VICAR’S FIFTY FEET CLIMB

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21530, 30 December 1931, Page 10

VICAR’S FIFTY FEET CLIMB

: CROSS PUT ON CHURCH CHEERS FROM PARISHIONERS. Accepting the friendly challenge of a stonemason, the Rev. A. E. Beswick, vicar of St. Bede’s, Daubhill, Bolton, Lancashire, climbed 50ft to the highest point of his new church recently, and placed in position a stone cross. He climbed steadily up the scaffolding to his lofty perch amid the good-humoured banter ot ! workmen employed on the erection of the j church and the cheers of many of his j parishioners, who watched him from below. Mr Rutherford, the general foreman, said: “It was only a jest, made by the mason-when, the vicar came round one day. but Mr Beswick, to our surprise, readily agreed to place the cross on the apex of the gable.” Mr Beswick, who is one of the most energetic church workers Bolton has j known, some time. ago sat on the pavet ment near Daubhill Station collecting ' money toward the erection of his new ! church. He received an anonymous gift of £IOO for his pluck, and later appeared at a Bolton kinema, where he made an 1 appeal for support to the audience.