By Gary Cooper

AN ANGUS minister yesterday came clean and admitted he was only horsing around when he asked his flock to back his bid to buy a pony!

The Rev Malcolm Rooney said the date of last Sunday’s appeal to the congregation at Glens and Kirriemuir Old Parish Church was the give-away—it was an April Fool’s wheeze.

He told the gathering of his intention to have a retiring offering on Easter Sunday to raise money to buy a gee-gee.

Mr Rooney has the bit between his teeth over climate change and told parishioners he felt churches should be leading by example.

The horse, he told them, would help him to carry out visits in his sprawling parish and reduce his number of car miles.

“I said this would be the first horse that I had owned and I intended to call it April,” explained Mr Rooney.

After his intimation, the congregation responded generously with offers of equipment including saddles, straw and even the use of a horse, as well as lots of advice.

Then the penny dropped with church-goers.

Mr Rooney continued, “It was a bit of a light-hearted way of drawing attention to a serious issue affecting the globe. Climate change is hugely important.

“It’s not often that the first of April falls on a Sunday, but it was something with a serious message.”

The minister, however, will have retiring collections at the kirk tomorrow, following the end of each of the day’s three services.

It will be sent to a Christian Aid scheme which helps to buy farming supplies for third world countries.