The National Trust Songs of Praise

As spring gives way to summer,

it's the perfect time to get out

and enjoy some of the glories of the British countryside.

And what better place to visit than this jewel in the county of Cumbria,

the Lake District National Park.

I'm here to explore how a tiny island

inspired a Victorian clergyman

to become one of the founders of the National Trust.

And I'll be hearing about a poet who fused his faith

with a love of his hometown.

Wait. Wait. Come closer.

I've something to tell.

I like the language he used.

Not for nothing he was admired by TS Eliot

and some of the great poets, because he was good.

And I'm celebrating with this amazing lady,

who's been singing in her church choir for 70 years.

Congratulations!

As ever, we have wonderful hymns from around the country.

But as I'm here in the Lake District,

which has always been so popular with walkers,

let's start with a hymn that asks that we should see

where Christ is leading so that we can follow in his footsteps.

The National Trust today

is the largest voluntary conservation organisation in Europe,

looking after about 800 miles of coastline,

many historical buildings and huge swathes of the countryside.

And its story may never have begun if it weren't for a little island

in the middle of Grasmere lake.

So why is this island so important?

I'm dying to tell you, Pam.

This little island came up for sale in 1893.

It sparked a whole series of events.

So four acres in the middle of Grasmere came up for sale

in a private auction and it duly sold into private ownership.

It had an impact on a man called Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley,

who was a vicar of Crosthwaite in the North Lakes, and it was this

island coming up for sale that made him passionately believe

that an organisation could be formed that would acquire these pieces

of land and look after them forever for everybody.

He had a strong sense of stewardship, a sense of duty,

not only to preserve the natural environment for the benefit

of future generations and for our forebears,

but also because he loved the natural world as well

and he saw God in everything.

So this was a man of vision. Where did that vision take him?

His first port of call was to go and see a lady called Octavia Hill,

whom he'd worked with in the city of London as a young man.

He knew she was a seasoned campaigner,

she knew how things worked, she knew how the system worked,

she knew influential people.

She advised him to go and talk to Sir Robert Hunter,

who had a great legal brain.

So it was the three of those people bringing different skills together

that collaboratively managed to deliver this vision.

The National Trust achieved almost immediate success

and just a few weeks after its foundation

was given its first property -

five acres of clifftop at Dinas Oleu in Wales.

The following year, in 1896, it bought its first building for £10 -

Alfriston Clergy House in Sussex.

And in 1902 it launched its first appeal

to buy Brandelhow on Derwentwater in the Lake District.

I think the thing that inspires me,

Rawnsley obviously committed large parts of his life

with people who were less well advantaged.

And he had this passionate belief, this really philanthropic drive,

that he wanted ordinary people, whatever their station in life,

to have access to the good things

and to have access to nature and natural beauty.

I think that's just such an inspirational thing.

Next, we hear from a choir who have come together

because of their shared love of music, performance and faith -

and it's a mix that's worked so well for Manchester Inspirational Voices

that they are currently the Songs Of Praise Gospel Choir Of The Year.

We hear them now with a song which is really a prayer

that we never stop moving closer to God.

# Bring us

# Closer, closer, closer

# To that perfect

# Place

# The stars are gathered

# And illuminate

# To see us safely

# Through heaven's gate

# We look behind us

# At the wonder of the Earth

# Only to remind us

# When God came first

# Way up there

# Where peace remains

# Where silence thunders

# And the angels sing

# Imagination

# And amazing grace

# Every woman, child and man

# Every woman, child and man

# Will one day

# Will one day

# Take each other's hand

# Hand

# Way up there

# Where peace remains

# Silence

# The silence thunders

# And the angels sing

# And the angels sing

# Imagination

# And amazing grace

# And amazing grace

# Bring us

# Bring us closer

# To that perfect place

# Getting closer

# Closer to our home

# We're getting closer

# We're getting closer

# To that perfect

# Place. #

Cumbria has always provided inspiration for poets.

But Wordsworth's timeless image of daffodils fluttering

and dancing in the breeze is a far cry from the much grittier picture

of Cumbrian life revealed when the 20th-century poet

Norman Nicholson wrote about the former Millom Ironworks.

"For what does it matter if it rains all day?

"And what's the good of knowing Which way the wind is blowing

"When whichever way it blows it's a cold wind now."

It looks a bit like walking on the surface of the moon because

where we are is actually on the remains of the slag bank.

