Billingham chilling 'em. The older and wiser wear top coat and then some, the younger and otherwise stroll to Mass in T-shirts, as if on the Costa del Catholicism. A cold wind blows, for all that.

Twenty years ago the Roman Catholic churches of Billingham were served by five priests; a decade ago there were three.

From this month, Fr John Butters ministers alone and without hope of reinforcement. He has three large churches, five Catholic schools, an average weekly Mass attendance of 1,039, a Catholic population of 5,000, a Mass centre at nearby Port Clarence, a place on the hospital rota and a day off.

He is at the southern end of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, where Bishop Ambrose Griffiths has forecast that if present trends continue there will be no Catholic priests at all by the year 2030. The thin black line grows positively anorexic.

If he is to be responsible for the feeding of the five thousand, however, Fr Butters gives every impression of having the appetite for the job.

"People are very understanding of the situation and are accepting it very well, thank goodness," he says. "The gospel tells us to go into the deep; we have to take risks. We want to thrive, not just survive, in this town."

In any case, adds Fr Butters, the Church doesn't equate to priests. "All of us are the Church."

Once just parish priest of the Church of the Holy Rosary, built for £40,000 in 1960 after 13 years celebrating Mass in the nearby Swan public house, he now finds himself in charge of St John the Evangelist - opened three months earlier - and of St Joseph's on Low Grange Avenue.

"Fortunately," he says, "I'm quite good at putting names to faces."

Fr Kevin Dixon, his co-pastor, has left to run a house of prayer elsewhere in the diocese. For the first three weeks of the new system, until arrangements have been finalised to reduce the number of Saturday evening and Sunday masses from seven to four, services are also being taken by Fr Robert from the St John of God community at Scorton, in the next diocese.

It's Fr Robert who celebrates the 11.15am mass at Holy Rosary, the day's theme reflecting the New Testament reading in which Christ urges the frustrated fishermen to cast their nets just one more time.

It's also Education Sunday. If Billingham has a lesson to learn, it's how to survive after being thrown in at the deep end.

"Today's gospel reading is all about change," Fr Robert tells the congregation. "Change may not always be welcome but that is the Christian calling. We are called to face challenges."

At least 250 are present, probably more, including a baby attending a "welcome ceremony" as a precursor to her baptism two weeks later.

We sing the splendid hymn I the Lord of Sea and Sky - "Here I am Lord, is it I Lord?" - pray for vocations to the priesthood, drop the collection into velvet bags at the end of six foot poles, a device never hitherto encountered.

In the event of non-contribution, the irreverent thought occurs, defaulters may be fetched a remote controlled clip around the ear.

At the end, getting on 12.30pm, the congregation disappears as quickly as if someone had shouted "Fire", or "Lunch is ready" or "Last orders". Fr Butters, windcheater zipped to the neck, is back from Port Clarence and outside waiting to greet them.

Married priests, he believes, will eventually be allowed. "We need to do a lot of work on vocations, not the easiest of tasks these days when the priesthood isn't the most attractive of things because of all the abuse scandals."

Darlington lad originally, he lives in the adjoining presbytery with his 93-year-old mother, approaches the future positively, has bits of paper on his study wall reminding him where, at any given time of day, he should be. "I'm going to have priorities," he says.

Mass, sacraments, schools, visiting the sick, elderly and housebound - those are just the priorities. Others, says Fr Butters, can take care of the administration and finance.

"I think we have to be quite blunt, say to people that they must be involved as much as they possibly can in the running of their church in this town.

"There are some jobs which were the priest's which he can no longer do and which can be given to the people. I want to have an effective pastoral ministry."

Already a governor of three schools, he will now serve on all five boards, four primary and a comprehensive, and hopes to visit each at least once a week.

"The bishop said that people could report to me, but it's not the same as being involved in discussion and decision making. There are implications from one governing body to another."

He also knows, he says, how to say No. "I have told the parish councils there are things I won't be able to do so much. We will have to devolve."

On his one day off he might go back to Darlington, take his mother shopping, play squash or, once a month, enjoy a long walk and a meal with a group of fellow diocesan clergy.

They've been doing it a long time. "These days," says Fr Butters, "it might be the only chance you get to see another priest."