Kirk of Secrets: Thurso premiere for feature-length film about historic church
A documentary about Old St Peter’s Kirk in Thurso will have its premiere in the town next week.
Local film-maker Darren Manson completed the feature-length movie Kirk of Secrets in 2020 and has now arranged for its first public screening.
The church was founded around 1220 by Gilbert Murray, Bishop of Caithness, and was partly rebuilt in 1636. It closed to worship in 1832.
The story begins in the Dark Ages with the film explaining the source of materials, topography and events relating to the kirk before moving on to give a detailed tour of each part of the building.
Along the way structural anomalies are identified and explanations are put forward to help give an understanding of the kirk's development. Comparisons are made with other churches and ecclesiastical architecture.
Through illustrations and graphics, the film shows how Old St Peter’s once looked both externally and internally.
Old St Peter’s has been mentioned in films and documentaries before, even making a cameo appearance in the 1947 film adaptation of Neil Gunn’s The Silver Darlings, but no previous film has had the building as the main focus of attention.
Darren says he has been interested in the 800-year-old kirk since he was a boy, when he was taken on a field trip from Miller Academy in 1976.
As a member of Thurso Heritage Society in the mid-1980s, he would spend time keeping the place tidy and examining the walls in detail. He went as far as to build a replica of the church in stone to get an idea of how the complete building would look.
Over the years Darren has used film and video to capture images to help study the building. He has spent many hours digitally repointing the structure to make it easier to see.
Darren says the film has been a "labour of love" that saw many setbacks and delays due to other projects taking priority as well as his busy schedule filming football throughout the region. It was through the Covid lockdown that he was finally able to put the film together.
“I had just about everything I needed," he said. "I’d made many illustrations and had gathered lots of footage over the years.
"I was one of those sent home during the Covid lockdown due to underlying health issues and suddenly found myself with the time and freedom to get the film made.”
It was a productive time in which Darren made two full-length feature films and digitally remastered all of his VHS and MiniDV archives along with thousands of feet of 8mm film.
He found himself having "the most unusual directorial job" when he engaged the assistance of a church minister to deliver part of a sermon.
The Rev John Sterrett of St Andrew’s Church of Scotland in Golspie was asked to take part in the film after Darren had visited the church a few years before and also watched videos on YouTube.
Darren said: “Rev Sterrett is a very competent minister whose skill with the sermon is unquestionable. But for the purposes of a film, how a thing is done in real life doesn’t always work for the telling of a story and so for the movie the words had to be delivered with different pauses, different emphasis, from that which would ordinarily be done.
“Although it’s all part of how we make films, telling a church minister how to deliver the sermon just feels as wrong as telling your granny how to suck eggs! However, it comes down to the editing requirements of how the footage and dialogue are to be used within the movie that demands the sermon to be delivered differently, and Rev Sterrett did an excellent job.”
Rev Sterrett said: "I enjoyed working with Darren on part of his film and hope I was of some help – both to the memory of Old St Peter's Parish Church and to my own church, St Andrew's Parish Church in Golspie.
"The words I read were short excerpts taken from the last sermon preached in Old St Peter's nearly 200 years ago. My thought was, 'We're not worthy!' as I read them from the pulpit in Golspie. The original sermon would have taken nearly two hours to preach.
"Churches would have been packed in those days, and even more recently, when sermons like that were delivered.
"I admire the passion of Darren and others at the Old St Peter's Kirk Preservation Association to keep the memory of Old St Peter's alive. I also pray for and admire the efforts of current congregations, like my own, to keep historic churches like St Andrew's Church in Golspie alive as real, vibrant places of worship."
It has been 10 years since Darren last presented a feature film of his own making with Queen of the Firth in 2013. The raw elements of that film were recently remastered for the purposes of a remake.
Also due to be screened at a later date is another archive compilation feature, Caithness in 8mm, featuring footage and audio recordings from private collections held in the Cinema For Thurso archive.
Running at 114 minutes, Kirk of Secrets will be premiered at the Merlin Cinema in Thurso on Tuesday, September 26, with doors opening at 8pm for an 8.30 start. There is an admission fee of £5.