By the Revd Canon Paul Peverell, vicar of Great Ayton with Easby and Newton under Roseberry.

Earlier this year a resident from Newton village tipped me off that Redcar and Cleveland Council were planning an event around Roseberry Topping and Newton under Roseberry for October this year. It was going to be called “Odin’s Glow.” The first meeting for residents had already taken place and there was understandable apprehension with the villagers of having thousands of people descend on them.

Initially the event was just going to be along the main road, then yours truly jumped in with both feet asking if St Oswald’s could be involved too. The little Church at Newton is a real gem. It has a Norman archway which dates the Church to a similar age as All Saints in Great Ayton, but gets no where near as many visitors as most people don’t even know of its existence as it is hidden from view in the village.

To my delight the organisers jumped at having our involvement, and rather than celebrate our Pagan roots we decided to tell the story of our Patron Saint, Oswald, King of Northumbria, who has watched over the village for a thousand years.

Harvest was put back to enable the decorations to cover both events, and they looked absolutely superb. I asked Roseberry Primary School in Great Ayton and Galley Hill in Guisborough if they would like to help tell the story using some of my puppets on different evenings, and involved other children from both Newton and Great Ayton.

We came the first evening, not quite knowing what to expect, and the result was phenomenal. Having thought we would have 20 minutes between performances to allow the Church to fill, we discovered queues stretching out onto the road. The children were brilliant and grew in confidence with the telling, and were quite reluctant to catch the bus home. Once they had left, I told the story with volunteers from the audience to work the puppets, and there were some hilarious moments as people got into the spirit of things.

The majority of people - even some from Great Ayton and Christ Church - had never been in the Church before and were taken with how beautiful it looks. We reckon that in the space of four evenings we have had around 3,500 visitors! Absolutely incredible.

It was great to see Odin’s Glow being a family event and being carried out with such good humour. The glow came not just from the mountain, but from the participants and visitors too. As well as Odin and Oswald, the festival also featured local hero Captain James Cook and many children's groups performing dance and theatre out in the open.

We live in a beautiful area with a rich heritage and it was good to celebrate it and share it in such an imaginative way. Congratulations to Redcar and Cleveland Council for seeing the idea through, and thank you for helping us bring more people into our Church than we could ever have done on our own.


This article was originally printed in 'Spire', the magazine of Great Ayton and Newton under Roseberry Anglican Churches. For more details about Odin's Glow, visit http://www.odinsglow.co.uk/.

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