Page 12 Daily Mail, Monday, August 19, 2019
First for Songs
of Praise as
it broadcasts
gay wedding
A GAY wedding was broadcast
for the first time on Songs of
Praise yesterday.
The ceremony for Jamie Wal-
lace, 27, and Ian McDowall, 39,
took place at the Rutherglen
United Reformed Church, near
Glasgow. It is one of the few
Christian denominations to
allow same-sex marriage.
Such services are currently
banned by the Church of Eng-
land and the Church in Wales.
Mr Wallace and Mr McDowall
are the first gay couple to
marry at the Rutherglen church
and did so after the local con-
gregation gave its backing.
Mr Wallace, a sociology lec-
turer, said: ‘As a committed
Christian, being able to marry
the man I love ... in the church I
love ... is something I’ve
dreamed of.’ Staff at BBC1’s
Songs of Praise said they were
‘not afraid of controversy’.How ‘controlled’ explosion
to demolish coal plant lef t
thousands without power
Thousands of households lost
electricity yesterday moments after
a power station was demolished in a
so-called controlled explosion.
Three people were injured in the after-
math of the blast – which brought down
didcot a’s three 375ft towers – after a
nearby electricity pylon caught fire.
some 40,000 homes in oxfordshire lost
power, with the hour-long blackout hitting
towns up to ten miles away.
Pictures and video showed people – who
had gathered in a nearby field to watch
the 7am demolition – running away as a
blue flash exploded from the pylon.
one onlooker said her daughter’s hair was
burned during the incident. she said: ‘For a
brief moment I thought someone had let off
fireworks. But it rained down with sparks
that burned, and we got burned. My five
year-old ran away so she wasn’t hurt, but
By Miles Dilworth
Spectacular: Didcot’s cooling towers tumble down yesterday Flash: The pylon burns
some of my three year-old’s hair
was burnt.’
one person was taken to hospi-
tal with minor injuries.
scottish and southern Electric-
ity networks initially insisted the
blackout was not linked to the
demolition, but later confirmed
the power cut ‘was caused by
material related to the demolition
of didcot power station striking
our overhead electricity network’.
a spokesman said: ‘a large section
of debris protection material
became detached from one of the
cooling towers and made contact
with our overhead line, which was
outside of the advised perimeter.
This resulted in significant dam-
age to the overhead line and sub-
sequent network faults.’ Theblackout led to traffic lights stop-
ping working, shops closing and
customers unable to pay for fuel.
sharon Cooper, 50, from the vil-
lage of sutton Courtenay, said one
of her friends woke up to their
house shaking.
she added: ‘We heard all these
car and house alarms go off.
‘We got back to ours and therewas no power.’ The coal-fired
power station – which was turned
off in 2013 after 43 years of service- was at the centre of another con-
troversy in 2016 when four men
died after the partial collapse of
the boiler house.
The power station was voted
Britain’s third worst eyesore by
Country Life in 2003,
Vows: Yesterday’s ceremony