I’m in Townhill.

It’s the hottest day of summer so far, the kind of day when the tar used to rise up in sticky black bubbles and your ice pole melted before you got halfway down.

I climb the steps into the shadowy vestibule of Townhill Church, which played a huge part in my life between the ages of six and fourteen. It’s open to visitors for a few days before it closes for ever, part of a wider programme of readjustment in the Church of Scotland.

Stepping into my past, I sit down on a pew close to where my dad and I used to sit on Sundays. The memory tumbling to the fore is not of sitting sedately, though, but of two children – my friend and I – sliding along these varnished pews and diving beneath them as we played (probably Famous Five or Narnia) while the adults rehearsed their Easter play.

That’s the context for so many of my memories. My friend’s family were closely connected to the church too, and we spent a lot of time around this building! Too young to be left at home, you might find us at the back of meetings or praise nights or on this occasion rehearsals, lost in our world of imagination but absorbing the world around us too.

I remember the two of us at the Watchnight service, fizzing with anticipation and straining to see the watch on the wrist of the man in front of us as the seconds ticked agonisingly slowly towards midnight.

I remember us playing Narnia in the grounds, squeezing along the gap between the small hall and the hedge surrounding it. I remember us changing words to hymns to make them fit whatever game we were immersed in at that time.

Any child in church spends long hours looking at patterns, windows, details. In Townhill the stained glass windows are meaningful. I look at them again today, so familiar, and wonder what will happen to them? They testify to the history of this village, depicting a miner, a farm worker and a woman at her spinning wheel – labourers in the main industries which were the daily lives of people who worshipped here. Male and female, and (a vibrantly dressed) Jesus extends his tender invitation – Come unto me all ye who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

My gaze moves from the stained glass windows to the pulpit below. In 1978 the congregation at Townhill was bold enough to welcome a woman into that pulpit. My mother. She was one of the early Church of Scotland women ministers, the first to take on the role with a husband and children. Hers is a fascinating story of being conscious of her calling from her earliest days, when it seemed impossible. Ministers were men. After many twists and turns she went to university to study Divinity when I (youngest of four children) was three. ‘You won’t get a dead church calling a woman,’ a colleague told her, and so it transpired. I’m proud to be her daughter. A few weeks before the publication of my first novel What You Call Free, it dawned on me that it perhaps wasn’t surprising that one of my main characters, Helen, was a strong woman of faith.

There are doors on either side of that pulpit, leading through to the hall and to a vivid kaleidoscope of memories. Junior Youth Fellowship and crazy, intense early high school years: lasting friendships, who fancies who, laughter and tears, and the most generous leaders imaginable. Bacon rolls after the Easter Dawn Service. Coffee mornings, concerts, our production of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat to which I still know all the words. Other groups used the halls too because this is a church rooted in its community.  Lots of events – but mostly it’s the people who stand out, and some dear people here showed me what church is meant to be, living out their faith in love and service. I’m very aware that’s not everyone’s experience of childhood in church, or of growing up in a manse, and I’m grateful. It could sometimes be a struggle to fit in at school, but here I belonged.

I speak with the women who are here this afternoon to welcome visitors to the church. I look at displays of photos and records. For me this visit is about nostalgia and memory. I’ll move on. For people in communities up and down the country who have living, generational connections to church buildings which are being closed, feelings of grief, loss and anger are profound. This is a Beeching-like moment in the cultural heritage of Scotland, as many buildings with long community stories disappear into private ownership. In some places there is time and space to explore alternative uses of these buildings by their communities, or by independent churches which are thriving and growing outwith the Church of Scotland. I hope we see more of that.

I turn to leave for the last time. The church to which I now belong has signs above the doors as you walk back outside saying ‘You are now entering a place of worship’ – a reminder of what I first learned right here in Townhill, that faith is lived out beyond the building. It’s sad to see this church building close. I’m grateful for all it gave me. I know the newly formed congregation of Dunfermline St Columba’s will continue to do really good things to reach and bless and support their community, moving forward in a changing landscape. I believe that the God who leads us is thankfully much bigger than all our buildings, all our schemes, all our human frailties and failures, and that’s why there is still hope. He is the God of the resurrection after all.

Down the steps and through the garden, passing between mature trees which have been here for a very long time. As I open the gate the war memorial is adjacent, facing onto the main street, and I think about the young men it commemorates who also knew this building.

That’s when I catch another glimpse of us, those two children in the early 1980s. Perhaps there’s a wedding on (insider knowledge!) so we’re hanging about the church gates in the hope of a rushie, before haring off somewhere on our bikes.

I walk away through the summer heat towards my car.

I fancy an ice pole.