Word: townes
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...sake of Darnum's little church, long may she live. Her elegant presence helps keep its Sunday numbers in double figures; she has a son, grandson and great grandchildren who are also regulars. A total of 11 worshipers this morning in a farming town of fewer than 300 people isn't such a bad ratio. But church chairwoman Dianne Sergeant is concerned. "The numbers are slowly dwindling," she says. "We're like many churches today: the congregations are getting older, and with that they're getting a bit smaller...
...Sergeant isn't throwing up her hands, however. Attendances for the town's annual Carols by Candlelight regularly exceed 100, she says, and one year peaked at 206. The church organizes dinners, bonfires and card nights, and many of the regulars do volunteer work. "Community outreach, we call it," says Sergeant. "When we hear of someone in trouble, perhaps needing wood, we rally round and help them. Our numbers may be small in church, but our Christian faith continues through the week...
...Ruby, who's lived around Darnum all her life and propagates the theory that her father named the town, is troubled by what she sees about her. "Darnum is a town that's very divided," she says. "There are two classes: the church class and the hotel class." As for declining church attendances, "sport is more the people's religion ... to me, that's a calamity...
...Contemplating morning-tea fare mightn't sound exciting. But it's not as though it's distracting Taylor from a baffling abduction case. With a population of 1,800, Stratford has the lowest crime rate per capita in Wellington Shire. "The youth of this town respect the town," says Taylor, and the older folk fill Stratford's three churches on Sundays...
...month, says Taylor, 52, just back from a month's sick leave for a torn hamstring. These might be a drive-off from a petrol station or drunken driving on the Princes Highway; this morning, reports have come in of graffiti on road signs on the outskirts of town. Last Christmas there was a spate of thefts of solar- powered garden lights that Taylor wasn't able to crack. "They're unsolved crimes," he says, as is the disappearance of a duck from a local house around the same time: "I don't think it was a fox." There...