A Passion For Churches

BBC Four Collections -

specially chosen programmes from the BBC archive.

I was eight or nine years old

when I used to come here to the Norfolk Broads on the River Bure,

sailing and rowing with my father.

And I think it was the outline of that church tower of Belaugh

against the sky which gave me a passion for churches

so that every church I've been past since, I want to stop and look in.

ORGAN PLAYS "Old Hundredth"

The air - the Old Hundredth. The place - Bressingham.

The diocese - Norwich,

which includes most of Norfolk and a little bit of Suffolk.

What would you be, you wide East Anglian sky

Without church towers to recognise you by?

What centuries of faith in flint and stone

Wait in this watery landscape, all alone

To antiquaries, "objects of research"

To the bored tourist "just another church".

The varied Norfolk towers could also be

A soothing sight to mariners at sea.

This is Cley next the Sea.

The sea is now quite a long way off.

It's a tiny place, but it's got an enormous church.

They must have had hopes of it being very much bigger.

And look at that porch -

built, I should think, about 1430.

Very delicately done.

Almost another church in itself.

And slapped onto it,

very coarsely, a sundial - time suddenly stuck into eternity.

Look at that

for vastness and light.

Light falling on carved Norfolk oak,

Gone silvery grey with age.

And towards the light come out

The nightmare figures of marsh and forest,

Earthbound creatures struggling up the bench ends.

They know they can never reach

The winged celestial hosts here in the roof at Knapton.

CHOIR SINGS

The finest of all the woodcarving

is in the neighbouring parish of Trunch.

It exalts the very first sacrament.

VICAR: You have brought this child to baptism.

You stand in the presence of God and his church.

You must now make the Christian profession

in which she is to be baptised and in which you will bring her up.

Do you believe and trust in God the Father...?

BETJEMAN: Baptism by water.

The first armour we put on

against the assaults of hate, greed and fear

on our journey back to eternity.

Do you believe and trust in His Holy Spirit...

BETJEMAN: Cherry Ann, your godparents make promises

on your behalf and the village of Trunch bears witness.

BABY CRIES

Cherry Ann, I baptise you

in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

I sign you with the sign of the cross to show that...

CONGREGATION JOINS IN ..you must not be ashamed

to confess the faith of Christ crucified

and manfully to fight under his banner

against sin, the world and the devil,

and to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant

unto your life's end.

BETJEMAN: First steps on the journey.

At Mattishall, they have Sunday school on Wednesday afternoon.

The little people, as they call them, clutching their tambourines

and triangles, come to hear the old story told anew.

VICAR: You've all seen this story before, haven't you?

It's about some sheep.

It's a story Jesus told about some lovely sheep.

And there's the man looking after his sheep.

Just like Mr Fairclough. He's got lots and lots and lots of sheep.

And he was very fond of all the sheep,

but then one of them went and got lost.

It got stuck in a hedge somewhere.

It got its horns all stuck up so it couldn't get out of the way.

And the poor shepherd was very worried cos he'd lost one,

and so he started to look.

He looked here and he looked there.

He couldn't find it anywhere.

He was getting very worried, almost thinking about going home

because it was getting dark

and then, suddenly, he heard a little noise

and there it was - he found it.

He lifted it up and took it home and was so happy.

And here's the last picture.

Jesus tells us He loves us just as much

as that one little sheep that was lost.

If we get lost, He'll do anything he can to find us.

So that's nice, isn't it?

# Here we go walking around God's house

# Singing a lovely song

CHILDREN PLAY INSTRUMENTS

# Here we go walking around God's house

# Singing a lovely song

# Here we go walking around God's house

# Singing a lovely song

# Here we go walking around God's house

# Singing a lovely song

# Here we go walking around God's house

# Singing a lovely song... #

BETJEMAN: Each generation makes itself heard.

The past cries out to us, even when we try to smother the cries.

Medieval saints peer at us through godly warnings

put over them by pious Elizabethans,

who had more use for the written word than the painted picture.

We can help the past come through.

A hundredth of an inch at a time, Miss Pauline Plummer

is revealing the secrets of the chancel screen at Ranworth

and soon will show it in its medieval glory.

In the 15th century, Norwich was famous for its painters.

They delighted in herbs and flowers and living creatures.

CHOIR SINGS

The lithe and feathered figure of the Archangel Michael

is by no provincial hand. It's rather a masterpiece.

The Norwich artists also painted on glass,

and light came into every Norfolk church

through golden late-medieval windows.

