Wesley Memories > Phil Moss

I came to live in Maltby with my family in December 1978 when I retired from the Royal Air Force. We had chosen to live in Maltby as my wife’s parents lived here and I was about to embark on a teacher training course at Sheffield Polytechnic.

As my wife’s parents attended the Methodist Church it was natural that we should attend as a family. What surprised me was that having been used to RAF churches which generally had young congregations with lots of children and where I had been one of the older members of the congregation I discovered that at Maltby there were no children and I was one of the younger members of the congregation.I don’t think that I was ever made to feel really welcome even though my connection with the chapel went back to 1953 when I used to meet my then girl friend, now my wife, out of the Bible Class and I had attended services and I had on occasion gone out with the Bible Class to accompany Mrs Ivy Ingham on some of her preaching expeditions to other chapels. In fact only Mrs Ingham made me feel welcome.I found that the congregation did not, in my view, live up to the Wesleyan Methodist tradition but were firmly fixed in the Primitive Methodist tradition, which tended to make for dull services.I was used to services which followed different traditions which was the result of the Free Churches in the Royal Air Force having Chaplains from varying traditions such as Methodist, Church of Scotland, Congregational and Presbyterian and occasionally combined Free Church and Anglican Churches. This made for much more variety and interesting services.When my wife became ill and found it difficult to attend services we found that no one from the Chapel came to visit her, Birks Holt was too difficult for them to visit.New families often came to Church, but soon disappeared to somewhere else, especially those families with children. Eventually the congregation dwindled as the members grew older and died until the Chapel was closed and the congregation transferred to Wickersley.It is sad that there is no Methodist Church in Maltby after once having two. The other Church was on Lincoln Street. This had become the repair depot for the pit houses eventually being demolished in the 1980s to make way for the Lincoln Street Workshops.I think that the changes taking place at the old Chapel to create the Wesley Centre is the best thing to have happened for many years and I would like to congratulate the Community Development trust for taking the bold step in converting the Chapel to what hopefully will prove to be a first class community facility which will last as long as the Chapel did.Doris Stevenson (nee Ingham) Ann Morgan Betty Jackson Dave Broadhead Marlene Moss Phil Moss Roy Coggon