THE curious thing about a life preserver is that its purpose was often the opposite, to bash Victorian brains out.

"A stick or bludgeon loaded with lead, referred to as a frequent weapon of burglars," says the Oxford English, and might have added that customarily it was concealed up the sleeve.

Nor should such a force for ill be confused with Life Savers - America's answer to the mint with the hole - invented in 1912 by a canny candyman called Clarence Crane.....

The curious thing about a digression is that there should be something from which to digress, not possible at the start of a column. Before it is redefined as an irrelevance, therefore, we should make clear that a life preserver and several other once buried treasures are displayed in a corner cupboard at St Michael's church in Kirklington, North Yorkshire.

There's a cannon ball, small and imperfectly formed, a glass bead, a coin from Edward III's time and something called sugar nippers, which as a weapon might also have proved pretty offensive.

Kirklington's south of Bedale, one of four churches in a parish of 18 villages - Ainderby Quernhow, Sutton Howgrave, Norton Conyers - which on Sunday welcomed their first woman rector.

The Rev Julie Nelson admits ("and I respect it") that for a minority in that traditional farming area her gender might be an issue. "Someone said that they weren't bothered that I was a woman but really worried that I was a vegetarian," she adds.

Nor, it should be said, is she particularly into cricket - unlike Clive Mansell, her predecessor, for whom the simultaneous arrival of Easter and of the cricket season was perhaps the greatest of all signs of God's goodness.

Clive, able wicket keeper and belligerent batsman, left 14 months ago to become an archdeacon in Kent. On one occasion, we recall, he'd been five short of a half century when the bells called him to evensong at Burneston. He left, rejoicing.

"I know when to applaud in the right places," says Julie, though her greater love is rugby. The previous week in York she'd bought a Jonny Wilkinson calendar, remaindered for 98p, and was looking forward to his drop kicking in March.

This was that calendar rarity, the fifth Sunday in February, the service on a crisp, cold morning beginning three minutes early as if she couldn't wait to be about the job.

Those accustomed to cutting it fine looked like startled white rabbits at their watches, perhaps muttering about ears and whiskers as they arrived half way through the first hymn.

"They told me it didn't snow here," announced Julie by way of introduction. "It does, apparently."

She is 52, mother of three grown up children, proof of what they say about good stuff and small bundles. Born in Coventry, she took a modern history degree at Durham, worked in the civil service and in publishing and had thought after university that she might have a vocation to the ministry.

The Church of England, at the time, didn't ordain women priests.

When in the early 1990s she finally told her supportive vicar that she might want to seek ordination, he merely wondered what had kept her.

She worked unpaid in Devon and from 2001 had been attached to the American church in Munich after her husband Ernest, a Wrigley's executive, was posted there.

Among her responsibilities was to open a mission church in Nuremberg, a two hour drive away. "It was like driving from here to Edinburgh to go to church, but it was a very rewarding experience," she says.

About 80 are at Kirklington's 11am service, including a couple of toddlers in a twin buggy so formidable that if fitted with sword blades it would have fitted Boadicea's purposes quite admirably.

Her sermon, delivered from a pulpit made from a four poster bed at the hall, reminds us that Lent isn't just a gloomy time for giving things up - "or trying to give things up".

The returning Sunday School children have also been making models to remind them of the 40 days and 40 nights. "We seem to have edible wilderness," says Julie.

Her aim, she says afterwards, is to offer a ministry of encouragement. "They are lovely churches, ready to grow, and I want to encourage people to discover their own gifts and skills for winning souls.

"It could hardly be more different from Munich, but I think that working in Germany gave me confidence to go into situations. I was a little bit apprehensive, but I like working with people and they are super people here."

Her formal licensing had been three days earlier - "I felt very affirmed" - family and friends from Britain and Germany there in large numbers for the occasion. Whatever it is up her sleeve, in those villages there is much life to come.

Lenten Lectures

As well as the occasional doubter about women priests, there are also a few raised eyebrows in Julie Nelson's new patch about the arrival of Jonathan Aitken as part of a series called Food For Thought.

The former Conservative minister, now a theological student, speaks on March 24 on the theme "From power to prison to peace" - a Lenten stage upon which he will be preceded by the Abbot of Ampleforth on March 10 and, on March 17, by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. It's coincidence, they insist.

Only the born again Mr Aitken has proved so great an attraction, however, that the venue has had to be changed from the village hall. They'll overflow the church, instead.