East of Eden: Gateshead

The Angel of the North

rusted, enormous,

stands watch over broken estates.

Not protection.

A witness.

Rev Pam walks the cut

towards the youth worker’s flat.

Grey drizzle.

Bin bags spilling.

Shouting from upstairs windows.

Trained at St Hild near Leeds,

cut her teeth in a suburban curacy,

but felt the call North,

to where the Angel spreads its arms.

She passes Kenny,

voice like gravel,

eyes red from Stella.

“Church lot divvent knaa, pet,” he mutters,

“kids roond here haven’t a chance.”

Then he half-laughs, shakes his head.

“Got sanctioned again.

Nee leccy.

Gonna have to kip in me coat.”

She keeps walking.

Sarah pushes a pram,

cigarette clamped between her teeth.

“The bairn’s da?

Back inside.

Scrappin’.

Probation means nowt.”

She shrugs, smoke curling.

“Aye well, Father Christmas divvent come te Gateshead.”

Pam reaches the youth worker.

Alicia.

Mid-twenties.

Brilliant, fierce, but tired,

shoulders slumped.

She’s carrying a box.

Files, notebooks, a mug.

“I can’t do it, Pam.

Every door —

stuff I can’t scrub out me head.

Last week — dad.

Shed.

Rope.

Kids screaming.

Mum done in.

And then that lad —

hunters on his step,

camera in his face,

all over bloody Facebook before a judge sees him.

Paint on his door: PEDO.

Neighbours spitting.

He don’t sleep. Shakes all night.

I can’t.

I’m not strong.

I thought I was.

But this place — it eats you.”

Pam wants to hold her,

but just nods.

“Of course you can’t.”

She sees vicarious trauma in Alicia’s face,

the haunted look she’s known in herself.

She thinks: I could pay,

for counselling,

From my own pocket.

The PCC’s skint,

but I’ve still got some savings.

She doesn’t say it.

Keeps it inside.

Alicia shakes her head.

“It’s not the job, Pam.

It’s the world.

And it’s crushing me.”

She presses the keys into Pam’s palm.

Pam breathes deep.

She thinks of ordination vows,

oil on skin,

sent to bring gospel to the poor.

But gospel feels thin here —

stretched till it tears.

A voice in her chest snarls:

Where the hell are you, God?

That night she phones her sister in Oxford.

Recruitment firm.

Big house.

Kitchen island.

Wine poured into crystal.

“How’s parish life?” her sister asks.

Pam hesitates.

Does she speak of Alicia broken?

Of children hungry?

Of the Angel standing over estates

where hope rusts?

Her sister carries on,

talks of ski trips,

pupil premiums at private schools,

the au pair who keeps burning the risotto.

Then she laughs:

“You’d love it here —

we’re fundraising for the prep school bursary.

Making sure even less fortunate children can ski.”

Pam listens.

Says nothing.

Later,

in the cold church,

she kneels beneath the crucifix.

She thinks of Jesus saying,

“Let the children come to me.”

She thinks of James:

“If a brother or sister lacks food

and you say, ‘Keep warm,’

but give them nothing,

what is the good of that?”

And then she remembers:

Jesus blessed the poor,

lifted the hungry,

turned tables for the broken.

But he also said,

“Take up your cross.

Follow me.”

Not cheap words,

but blood and surrender.

Bias to the poor,

but cost to the disciple.

Pam weeps.

Not for answers,

but for the weight she can’t lay down,

the ache of a gospel

that demands everything

and still feels too small

for Gateshead’s grief.

So she prays —

not for fire that burns her out,

not for zeal that consumes and collapses,

but for love that lasts.

Sustainable love.

The kind that steadies,

endures,

does not fail.

No wonder Jesus sent them out in pairs,

she thinks.

But Alicia has gone.

No other workers.

Just her,

a hollow rectory,

and a congregation already stretched.

She’ll advertise for a replacement —

but knows the post may never be filled.

Only six months left on the grant.

And the other church —

the one with the SDF money,

brimming with staff,

Instagram worship nights,

but the poor left outside the door.

She tries not to be jealous.

Tries.

Yet she knows, too,

the grit of her parishioners,

the stubborn humour,

the Geordie warmth.

Every visit,

always the offer of a cuppa —

no matter how little in the cupboard.

Once she heard a lass who’d offered her tea

nip next door, whisper for a teabag,

then come back smiling,

mug in hand,

hospitality unbroken.

Even here,

among mould and hunger,

there are glimmers.

Last Sunday —

a family baptised.

Dad found faith in prison,

came out new,

married the mother of his children.

Now four kids in the pews,

wide-eyed,

singing hallelujah with crisp packets crackling.

The Spirit still falls in Gateshead,

just as Joel promised,

“on sons and daughters,

on young and old,

even on the least.”

The Angel spreads its iron arms,

east of Eden.

Wings heavy with witness,

but also with hope.

Children still hungry.

Workers still broken.

Empire still grinding.

And yet—

a compass points to the wounded Christ,

where bread is broken,

water poured,

and even in Gateshead,

God is not absent.

- Rev’d Jon Swales