Out of the ashes

IN the familiar, if idly erroneous, belief that there is nothing new under the sun, we turn back 100 years to The Northern Echo of Monday, July 1, 1907 - and not just because, then as now, it had been tossing down.

There'd also been an outbreak of what these days would be called vandalism in Stockton, particularly in the public parks. "The inculcation of good manners in both public and private seems, in the present multiplicity of educational subjects, to be neglected altogether," the Echo primly observed.

A century later, they're proposing to reintroduce it - manners born - to the curriculum.

Elsewhere that summer morning, we reported a suspicious death in Spennymoor - damn near hanged the lodger, truth to tell - that Chas Pearson of Richmond had been fined 2/6d with 7/6 costs for riding his bike without lights and that at Durham Assizes, 31-year-old Thomas Sowerby of Darlington had been given five years penal servitude for assault.

Buried amid a scree of small print, a single paragraph reported the opening two days earlier of the "wood and corrugated iron" Roman Catholic church at Flint Hill, near Stanley - Stanley, north-west Durham - built for around £1,000 and capable of seating 500.

The whole report consumed no more than an inch of newsprint, though the diocesan calendar the following year reported that the parish had 1,200 Catholic miners and their families "of whom 700 are already attending Holy Mass on Sundays".

Today, probably something to do with inflation, St Patrick's can have a full page.

A nearby Catholic school had opened about the same time, despite fierce opposition from Durham County Council who hired King's Counsel unsuccessfully to represent them at an inquiry. The Catholic calendar reported "a tough heckling of witnesses, both clerical and lay, by mothers and fathers who meant business and spoke their minds very clearly".

The old ironclad lasted until 1934, when it gained a dressed stone shell, said by the cognoscenti to be Gothic and by Flint Hill folk to be quite posh.

That, in turn, lasted until an April night in 1964 when a milk tanker driver woke Father John Caden, the curate, to tell him that the church was ablaze - and ablaze, it might suspiciously be said, from both ends.

Fr Caden, perhaps better remembered at Sedgefield where Tony Blair was his tennis partner, recalled the awful events in Game, Set and Match, his autobiography. "It immediately became clear that the fire was already more or less out of control and I helplessly watched the flames leaping along the roof. There was nothing I could do."

Well there was, actually. When the fire chief asked if there was anything he particularly wanted rescuing, Fr Caden remembered - probably couldn't have forgotten - the blessed sacrament.

What happened next would not only make any 21st century health and safety wallah throw the rule book into the inferno but probably hurl himself after it.

The fireman gave the priest a helmet, axe and asbestos gloves, had two others spray hoses either side of them and together fought their way to the chancel, where the two hacked the tabernacle from the blazing wood of the altar.

Ashes to ashes, they vowed to build a new church. That's where Fr Caden, still in Sedgefield, again proved his worth. He'd been chaplain at Sunderland Empire theatre - opened on July 1, 1907, special appearance of Miss Vesta Tilley - and knew just about everyone.

Suddenly, they found Val Doonican performing a benefit concert at Newcastle City Hall, discovered that Helen Shapiro was opening the garden party, saw more of Sunderland's football team - and they had a canny one in those days - than some of the lads at the back of the Clock Stand.

"It was quite amazing," says Nancy Bolton, at St Patrick's since 1948. "Fr Caden was inspirational, it's down to him that we have a church today."

The replacement was opened in 1968, a large, light and much-loved building now re-ordered as part of the centenary celebrations.

For the past six years the parish priest has been Darlington-born Father Michael McKenna, one of precious few Catholic priests to have published a book of irreverent anecdotes - "If the bishop knew some of them, he'd be excommunicated," says one of the faithful - and to have had a fondly recalled career on the sportsmen's dinner circuit.

In Richmond, they still talk of a dinner at which he and the late Alan Ball were speakers. The high-pitched World Cup hero was brilliant - "I'm your after-dinner squeaker" he was fond of saying - Fr McKenna better still.

These days he only does it privately. "I keep talking to the bishop about retirement," says 71-year-old Fr McKenna, 45 years a priest. "He pretends he doesn't speak English."

They love him to bits, of course. "He always tells a joke at the end, always sends you out with a smile on your face," someone says. "His only problem is that he won't delegate and when he does, he interferes," adds another parishioner, affectionately.

Sunday Mass is attended by around 150, and with a good choir. We sit next to a young man in a Newcastle United shirt, and ask that he may be forgiven.

Fr McKenna introduces the chap from the paper - "He has a fascination for the obscure" - and holds up a time capsule that's been recovered during the re-ordering.

"It's in a rather poor state, but so would you be if you'd been attacked with a windy pick," he says.

Afterwards they talk of a thriving church to which young people are returning, of a vibrant community spirit and of the priest being a man to whom you can really talk. "It's a privilege being part of this parish," says Nancy.

Back in the presbytery, Fr McKenna offers a wee dram, as doubtless he would a week later when the bishop was due to help celebrate the centenary. It's as doubtless they say down Dipton, manners cost nowt. Thank you.