A SPECIAL milestone was celebrated by the congregation of North Parish Church recently - the passing of fifty years in their current home.

Here, they recall their history and how the congregation have marked the occasion Saltcoats North Parish Church used to be located where Sainsbury’s supermarket now is at the war memorial roundabout.

When the North Parish housing was built, the congregation was re-located to the present site at the corner of the High Road and Dalry Road.

At first, the church building was a Nissan Hut left over from the wartime MOD camp there.

Then a hall-church was built.

All week it was a hall facing a stage and on Sundays and special occasions, like weddings and funerals, it faced the other direction towards the chancel. After 10 years like that, the new sanctuary was built on.

We use the hall-church as our main hall and the sanctuary for worship services.

The sanctuary was opened and dedicated on Saturday, October 10, 1964,  by the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Rt Rev Duncan Fraser.

The architect was Miss Margaret Brodie from Lochwinnoch.

Also present were former ministers of the charge, Rev David Smith and the Rev Edwin Lowe.

We asked people to stand up if they had been baptised or married or ordained in the church.

An impressive 19 people were at the opening service and are still regular worshippers.

In 50 years, the church has seen over 600 weddings, over 1,000 baptisms and over 1,600 funerals.

The day after it opened there were 10 baptisms!

Within 14 days of opening there were four weddings!

Within 18 days there were six funerals.

On one Sunday that first month there were 12 new disciples, new members!

In a short space of time the congregation grew from the original 19 members who were re-located from down-town to over 1,000 members in the new housing area of Saltcoats called the North Parish.

Our celebrations began a few weeks ago with a special concert featuring the Osiligi Maasai Warriors from Kenya.

On Friday October 10, the exact 50th anniversary, we lined up 50 people to come to the church for 50 minutes to give the sanctuary the birthday present of a “spring” clean.

On Sunday, (October 12) the entrance corridor became a walk down memory lane as we staged an exhibition of Saltcoats North Parish church’s history.

We also have an online exhibition on our church website at www.saltcoatsnorth.co.uk thanks to the work of Gordon Fraser.

Inside we had a large, hand-decorated 50 sign as a centrepiece, a banner made by the youth group, a matchstick model of the church building and two huge birthday cakes made by Mrs Robb.

We had special orders of service and in the week following we are giving away 50 Gospels to people who use our church halls.

After some special photos, we adjourned to the large hall for a free soup and sweet lunch.

We are very grateful to all those who provided and served such a bountiful feast.

Mrs Millie Irvine, the oldest member there, cut the cakes.

Mrs Agnes Wilkie organised the lunch, in spite of being rushed to hospital after a serious accident.

Mattie Duff also came with the two cakes in spite of a broken leg and broken arm just days earlier!

That is the spirit which has got us to the 50th Anniversary!