For the third year, Trinity St Andrew’s Church in Skipton has been involved in Pride, but this year’s involvement was bigger and better. Judy Rogers, Church Elders, gives an account of the day:
Four years ago Pride first came to Skipton. Initially the celebrations took place in Aireville Park, outside the town centre. Two years ago Pride was tucked away in the backstreets and last year there was no Pride in Skipton (but as a church TSA took part in Pride in the Dales at Grassington). However, this year on Sunday 3rd August, Pride came to Skipton with a bang and the whole of Skipton High Street became a Pride celebration for the day.
Trinity St Andrew’s had two marquees on the High Street – one for activities and the other for sitting, mingling and in one case breast feeding a baby. We ran the stall from 10am to 5pm when the real party kicked off at the other end of the High Street with lots of music and acts. On our stall we had crafts for the children – making rainbow jars with a prayer attached, threading rainbow shoes laces and had a much loved bubble machine (or two!!) going most of the day. We gave out hundreds of rainbow buns, and lots of postcards explaining why we were at Pride and advertising our Pride Praise that evening.
All who staffed the stall wore ‘Christians at Pride’ purple t shirts, so we were very obvious, and we even managed to get our ‘Love is Love’ banner prominently attached to the railings blocking off the High Street.
Passers by were both delighted and puzzled by our presence, but most said how good it was to see Christians involved in Pride.
In the evening, we were delighted to welcome Rev Andrew Howorth (now chair of Open Table) to lead our worship. He spoke about his own experience of coming out as gay and his struggles to find a place within his own church until the Bishop of Bradford pointed to him and said “I have work for you ministering to the LGBT community within Bradford”. It was sheer delight to also welcome members of his Open Table community who had travelled from all around West Yorkshire to be with us in Skipton, and Stuart Larsson and his partner Alan who came all the way from Durham Methodist circuit to share with us.
Our day finished with the hymn ‘We will go out with Pride’ (sung to the tune of Trees of the Field) a real celebration of what the LGBTQI+ community bring to our lives.
Cover photo left to right: Judith Duxbury; Judy Rogers; Jean Williams