When Norman lived here,

this would have been growing in size all the time.

It would have been glowing red

as the spoil was tipped on a regular basis.

And now it's barren, it's grey,

but it's got that wonderful haunting beauty,

especially when you look beyond what's left of the detritus

from the ironworks and we can see the beautiful Duddon Estuary

and beyond that we can look up the estuary

and we can see the hills of the Lake District.

The once-thriving Millom Ironworks closed in 1968,

devastating the town.

The expressiveness of Norman's poetry resonated

with what was happening throughout the country.

So what did he write about?

It's not poetry which is about dancing daffodils, I have to say.

"I wonder, Duddon, if you still remember

"an oldish man with a nose like a pony's nose

"Broad bones, legs long and lean but strong enough to carry him

"Over Hard Knott at 70 years of age."

It's more about poetry which extols the virtues of weeds

as much as anything else.

For example, if we just talk about weeds,

he can see the strength and the durability of weeds

and the fact that they shouldn't just be dismissed

simply because they aren't cut up

and put in a bouquet in the florist shop.

"They don't ask for fertiliser or bits of rag to scare away birds.

"They come without invitation;

"And they don't take the hint when you want them to go.

"Weeds are nobody's guests;

"More like squatters."

Do you think his work deserves more recognition today?

Beyond a shadow of a doubt.

This is a poet who had this wonderful empathy

with ordinary people.

"Every inland fell is glinting

"Black Combe alone still hides

"Its bald, bleak forehead, balaclava'd out of sight."

He sees things from a different angle

and yet it's a different angle that makes you think,

"Oh yes, that's right. I never thought of it like that."

"Nobbut God.

"First on There was silence.

"And God said: 'Let there be clatter'. "

A lot of his early poetry was to do with religion.

He was very Christian in his outlook.

One of the most appealing aspects of Nicholson's religious work

is the way he transplanted the Bible stories

from the Holy Land to Cumbria.

So he writes about Joseph wandering around amongst the allotments.

"Congratulations Herod.

"You've done better than God.

"Congratulations, Herod

"But when all is done and said

"The final sums of history may add up in the red."

You can read into a lot of his work

this Christian underlining of what his thoughts are.

He's an underdog poet from an underdog town

and, as we all know, the underdog will have his day.

Later, we'll hear more about Norman Nicholson

from one of his most notable admirers, Melvyn Bragg.

Up and down the country today, choristers and congregations

will have filled their churches with singing.

Well, the Reverend Kate Bottley is in Norfolk meeting a lady

who's been singing in her church choir for 70 years.

In 1947, a 12-year-old Olwyn Barber joined St Faith's Church choir.

She had no idea that she'd still be singing away

in the same choir stall seven decades later.

That makes her one of the UK's longest-serving choristers.

The church has organised a special service in her honour

and I've been invited to join in and to meet this amazing lady.

You've been coming to this church for a long time.

When did you first start worshipping here?

When I was five, my mother first brought me

and I went to Sunday school.

How did you end up singing in the choir?

I went along to see the rector and he told me

to go and see the choirmaster, Mr Wilkinson.

He said yes.

That was quite a brave thing to do as a 12-year-old, wasn't it?

To go and see the vicar and ask if you could be in the choir.

I suppose it was but I didn't really think of it.

You're a bit of a quiet revolutionary - that's what you are!

# Dear Lord of thee three things I pray... #

Now, I understand at the time there were no other girls in the choir.

No.

There was one soprano and two altos but we were the first girls.

It wasn't usual for choirs to have ladies and girls.

And how was that?

What was that like - to be the first girls to sing in the choir?

I think the boys thought it was a bit of a hoot sometimes.

I first met her when I joined the choir

as a schoolboy of eight years old

and with other choirboys in those days,

Olwyn took us under her wing.

And we have a joke in our church these days

that we would have to obtain a faculty if we wanted to remove her

because she's part of the fixtures and fittings.

I was thrilled to hear that you have now reached 70 years of singing.

And what does it mean to you to sing in the choir?

It's so lovely to be able to sing all God's praises.

You know, the anthems.

You can feel him speaking to you through the words and the music.

It's very moving at times.

She's wonderful. She is such an inspiration to us.

All those years in one choir.

Just, you know, what faith in God does that show?

May God continue to bless you in your singing and music making.

How does it feel to have a service dedicated to you?

