Brace yourself for the real experience of going to a rural parish service on Easter Sunday

‘And we extend a special welcome to all our visitors here today.’

That’s the vicar speaking; and this Sunday is one of the two days in the year when you are likely to be one of those visitors. You’re spending Easter with in-laws or friends who live in the country. Easter wouldn’t feel like Easter without Eucharist at the local C of E church after the first mini-egg of the day, so here you are, in tweed and wool, breathing in the timeless smell of damp and candle-wax as you try to prop up the paperback hymn book called Praise! on the pew shelf but it is too big and keeps flopping forward.

If you live in a city which has a cathedral as well as a large choice of churches with good choirs, and if you tune in to Choral Evensong on Radio 3 on Wednesday afternoons and are in the habit of switching the radio off as soon as Sunday Worship starts on Radio 4, you can get very out of touch with how things really are in rural parishes.