Men hate beauty. They think it's wicked.

Self-righteous churchwardens delighted in smashing it.

Village boys flung stones.

Storms did the rest.

Today, the famous Norwich glass is nearly all jumbled fragments.

A few whole windows survive.

Here's where the artists worked - the city of Norwich

down in the valley of the Wensum.

It's a city of cobbled alleys and winding footpaths.

It has more medieval churches within its walls

than London, York and Bristol put together.

Remember Norwich.

Round the corner, down the steps,

over the bridge, up the hill - there's always a church.

And grandest of all, St Peter Mancroft -

so large that sometimes people mistake it for the cathedral.

The city wears its cathedral like a crown -

a coronal of flying buttresses supporting walls of glass.

The Normans started it.

The stone was brought over the sea from France

to build and adorn

the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity.

It draws the whole diocese towards it.

And in its cloisters, made for contemplation,

mothers and grandmothers, vicars and rectors

from towns and villages of the diocese of Norwich gather together

for the annual festival of the Mothers' Union.

Bawdeswell greets Stratton Strawless.

Potter Heigham is on terms with Little Snoring.

North Creake sits beside Melton Constable.

And for everyone, there's the chance to meet the Bishop.

Here we've got Bishop Salmon's Porch.

About 1320. Now, that was merely the entrance to my dining hall.

So, as opposed to having your lunch in the cloisters or, as today,

sitting out here in the garden,

we would have given you an enormous sit-down lunch from there to there.

The whole stretch of that was the Bishop's dining hall.

We weren't married in those days, darling.

LAUGHTER

Thank goodness for that!

It was before bishops were allowed to have wives.

So we weren't married in those days.

BETJEMAN: Maurice Wood, Diocesan Bishop of Norwich.

When not entertaining, he's Maurice Norvic -

Father-in-God to the clergy.

Receive this cure of souls, which is both mine and thine.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

BETJEMAN: The Bishop institutes a new rector

to the living of Holt in north Norfolk.

BISHOP: The God of peace,

who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ,

the great shepherd of the sheep,

make you perfect in every good thing to do His will,

working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight,

through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever more. Amen.

BETJEMAN: By the laying on of hands, the Bishop commits to the priest

the spiritual care of the parish.

With every parish church, there's a house, rectory or vicarage,

usually beside the churchyard.

I think you probably need money of your own

to be rector of Great Snoring because the rectory house

is a Tudor palace with moulded autumn-coloured brick

and elaborate chimney stacks.

And the date - about 1525.

It's the usual practice now, though,

to sell big rectories and build labour-saving villas in their place.

At Weston Longville, in Georgian days,

Parson Woodforde wrote his worldly diaries full of good dinners.

The present rector types the parish magazine.

RECTOR: We send belated birthday greetings to Mr Walter Pardon

of Weston Longville,

who reached the splendid age of 89 years on February 17th.

Little Johnny Artherton, aged eight and a half years,

broke his leg on February 17th.

Bad luck. We hope that you will get well soon, Johnny.

It's only a rumour, of course, but there is talk of a sponsored streak

for church funds.

By whom, we wonder?

BETJEMAN: Not, I think,

by members of the parochial church council at Letheringsett - the PCC.

It's meeting this evening in the church hall

with the rector in the chair.

Thank you very much, then. We will now proceed.

May we have the minutes of the last PCC meeting, please?

The minutes of the meeting held on January 29th, 1974.

Present - the Reverend AM Gamble in the chair,

Mrs English, Mr Fish, Mrs Hall, Miss Cousins-Hardy, Lady Harrod,

Mrs Hine, Mr and Mrs Douglas-King,

Mr Lewis, Brigadier and Mrs Phelps, Mrs Sadler, Mrs Sinclair.

Commander Sinclair sent a written report

stating that the external contract work had been completed,

subject to a test of the efficacy of the repairs and improvements

to the porch water head. It was noted that it had been discovered

that there were no foundations to the church tower.

BETJEMAN: If it isn't the tower, it's the transept or the north porch

and the answer is usually a fete to raise another few pounds.

We can rely on the parish to rally round.

Ladies and gentlemen, just a moment, please.

First of all, I want to thank Mrs Lestrange

and everybody who has helped her to arrange this afternoon's event,

and to thank you for coming.

I think most people have got a particularly soft spot

for South Raynham and its church.

I know I have.

