The work of a Lancashire rural benefice in supporting its community during the pandemic has been featured in a video from The Church of England in Lancashire, available now to view on YouTube.  

In the film - produced prior to the current lockdown - presenter Rev Sam Cheesman, the Bishop’s Chaplain, talks with parish priest Rev Cindy Rigney and farmer Cath Morley from Dolphinholme with Quernmore and Over Wyresdale.  

Sam travelled round the Diocese in October for a series of ‘road trip’ films. These were first featured as part of a recent livestreamed Diocesan Conference: ‘#HomeGrown: Hearts on Fire with Love for You’. 

Now the road trip sequences have been edited into separate fresh new short films by Jim Cooke of Centreline Films. Watch out for more to come …  

In the film Cindy describes her farming parishioners as key workers saying: “Throughout the pandemic, farming families have been out there keeping supplies of food moving to us all. 

“Isolation in rural areas like this has been the big worry. We have a lot of elderly people living in isolated locations in the parishes and keeping in touch with them has been a particular challenge.” 

Since airing as part of the conference, the film has generated a substantial amount of positive feedback from people in the area … church members and non-church members.  

Cindy explains: “Kath has had a lot of comments from folk saying how well she has presented the situation for farmers at this time. 

“I am hoping that the film has opened a few eyes on the challenges faced by our farmers; and the importance of faith in keeping them going.” 

During the film Kath explains to Sam how running a farm in the lockdown was particularly challenging with a young family: “We are told by our milk buyer that we had to reduce production because of difficulties collecting milk, leading to us having to make difficult decisions about which animals would have to leave the farm.” 

Kath also explains how online communications have helped farmers keep in touch with one another … ‘talking has been really good in this time’.  

Ronnie Semley
27/11/2020