St. James', Paisley

The church where my parents married, my siblings and I were Christened (and then later took our vows) and in which my father's funeral service was held, closes next week.  Mum, Alexis and I travelled various distances ranging from Cairo to Largs to be here today for the penultimate service in this magnificent building funded by the Coats family (see my extra shot) and which houses one of the best organs in the land and also one of the best peels of bells - a bell ringer was presented with a certificate to mark his seventy-two years of service in the belfry. An active congregation of just eighty silver-haired people foretold the church's sad demise.

I sat in our pew (I discovered today it was the place my parents occupied on their very first visit in early1953 when they were looking for a church to get married in) and breathed in the oh, so familiar aromas of the place.  As the sermon unfolded I found my eyes tracing familiar patterns across the arches of the choir stalls and over the air vents of the organ pipes.   I slipped a mint into my mouth and remembered how I used to time their dissolution-duration as a coping mechanism to survive the eternally long prayers of intercession - I was very young!

I cannot tell you the emotion of singing the last verse of the final hymn  - To God Be The Glory - and how I held onto the last note with my expiring breath.  The final word of the hymn is 'done'.  And then it was.

To conclude, after the blessing, the organist thrilled us all with the postlude of Chorale Alleluiatique No. 2 by Charles Tournemire.   In the finale, the pipes bellowed as they have rarely done and will, no doubt, also do next week.  It will require a stout heart to be there.

Note 1:  
Here, Mum and I replicate her wedding photo with Dad on the steps of the church.

Note 2:
Chorale Alleluiatique No. 2 by Charles Tournemire . . . here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYXMAL9Jfak