A QUIET night is drawing to a close in the town centre and all but a gaggle of revellers are left. The temperature has plummeted and the clock is about to strike 2am.

Yet a Street Pastors team, including a vicar and a college lecturer, are happily surveying the scene outside Groove, in Fleet Street.

As they do, a young man sporting a golden suntan and wearing a designer T-shirt breaks off from a tipsy embrace with his friends and thrusts out a hand.

“I have so much respect for what you do,” says Josh Potter.

“My dad does exactly the same thing in Devon.

“He was a heroin addict for over 13. One day he got down on his knees and found God.

“He never touched it again. I’m not religious but I know how important your work is.”

Such praise is not unusual for Swindon’s 35 pastors, who have undergone training which includes drug and alcohol awareness, finding facilities for the homeless, health and safety and how to contact the police.

Sometimes they make vital interventions, such as when they found a woman in her 80s collapsed in a drunken stupor at 3.55am still clutching Tesco carrier bags. The pastors were meant to finish at 4am but stayed out another hour-and-half helping her home.

Other times it turns out to be a false alarm – one instance being when a ‘slumper’ called in by a security guard turned out to be a plant pot.

Tonight, they busy themselves by walking a loop of New Town, picking up stray bottles and handing out flip-flops to ladies who have given up on high heels.

The team is led by the Rev Nick Lines, whose main calling is as the vicar of St Mary’s Church, in Rodbourne Cheney.

“For six hours a night, one night a month I get to go out on the streets, talk to people and pick them up when they’re a mess,” he said.

“A lot of it is about getting people home safely and if someone’s collapsed in the freezing cold it could be the difference between them living and not living. Other nights we spend evenings talking to lonely doormen. By and large, though, people are grateful for what we do.”

The father-of-two has been with the pastors, who go out from 10pm-4am most Fridays and Saturdays, since the scheme began in September 2007.

Local church volunteers, who take part in a rota system, say the shifts are worth it even if it means helping one person.

They get training then head out as probationers before a commissioning ceremony. In September, another 14 volunteers will attend the event, so the blue jackets can become a more regular presence.

Last Friday Mr Lines and team members Lucy, Mike and English lecturer Marie – who do not want to give their last names – encountered a man crashed out under a blanket outside the British Heart Foundation, in Bridge Street.

They called the Night Shelter, an off-shoot of the Street Pastors, but followed guidelines not to wake people sleeping rough. Shortly after 1am, they got a call over the radio link that a man was following a female home in Old Town. Mr Lines advised that they were 20 minutes’ walk away and the team was not required. They gave another man, with an American accent, directions to a taxi rank.

Staff on the door and inside venues praise the team as being able to intervene where the police can’t – safeguarding people from harm and taking time to listen to those with problems.

“There’s something about the uniform which means people stop short of attacking you,” says Mr Lines.

“They can be quite threatening and in that case we back off and, if we anticipate a problem, we call the police. Sometimes, though, you find yourself trying to protect someone from someone else who is being aggressive by talking to the person who is being threatening.”