And it's very nice to see all the friends coming to help us

to raise a little bit of money

to keep it going for another 1,000 years or two.

And now, let battle commence.

BETJEMAN: God bless the Church of England

The rectory lawn that gave

A trodden space for that bazaar

That underpinned the nave.

We must dip into our pockets,

For our hearts are full of dread

At the thought of all the damage

Since the roof was stripped of lead.

Now we've got the star attraction for today.

The picture, not me!

Now, what might I say for this?

Someone start me five pounds?

MAN: Yes.

- MAN: Yes. - Five pounds I'm bid.

Five.

- WOMAN: Six. - Six.

Seven. Seven.

Eight. Nine. Ten.

Any advance on ten pounds?

Do you mean another, Tony?

MAN MURMURS

Try a half. It's always worth a try.

BETJEMAN: And it's always worth a try

to get the key, however remote the church.

In fact, the remoter the better.

There's more chance of its being left unspoiled.

St Mary Belaugh in the valley of the Wensum.

Look.

This is a perfect example

of a church in a park in the time of Jane Austen.

The woodwork is all of oak.

Notice that altarpiece

with the Creed, the Commandments and the Lord's Prayer painted on it

and here is a three-decker pulpit in full sail.

This is where the parish clerk

said "Amen" at the end of the prayers,

and announced the name of the hymn tune or the psalm tune.

Here, a gentle staircase leads to the middle deck.

And this is where the minister, as he was called,

read the holy offices

of morning and evening prayer and the lessons.

And if he was in the mood,

or it was the fourth Sunday in the month or something like that,

he would ascend to the top deck to preach a sermon.

And from here, the parson could survey his whole parish.

In the big box pew there,

the squire from the hall slumbering while a fire crackled in the grate.

The large farmers in the pews in front.

The cottagers and lesser tenantry behind.

All by country custom

in their place in the church by law established.

The cottagers and lesser tenantry would have had a good long walk

by field and footpath

to the isolated parish church of St Margaret, Felbrigg.

The squire would have had a gentle stroll.

It is in the park of the big house.

I wonder who fall to their knees here today.

Oh, the new cottage industry - brass rubbing.

Memorial brasses to the former generations of squires of Felbrigg

and their ladies -

medieval effigies that tell us nothing of the people they represent,

they're so calm and bland and self-controlled.

Outlined there, as large as life, Sir Simon and Lady Margaret Felbrigg.

He a Garter Knight and she a cousin of the Queen.

It must have been the day of days

the day they took their vows.

- VICAR: From this day forward... - MAN: From this day forward...

- For better, for worse... - For better, for worse...

- For richer, for poorer... - For richer, for poorer...

- In sickness and in health... - In sickness and in health...

- To love and to cherish... - To love and to cherish...

- Till death us do part... - Till death us do part...

- According to God's holy law. - According to God's holy law.

- And thereto... - And thereto...

- I give thee my troth. - I give thee my troth.

WHISPERING

- I, Celia... - I, Celia...

- Take thee, Nigel... - Take thee, Nigel...

- To my wedded husband... - To my wedded husband...

- To have and to hold... - To have and to hold...

- From this day forward... - From this day forward...

- For better, for worse... - For better, for worse...

- For richer, for poorer... - For richer, for poorer...

- In sickness and in health... - In sickness and in health...

- To love and to cherish... - To love and to cherish...

- Till death us do part... - Till death us do part...

- According to God's holy law... - According to God's holy law...

- And thereto... - And thereto...

- I give thee my troth. - I give thee my troth.

BETJEMAN: Ringing the changes, treble bell to tenor, unites young and old.

Captain of the tower, and 60 years a ringer, Billy West.

BILLY: That's music in your ear, that's music in your ear.

Once that get hold of you, I suppose that's like smoking cigarettes.

Once that get hold of you, that's a drug. You can't get rid of them.

There's something about it, I don't know what it is.

You can go anywhere for them.

If there weren't somewhere where there was some bells, I'd go crazy.

I know I should. Bells are life to me.

I mean, it would never seem a Sunday to me

if we don't hear no bells.

It never seems Sunday if you can't hear church bells going.

BETJEMAN: I hear a deep, sad undertone in bells -

Which calls the Middle Ages back to me.

From prime to compline, the monastic hours

Echo in bells along the windy marsh

And fade away.

They leave me to the ghosts

Which seem to look from this enormous sky

Upon the ruins of a grandeur gone.

