to demolish Station Town and move its thousand or so residents up to Wingate had met fierce, and ultimately successful, local opposition. It was as if Durham had enlisted RAF support and (as usual for the county council at the time) had still managed to miss the target.

Heather, born on a wing and a prayer, has never left the revitalised village. "The centenary celebrations have been brilliant, really bringing people together," she says. "The only problem is, I'm jiggered."