Rolling Back the Years

1966-2016 - 50 Years of Fellowship

It was back on the 5th March 1966 that St Gall’s Church on the Crawfordsburn Road was consecrated by the then Bishop of Down and Dromore, the Right Rev. Dr F.J. Mitchell. He was one of three Bishops there that day. The preacher was the Bishop of Cashel, the wonderfully named, the Right Rev. Dr. W. C. de Pauley. Also present was the Bishop of Delhi from India, the Right Rev R F Willis — he would be preaching the following day as a further part of the grand celebration.

Last Sunday - 6th March 2016 - St Gall’s Church rolled back the years to celebrate it’s 50th birthday - the Golden Anniversary of the this busy local church. The celebrant at the Holy Communion service was Bishop Edward Darling. He retired as the Bishop of Limerick but began his career here in Bangor - the first minister of St Gall’s appointed to set up the parish. He told a packed church hall of how the parish began as a green field on the edge of a growing town in 1962 with only a committee of five people tasked with putting together the new parish church community.

Over a celebration dinner the congregation heard from two of those who were there at that first consecration service. Roy Shepherd, a local editor and journalist spoke of bringing his young family along to the first services in the prefab building, and of his joy that on the fiftieth anniversary his daughter Jan had been able to be there, flying in from her home in Los Angeles. Vernon Clegg, a member of the original committee of five also spoke. He recalled that amongst the first things that they did as a group was write off to local churches to ask for financial support as they began the journey of building the church family in Bangor West from the foundation stone up!

The preacher at the Golden Anniversary service was the Ven. Gregor McCamley. He had been the clergyman who took over from Bishop Darling in 1972, leading the parish through eight years of that decade. His message was in two parts: a call to celebrate the foundation and the early pioneers of the parish life; and also to commend and encourage the parish to look to the future and support the Golden Anniversary Building Appeal. That appeal was set to create a transformed and upgraded building that would carry the church forward over the next fifty years.

To mark the occasion the two former Rectors - Darling and McCamley - were presented with engraved stones, as reminders of their time serving the parish. These were engraved by local stonemason Karl McCartney as a special commission for the day. In addition the Ven. McCamley received a gift from the Select Vestry of a very pink and fluffy teddy bear - a first for a visiting preacher to St Gall’s - a gift, not for him, but for his new granddaughter who had been born just the week before! The cutting of a celebration cake commissioned for the day was performed by Mrs Patricia Darling and Mrs Christine Parker.

The Rector of St Gall’s, Canon Michael Parker said: “It was a great celebration of fifty years of church life. We had a lovely gathering up of former parishioners and church organists who had travelled specially to be with us. They all came with some terrific stories to tell of those early years. It was a pleasure to celebrate the foundation of the church and also to have generations - past and present - meeting and sharing together over lunch. We have all been blessed by the life and ministry of the church in this place and it was a joy to be able to give thanks to God and to celebrate that blessing together.”