St Benet's Abbey by the River Bure -

Now but an archway and a Georgian mill -

A lone memorial of the cloistered life.

Alone? No, not alone. Serene, secure,

The sisters of All Hallows, Ditchingham,

In this brick convent, for over a century now,

Have taught and trained the young and nursed the sick

And founded rescue homes.

A homely, practical community.

Their souls are fed with daily Eucharists.

You see the impress there upon the bread.

You see the impress also in their lives.

NUN: We haven't got many left to go! SHE LAUGHS

BETJEMAN: Their motto - semper orantes, semper laborantes.

Always at prayer, and always at their work.

An Anglican convent in East Anglia.

A place to think of when a world seems mad

With too much speed and noise.

A pleasant place to come to for retreat.

There's really not much risk of being stung.

Always at prayer, and always at their work.

Just as some people are holy, so are places.

They draw us to them, whether we will or not.

In the misty past, in the 1920s and '30s,

people came to Norfolk by train -

by steam, Great Eastern.

And more locally, by Midland and Great Northern Joint.

They came on pilgrimage by train. TRAIN WHISTLES

Faith enlightened, full of hope and on the way to Walsingham.

TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS

This is all that remains of the railway track

that carried all those pilgrims to Walsingham.

And what's become of the station?

It's the Orthodox church.

The Orient, come to East Anglia...

..to this country town where, in 1061, forgive my mentioning dates,

the lady of the manor saw the Virgin Mary, Mother of God.

Then medieval pilgrims,

peasants, kings, in thousands thronged to England's Nazareth.

The cult has been revived in modern times.

Suburbanised, perhaps.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham,

1930s redbrick Romanesque.

But inside is the goal of all the pilgrims.

And very peculiar it is.

I wonder if you'd call it superstitious?

Here in this warm, mysterious, holy house,

The figure of Our Lady and her child.

Or do you think that forces are around,

Strong, frightening, loving and just out of reach

But waiting, waiting, somewhere to be asked?

And is that somewhere here at Walsingham?

MAN: Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us.

CONGREGATION: Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us.

MAN: Jesu, teacher of evangelists...

VICAR: The prayers of our Lady of Walsingham, grant you health.

MAN: Jesu, light...

May Almighty God, through the prayers of Our Lady of Walsingham,

grant you health and peace.

CONGREGATION: Have mercy upon us.

MAN: Deliver us, Jesus, from our sin.

May Almighty God, through the prayers of Our Lady of Walsingham,

grant you health and peace.

MAN: ..from the snares of the devil...

May Almighty God, through the prayers of Our Lady of Walsingham,

grant you health and peace.

MAN: Jesu, most wonderful...

CONGREGATION: Have mercy upon us.

- MAN: Jesu, mighty God... - CONGREGATION: Have mercy upon us.

BETJEMAN: The water bubbles from the Holy Well.

By water we were brought into the Church.

By water we are blessed along the way.

HYMN IS SUNG

I've seen processions like this in Sicily

and you can see them in the streets of Malta, too.

But it's an exotic flowering of the C of E,

here in a Norfolk garden.

The Anglican Church has got a bit of everything. It's very tolerant.

And that is part of its strength.

VICAR: Yes, be there next year.

I don't want to lose any.

When I get back, I've lost a few sheep!

- Goodbye, my dear. - Goodbye, Father.

Try and be good and come next year.

- We will try. - Then we'll make it better.

BETJEMAN: Farewell to the pilgrims.

Here come the tourists.

Sandringham is the Queen's country estate.

The parish church is used both by the villagers and the Royal Family.

It seems appropriate to arrive in style.

"Originally," says the guide book,

"Sandringham Church had little or nothing to distinguish it

"from any village church in Norfolk."

Well...

..at first glance,

it rather reminds me of the Wee Kirk o' the Heather in Hollywood -

those silver panels on the pulpit,

that jewel-encrusted Bible.

But in fact it's very Edwardian,

for here worshipped King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.

The ornate furnishings,

this altar of solid silver,

were given by Mr Rodman Wanamaker,

a very rich American admirer of our royalty.

Sandringham Church has its homely touches, too.

Of all the details in this church, I think this is my favourite.

This figure here.

You can tell by the swells and the curves who the sculptor was.

He was Sir Alfred Gilbert,

who designed, you'll remember, Eros in Piccadilly Circus.

In Sandringham, he's done the figure of St George.

I wade my way alone, no tourists near,

Through last year's autumn leaves,

To Booton's haunting, weird Victorian church.

