AN upper Teesdale church has pressed the artistic talents of its new minister into service to help mark Remembrance Sunday.
In line with many other churches in the area, the Pathway Methodist Church, in Middleton-in-Teesdale, took the reluctant decision to cancel the customary Remembrance Day service.
But rather than let the day go unmarked, the church commissioned special commemorative artwork – designed by its new minister, Revd Graham Cutler – to go on the new noticeboard only a few yards from the village’s war memorial.
Senior church steward Dorothy Matthews said: “Obviously, the decision to cancel the service at the war memorial was a hard one but we felt it was the only one we could take.
“We knew it would be a disappointment for a lot of people and we were all feeling a bit despondent but then Graham came to the rescue with designs for two posters which perfectly capture the message at the heart of Remembrance Sunday. We all thought they looked wonderful and we hope the rest of the village did too.”
In addition to the posters, the church encouraged people to hold their own memorial event in their homes or gardens. Revd Cutler also left print-outs of the usual order of service for people to take.
One of the two posters included an image of the cemetery in Bayeux where his wife’s great uncle is buried. He fell in France after D-Day.
Doubly poignant for Revd Cutler was the fact that Remembrance Sunday was also the day his son. Nathanael, 21, left to train as a pilot at RAF Cranwell, in Lincolnshire.
“It gets real for us now,” he said.
On behalf of the parish council a bugler from Middleton and Teesdale Silver Band played the Last Post and Reveille at 11am at the War Memorial. The Deputy Lord Lieutenant will lay a wreath at 11am on Wednesday, November 11, in the village.
