MY next door neighbour Fred, invited me to a service being held at St Nicholas church in Newchurch the other day.

The service was led by the Reverend Sue Davies (a real tour de force, who has done great things at St Nicholas’s) and the Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Revd Nigel McCulloch.

The Bishop is carrying out a pilgrimage to all the churches in his Manchester diocese (about 370, he hopes to complete this mission next year).

I have to confess I am not a regular church goer; however my wife is a regular “happy clapper” at Sion Baptist, so I think that sort of makes up for me.

Before the service, there was an informal reception and I met lots of new people and some old friends. Among them, Joyce the Mayor, Town Hall Terry (her attendant), two people I like very much and Trevor Unsworth, the next Mayor. I think Trevor is going to be one of the great Rossendale Mayors when his time comes.

I really enjoyed the service and got a lot out of it. The Bishop’s message was simple: be a good guy and love everybody and the job will be a good ‘un!

I left the service all saintly, determined to heed the Bishop’s message.

I got home: no key! It was chucking it down, I banged and banged on the door, Julie was on the phone and my two boys don’t seem to think it is their job to answer the door.

Once I finally got in, very wet, I settled down to watch my favourite programme, the “Gadget Show”, which I had recorded on “SKY+” (the greatest invention since the steam engine) only to find that ‘someone’ had deleted it.

I went into a ‘dad’ rage and let them all have it, how thoughtless, selfish etc, etc.

The moral of this column... boy, it is hard to be good!