Its pinnacles outlined against the sky

Seem outsize pinnacles, copies of others elsewhere,

But they look so big

I fear the church will topple with their weight.

A rich Victorian rector paid for them

And paid for all the stained-glass windows too.

No painful crucifixions here.

The heavenly choir, in Victorian dress,

Makes joyful music unto the Lord of Hosts.

# Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet

# Praise Him upon the lute and harp

# Praise Him in the cymbals and dances

# Praise Him upon the strings and pipe

# Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet

# Praise Him upon the lute and harp

# Praise Him in the cymbals and dances

# Praise Him upon the strings and pipe

# Praise Him upon the well-tuned cymbals...

CLASH OF CYMBALS

# Praise Him upon the loud... CYMBALS! #

CYMBALS CRASH

CHILDREN CHATTER

Jonathan on the end and Andrew will come in the middle.

BETJEMAN: Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!

But practise first

in the rectory at Martham, between the Broads and the sea.

MAN: Can we have trebles only, verse two?

One, two...

# Ye blessed souls at rest

# Who ran this earthly race

# And now from sin released

# Behold the Saviour's face... #

Could we just hold it one moment there? Um...

"And now from sin released, behold..." - that octave jump.

Could we just... What are the words?

HE HUMS THE HYMN TO HIMSELF

Behold. The word "behold".

# Be-hold... #

Is that an E?

Thank you.

- Start from the beginning? - No, just an E.

PIANIST PLAYS A NOTE E.

Thank you.

# Mmm...

# Be-hold... #

Again.

# Be-hold... #

Now, open your mouths this time and hit that top note.

# Be-hold... #

From the beginning, verse two.

# Ye blessed souls at rest

# Who ran this earthly race... #

BETJEMAN: Meanwhile, in his room above,

the rector, Father Cooling, model engineer, oils his parish wheels,

and indeed they run themselves most smoothly.

# And praise Him still through good or ill

# Who ever lives! #

Everywhere, church choirs prepare for Easter.

Wymondham's Norman Abbey is the town's parish church,

and, in this century,

Sir Ninian Comper made the east wall a lofty reredos of sculptured gold.

Scale is the secret of its majesty.

# Take what He gives

# And praise Him still

# Through good or ill

# Who ever lives!

# My soul, bear thou thy part

# Triumph in God above

# And with a well-tuned heart

# Sing thou the songs of love!

# Let all thy days

# Till life shall end

# Whate'er He send

# Be filled with praise. #

Scale was Comper's secret.

In 1914, they let him loose in this plain old country church.

He turned it into a treasure house.

The golden church of Lound, Suffolk, in the diocese of Norwich.

Gold on the font cover

to emphasise the sacrament of baptism - entry into the Church.

Gold on the screen

to veil the mystery of Holy Communion at the high altar.

I knew Comper.

He died only a few years ago, aged 96.

And he looked rather like those advertisements for Colonel Sanders

in Kentucky Chicken advertisements -

a little white pointed beard.

And...

he spoke in a very la-di-dah manner.

"My wark, don't you know, in that charch...?"

His wark in this charch is marvellous.

I think this is what a late-medieval English church

probably looked like when it was new.

Colour very important.

Saints, angels and symbolic figures everywhere.

Comper was much influenced by the colour and decoration

of Spanish, Sicilian and Greek churches.

He didn't mind about style.

Sometimes he mixed Classic with Gothic.

That, he called, "Unity by inclusion."

As I look through this rood screen

I can see the colours of the altar hangings.

Pink predominates.

It's called Comper pink.

And he had it specially made in Spain.

He used to buy scarlet silk,

and, there, have it bleached in the sun

till it was just the shade he wanted.

"In-comper-able," as people used to say.

"A church should pray of itself with its architecture," said Comper.

It is its own prayer

and should bring you to your knees when you come in.

But there's another way.

BELL RINGS

At his ordination, every Anglican priest

promises to say morning and evening prayer daily.

The Vicar of Flordon has rung the bell for matins

each day for the past eleven years.

Dearly beloved brethren,

the scripture moveth us in sundry places

to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness.

Wherefore I pray and beseech you, as many as are here present,

to accompany me with a pure heart and humble voice

unto the throne of the heavenly grace,

saying after me...

Almighty God...

BETJEMAN: It doesn't matter that there's no-one there.

It doesn't matter when they do not come.

The villagers know the parson is praying for them in their church.

We have left undone those things we ought to have done.

