From my home I cross the street, going past the old cinema, now used by a house church, which proclaims itself to be ‘Your Local Christian Fellowship’. Sometimes I hear the sound of a rock band practising for what I imagine to be lively, noisy and ‘spirit-led’ worship. I am soon passing a neat looking Evangelical Church on the other side. The half-dozen churches where I live are quite similar, yet each maintains its separate existence. After the school playing field and the Masonic Hall I reach a crossroads, where a wooden owl surveys the scene from the thatched roof of a cottage. The traffic is fairly light, and only a few people are out and about: a lady carrying a Bible, a man washing a car, a couple mending their garden wall. The Mormon Church is nearby and last Sunday I saw the missionaries approaching, looking like a pair of young, well-fed undertakers in their dark suits. Thankfully they had business elsewhere and did not stop to talk!
Beyond this junction the road descends to a roundabout, then levels out as it passes through a late C20 suburb. Curving beside a school with a play-house and some beautiful evergreens in its grounds, it drops once again to the river, a favoured place for dog-walkers. The wooded valley is damp and shady and crossing the bridge I notice the slow moving water below. Dry weather has exposed roots and boulders along the bank. A duck and drake sit dozing mid-stream. On the far side cottages are densely packed along the roadside and the lanes leading off it. I begin to climb the road, then dive up a narrow alley between two houses, emerging higher up. Everything is slightly higgledy-piggledy and the charm of the place has attracted prosperous residents.
At the top of the steep lane is a patch of green with a few mature trees and on one side a relic of the early motorcar age- a Garage complete with petrol pump and rusting Morris Minor outside. Between village school and churchyard a pair of stone finger posts marks the entrance onto the main common. Children with their dutiful parents may be gathering for a football match, or the field may be deserted, except for a few gulls. The Parish Church stands proudly dominating the scene, reflecting the assured position the CofE still holds in society. The tower clock gives me the time as I pass. Early Churchgoers are parking their cars. I walk across the road and along beside the high boundary wall of the hospital. A last few yards take me to the more modest Chapel, and now I too will join in the gathering for worship.
Colin Campbell
