A Personal Reflection
Bishop John Finney

This is the Lord’s doing: it is marvellous in our eyes’ PS 118.23

Last July Chris Edmondson made waves even before he had properly arrived as Bishop of Bolton. He wrote to the Church press deploring the closure of Scargill and hoping that some way would be found of reopening it. Within a few weeks the response to that letter and the dismay of many people at the shutting of this beautiful and deeply meaningful place led to three initiatives being taken. ...

SaveScargill was made up of people who had been very closely involved with the place and had a deep love for it. The Bishop of Bradford alerted Church leaders to the situation and probed away behind the scenes. Lee Abbey had an emergency meeting of its Standing Committee and determined to put some money into any attempt to save Scargill.

At the end of August the property was put on the market at a price ‘in excess of £2 million’.

A key moment was the invitation by SaveScargill to Lee Abbey and Bradford diocese to meet and think of a way forward. The three groups came together in Kettlewell church on September 18th. It was agreed to set up a Steering Group representing all three bodies to see if it was possible to set up a new charity and negotiate to buy the place.

The eight of us asked to be on the group stood around after the meeting trying to fix dates to meet. You know the procedure - flick through diaries – going to dentist… at a conference…on holiday…taking dog to the vet. Eight busy people – and we fixed three dates. I have never known God take hold of our diaries with such total accuracy – we had no idea of its significance at the time. The first miracle was that eight busy people, some far from Yorkshire, could meet 11 days later.

The second miracle was that God had given us from those three very different groups eight people with just the right skills. – a lawyer, an accountant, a financial negotiator, someone who could run a website, a brilliant secretary, a vision person, an expert in making business plans and managing projects. The work which they put in was beyond praise – often when there seemed to be very little realistic hope that we would be able to buy the place.

At the first meeting we determined to approach the Trustees who were selling the property – and to do so in love: we said we would not pray for them as a group, but by their Christian names. We wanted to meet them and talk. But to be honest it looked pretty hopeless – we had had the promise of one large donation and that was absolutely crucial to our thinking, but the best we could come up with was a conditional offer – ‘if you sell us Scargill, we will clear your debts and we will try to raise the rest of the money and if we don’t manage it you can have it back’. To be honest it was not a very strong negotiating position, but it was the best we could do. We knew that a lot of interest had been expressed by other possible purchasers who might come along at any moment and just slap down the total price.

October was frustrating. We approached the Trustees but there were obviously other people they were negotiating with. We started to prepare a business plan, and think about raising money.

Our second meeting was November 10th (2008). We got our act together and prayed. I notice we had on the agenda ‘50th Birthday Celebrations’ and thought vaguely of what we might do. Throughout we had the feel that God would once again enable us to buy Scargill, however remote that possibility seemed.

Four days later, on Friday evening, a phone call from the estate agents said we had to have our bid, our business plan and our Articles of Association and all the other legalities for a new charity sent to them by the following Tuesday: a decision on the future of Scargill House would be made nine days later. At 17 minutes to midnight on that Tuesday I pressed the ‘send’ button: the best offer we felt we could make was for £1.3m – way below the asking price. Early Wednesday I had an acknowledgment from the estate agent who also said there were other offers in the field: he clearly did not think we had much chance. In the afternoon of that same Wednesday I had a phone call saying the Trustees wanted to meet us and talk it through, but it had to be one of two days the following week. I looked at the diary – God had been there before – we already had arranged our third meeting for the first of those two days.

That was not the end of it. That was the Wednesday – on the Friday most of us were going down to Lee Abbey. Once a year they have a meeting of everybody concerned with the various bits of Lee Abbey – and also their Council. They had invited us to go. We went and spoke about the Scargill situation to their Council. We went away – and then learned that they had agreed to lend us a million pounds. Three days later we met with the Trustees, under the chairmanship of the Bishop of Bradford. Because of the promise from Lee Abbey we were able to make our offer unconditional. They accepted it subject to various things being sorted. There were other meetings and quite difficult issues to deal with but that was the turning point. The timing of the meetings and of the Lee Abbey weekend was breathtaking. We felt swept along on the will of God. A few days before Christmas we heard that, subject to contract, we had bought the place. Two days before Christmas we heard that we had been incorporated as a new charity, ‘The Scargill Movement’.

A lot of people sang their carols with very full hearts last Christmas.

At that crucial meeting with the Trustees in November (2008) the Bishop of Bradford said, ‘This is not about resuscitation – it is about resurrection’. Not Lazarus but Jesus. Not just hoisting Scargill back on the familiar rails, but starting in a way which is recognizably the same but with a whole new dimension.

This is the Lord’s doing: it is marvellous in our eyes’ PS 118.23