Look out, St George. A poll has revealed support for St Alban as England's patron saint. The congregation of a church bearing his name agrees. And what's more, he really did exist.

THERE are several problems with St George, England's patron saint, chief among them that he probably never existed. Even if he did, he certainly came nowhere near England, or far from Palestine.

Had he managed to catch the Dover ferry George would in any case have discovered that the dragons were long slain, bold Sir John Lambton having been worm-hunting before him.

Apart from that, George was positively heroic.

In 1969 the Vatican relegated him to 'local' sainthood, a sort of Papal third division north, and last week the poor chap suffered further indignity when a listeners' poll for the Radio 4 programme Today decreed that St Alban should be England's number one.

George was demoted to second place, Cuthbert - a Geordie lad by adoption - came third.

Cry God for Harry, England and St Alban? At the church of St Alban, Trimdon Grange, they were positively full voiced about it.

Alban almost certainly did exist, around 300AD, though - like most saints - his cult has become somewhat eagerly embellished.

The story, at any rate, goes that Alban was a pagan soldier who sheltered a priest and was converted by him.

When Roman squaddies came looking for the priest, the two exchanged clothes and the priest escaped. Alban was captured, refused to acknowledge the divinity of the Roman emperor Diocletian - a less divine gentleman, by every account, it would be almost impossible to imagine - and was sentenced to death.

Alban converted the first executioner but failed to win over the second whose eyes, as artists have since loved to portray, fell out by way of punishment. There was born, or died, the first English martyr - and a spring bubbled on the site where now St Alban's cathedral is built.

How many Today voters came from that Hertfordshire city may never be known, but since it is considerably bigger than (say) Middleton St George, they could have been influential.

The Very Rev Dr Christopher Lewis, Dean of St Albans, is naturally delighted at so great a vote of confidence for their local boy made good. "His is a much better story than St George's and he has the advantage of having existed," says the dean, cruelly.

Up at St Alban's, Trimdon Grange, one of myriad Trimdons which form part of the Prime Minister's Sedgefield constituency and the only North-East church we know with that dedication, the dozen souls gathered for the weekly Sunday evening communion were equally pleased though anxious not to sound unpatriotic.

"I'm sure that St George was a very good chap," said retired miner Bill Slee, 84, "but naturally we're very proud of St Alban around here."

(Bill, a Normandy veteran, had just been re-elected to the parish council. "It's something to do," he said.)

The lovely little church, built in 1886 and still manifestly cared for, has a colourful stained glass window depicting scenes from Alban's life and death and, on the opposite wall, a new colliery banner with the motto 'Unity is Strength' beneath an image of an Englishman, Irishman, Welshman and a kilted Scot.

The Irishman is carrying a shamrock, the Welshman a daffodil. There aren't any leeks.

We'd last been there in August 1999, the handsome little church re-opening after a £90,000 restoration and the Vicar saying farewell to the Trimdons. Another has been and gone since then.

Adele Kelham - Vicar of Bishop Middleham, area dean of Sedgefield and Swiss national - led Sunday's service instead. A diplomat, which may be the Swiss national occupation, Adele wondered if England might not be big enough for two patron saints, and two more national holidays, though she supposed they might still have to fly St George's flag at football matches.

"The bishop is going to banish me for talking like this," she added.

Born in south Yorkshire, widowed with four sons, she went to Switzerland after university because her husband had a job there, studied subsequently at Cranmer Hall in Durham, became an assistant chaplain in Zurich after ordination in 1998 but came back to County Durham, and Bishop Middleham, in 2001.

"She's very good value," says an admiring fellow priest in the Sedgefield deanery.

"I've always had the feeling that God's plan for me was a series of nudges, not a big sign, not lightning in the sky," says Adele. "This part of the world just seemed to be the direction in which I was being nudged."

England, she reckons, had much changed in her 30-year absence - "I felt I knew how it worked and I didn't, even how to pay the bills."

Particularly she was aware of how run-down - with "magnificent" exceptions like Newcastle - things seemed.

It was Good Shepherd Sunday, named after the appropriate Gospel reading. Adele's sermon suggested that the 'Bo Peep' image was mistaken. "Maybe that's our picture of the Good Shepherd, but the good shepherd wasn't always meek and mild."

The congregation stayed behind for photographs, and to sing St Alban's praises. "It's just a shame everyone learned about St George and not St Alban at school," said Bill. Truly a saint for Today.

Songs of Praise

THE village church of Holy Trinity, Boltby - north-east of Thirsk, not far from the A19 - hosts what sounds a splendid 'Songs of Praise' in aid of Marie Curie Cancer Care tomorrow evening.

Hymns will be accompanied by the Thirsk Royal British Legion Band, the Pipers of the 40th Royal Artillery (the Lowland Gunners) and the Frith Family singing group with David Bowman on organ.

"We didn't just want the congregation singing ten hymns, getting exhausted and going home," says Terence Allinson, one of the church wardens. The event begins at 6 30pm, every hymn from the BBC top 100.

Admission is £3, which the column has every intention of paying.

More praises next Saturday.