And we have done those things which we ought not to have done.

And there is no health in us.

But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders.

Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults.

Restore thou them that are penitent.

According to thy promises...

BETJEMAN: In some churches, all prayer has ceased.

St Benedict's, Norwich, is a tower alone.

But better let it stand,

A lighthouse beckoning to the changing world.

St Edmund Fishergate, a store for soles of shoes.

Once it was working for the souls of men.

Churches are what make knowledge different.

"A church for every Sunday of the year,"

They used to say of it.

"A use for every church," is what we say today.

St Lawrence here -

Spacious and filled with mitigated light.

The matchless words of the Book of Common Prayer

Once rolled along these walls.

Now young artists use it for a studio.

Better that than let the building fall.

Artists came to St Mary Coslany too.

In this church, John Sell Cotman,

the Norfolk watercolour painter, was baptised.

And here, Crome, the artist, was married.

The present congregation is well upholstered.

It's all stored here for a charity.

A use for every church - a thought not new.

Four hundred years ago, St Helen's, Norwich,

Became a hostel and a hospital.

Men in the nave, ladies in the chancel,

A parish church in between.

This is the upper floor of the chancel, the Eagle Ward.

And here you can be cared for till you die.

And should we let the poor old churches die?

Do the stones speak?

My word, of course they do.

Here, in the midst of life, they cry aloud.

"You've used us to build houses for your prayer.

"You've left us here to die beside the road."

Christ, son of God, come down to me and save.

How fearful and how final seems the grave.

Only through death can resurrection come.

Only from shadows can we see the light.

Only at our lowest comes the gleam.

Help us.

We're all alone and full of fear.

Drowning, we stretch our hands to you for aid.

And wholly unexpectedly, you come.

Most tolerant and all-embracing Church.

Wide is the compass of the C of E.

The Smiths Knoll Lightship

is the farthest part of the Norwich diocese, 22 miles out to sea.

The Reverend Maurice Chant,

chaplain of the missions to seamen in Great Yarmouth,

comes aboard to meet the men

to see if there are any problems and to be there just in case he's needed.

He distributes the mission's magazine and pastoral greetings.

On inland waters, Canon Blackburn, chaplain of the Norfolk Broads,

summons the floating members of his flock to Easter service.

Well, this is very...very nice, but a bit rough!

HE LAUGHS

Yes, quite!

I'm the vicar of Ranworth and the chaplain of the Broads.

And I thought I'd just like to come and give you a welcome.

- Have you been here before? - Yes.

You know Ranworth Church?

You've been up the tower? Seen the view? We've got a leaflet.

My wife's given you a leaflet.

Easter service, half past ten in the morning.

It's a Series Three Communion.

And you come in your sailing clothes

and bring everyone, whether they're confirmed or not.

They're all very welcome.

If you happen to be here staying over the day,

we're going to have an open-air service in the evening.

It'll be jolly cold.

But the bishop's coming, so it'll be rather fun.

BAND PLAYS "Easter Hymn"

BETJEMAN: Easter Day. Dawn over the easternmost tip of Britain,

Ness Point, Lowestoft.

At six o'clock in the morning, led by the band of the Salvation Army,

all churches join in the first Easter service

and greet the rising sun.

HYMN: "Christ The Lord Is Risen Today"

# Alleluia!

# Sing, ye heav'ns, thou earth, reply

# Alleluia! #

CHURCH BELL RINGS

Peaceful their lives are.

calm and unsurprising.

The almshouse ladies here at Castle Rising.

And suited to the little brick-built square

The Jacobean hats and cloaks they wear.

See, from the separate rooms in which they dwell

Each one process.

The Warden pulls the bell.

Fingers and knees not yet too stiff to pray

And thank the Lord for life this Easter Day.

BELLS PEAL

Bells of St Peter Mancroft, loudly pealing,

Fill the whole city with an Easter feeling.

"Is risen today, is risen today," they plead,

Where footpath, lane and steep up-alley lead.

Across the diocese, from tower to tower,

The church bells exercise compelling power.

"Come all to church, good people," hear them say,

"Come all to church, today is Easter Day."

Over our Vicar, we may not agree.

He seems too high to you, too low to me.

But still the faith of centuries is seen

In those who walk to church across the green.

The faith of centuries is in the sound

Of Easter bells that ring all Norfolk round.

And though for Church we may not seem to care,

It's deeply part of us.

Thank God it's there.

CLOCK CHIMES