WHATEVER theatricals say about not working with children and animals, has never really applied to the church. Suffer them, the good book says - the bairns, if not the beasties.

So Jemima Ridgeway became queen for the day, and queened it magnificently. She is three - blonde, curly haired and utterly delightful. Were the present incumbent finally to consider shifting over, Queen Jemima would prove an enchanting young lady in waiting.

It was the United Reformed Church in Barnard Castle, about which a jolly little history has just been published and where the Rev Val Towler arrived, temporary, part-time, in 1993.

Part time, she remains. "I can't afford it, but they are such wonderful people," says Val. "I think it's because they put so much effort into the church and because it means so much to them. It isn't just a building, it's a fellowship."

Adult membership is barely less than it was 100 years ago, though the days when 250 children crowded the Sunday School and won medals for good attendance are long cobwebbed in the cupboard.

Morning service is at 10.30am, eight or nine youngsters there for the first part before going off to their own classes, the column, a row from the back, assured that we're among the elite.

"The Lancastrians," a rather cheery old gentleman explains.

Val's exercise with the children involves matching rulers with their countries, for which purpose she produces a golden crown and lots of name cards. After several decline to be queen - "they're not usually so slow" - Jemima is duly enthroned. "What do you do when you're Queen?" asks Val. "Stay in the house all day," answers a still small voice.

"Where's the queen gone now?" asks Val. "Under the pew," another voice replies.

There are cards for Julius Caesar, and Genghis Khan and Montezuma ("not that tummy bug that you get when you're on holiday") and another for Nebuchadnezzar, which prompts someone to remember the lines about Nebuchadnezzar, the king of the Jews, who bought his wife a pair of shoes. Movie star Betty Grable came into it somewhere, too, but by this time we are becoming distracted.

Besides, Queen Jemima has emerged from beneath the pew and gone off with Spain, a liaison for which O level history dimly suggests a precedent from an earlier Elizabethan age. Uneasy lies the head, and all that.

Soon, there are just so many little ones dancing attendance that the minister wonders aloud if there may not be more bodies around the dais than remaining in the congregation.

"Jesus came into this world to be a servant of all, not to rule them," adds Val, a minister with no fear of being left holding the baby.

Such memorably happy scenes are mixed with sadness, however, at the death a few days earlier of Alice Morrell, a former Aycliffe Angel who married in 1940, and didn't see her husband for another six years. She was 80.

"Alice lived for this church, cleaned it for years, loved it so much," says Val.

Formerly the Congregational Church - known for reasons of verbal economy as the Congs - the church opened in 1837 and will shortly undergo a £55,000 refurbishment. It's in Hall Street, up a cobbled snicket off the Horsemarket, to which directions proved slightly difficult.

"Do it by pubs," we suggested.

"I don't really know the pubs," said Val, in Ashington before joining the Barney army.

Externally it's quite ordinary, acknowledged in the first two lines of a 1977 poem by church member Elsie Beckham:

It has a preservation order, none can pull it down, although as a building, it's not the best in town.

Inside it's much more attractive, more posters than the average LNER main line station, though word is that many will disappear after the restoration.

Some marry biblical texts to the highway code, like the bit from the Epistle to Peter about the devil thy adversary prowling about, seeking whomsoever he might have for Sunday dinner. It's represented by an exclamation mark - Danger!

The youngsters rush off for thier further education and Val delivers an address which is entitled The Interview, based on the four day course she was to attend this week.

She helps choose intending ministers, aware that in all denominations problems can be glossed over or ignored. "Our interviews are here and now," she tells her congregation.

Afterwards there's coffee in what's still called the schoolroom. Jemima's wearing her crown; her dad has one, too.

"This church has a lovely atmosphere. Everyone's so kind and generous, they always have been," says Margaret White, widow of the minister from 1969-85.

A phrase about kind hearts and coronets leaps majestically to mind. Queen Jemima, as befits her standing, is having another biscuit.

l Sunday services at Barnard Castle United Reformed Church in Hall Street are at 10.30am and 6pm. The Rev Val Towler is available on (01833) 690023.