I'm thrilled about it.

To be able to sing some of the hymns that I love.

The ones that I've chosen.

Christ Is Made The Sure Foundation, Loving Shepherd Of Thy Sheep.

And Thine Be The Glory.

How wonderful. I love that hymn.

And why are those special to you?

"Lo Jesus meets you", the second verse.

And that's what I believe he will do in the end,

is be there and greet you.

It's something that I would hate not to have any longer

and I'm so grateful that I'm still able to be here

and sing God's praises.

And what better way to sing God's praise

than with Isaac Watts' wonderful hymn Sweet Is The Work?

Earlier, we heard about the poet Norman Nicholson,

who is much loved in his hometown

and whose admirers include another native of Cumbria.

Hello. Norman Nicholson was born in Millom in Cumberland in 1914.

The son of a gentleman's outfitter...

Melvyn Bragg is the president of the Norman Nicholson Society

and he presented an edition of the South Bank Show

about the poet in 1984.

If I were to introduce you to Norman Nicholson as a man

I would say, "Be careful!"

He can be grumpy. He doesn't suffer fools gladly.

But he knows a lot and he knows things that are worth knowing.

And if he thinks you're worth trusting,

you'll have good talk and a good walk.

To be honest, I respond to it partly because I'm local too

and so the local connection matters to me.

But more than that, I think anyone can respond to it

because he's talking about the world around him, the world as it is,

the world of landscape.

And that mattered to him a lot

and he makes it matter to us by the way he writes.

And also he writes very well. He's a very good craftsman poet.

I like the language he uses.

I like the fact that he brings in a lot of the northern words

and he's very careful in his constructions.

It was not for nothing he was admired by TS Eliot

and some of the great poets because he was good.

"I stump, stamp, blow a whistle over and over.

"Staring into the rowdy air seeking you or you.

"Anyone who can lip read the words of my whisper

"as clear as a clang of a bell."

This was his world, his entire world.

And he drew on it and kept drawing on it and drawing on it

to great richness really.

Both in describing it and in taking wing from it

as he did in his religious poems.

He uses the place to express his religious views.

One of my favourites is The Sea to the West.

I did a reading with him at Grasmere.

It was some anniversary of Wordsworth, I think.

He read and I read and so on.

He ended with Sea To The West, which is a wonderful poem.

It is looking out, which he did from Millom, to the west

across the sea,

and this is the first and last stanza. He's here.

"When the sea's to the west

"The evenings are one dazzle -

"You can find no sign of water.

"Sun upflows the horizon;

"Waves of shine

"Heave, crest, fracture,

"Explode on the shore;

"The wide day burns

"In the incandescent mantle of the air.

"Then, on the stroke of bedtime,

"I'd turn to the town,

"Cycle past purpling dykes

"To a brown drizzle

"Where black-scum shadows

"Stagnated between backyard walls.

"I pulled the warm dark over my head

"Like an eiderdown

"Yet in that final stare when I

"(Five times, perhaps, 15) -

"Creak protesting away -

"The sea to the west

"The land darkening -

"Let my eyes at the last be blinded

"Not by the dark

"But by dazzle."

And that is a simple way of him speaking of the place,

speaking of his feelings

and speaking of his spiritual convictions, really.

# In this world

# I walk alone

# With no place

# To call my home

# But there's one who holds my hand

# The rocky road

# Through barren lands

# The way is dark

# The road is steep

# But he's become

# My eyes to see

# The strength to climb

# My griefs to bear

# The saviour lives

# Inside me there

# In your love

# I find release

# A haven from

# My unbelief

# Take my life

# And let me be

# A living prayer

# My God to thee

# In these trials of life I find

# Another voice inside my mind

# He comforts me and bids me live

# Inside the love

# The father gives

# In your love

# I find release

# A haven from

# My unbelief

# Take my life

# And let me be

# A living prayer

# My God to thee

# Take my life

# And let me be

# A living prayer

# My God to thee. #

We started the programme with Grasmere Island

and we're going to end with it, too,

because of a delightful postscript to the story

of that Victorian clergyman

who was so incensed by the private sale of this island

that he set up an organisation that became the National Trust.

Well, just earlier this year, 124 years later,

Grasmere Ireland has finally been bequeathed to the National Trust

and therefore to the rest of us.

So let's end with a hymn that speaks of the faithfulness of God

year on year.