Let hymn in: the silencing of indoor singing is senseless

‘And now we sing our final hymn, number 466.’ Remember that? The euphoria of congregational hymn-singing? The well-organised types always had the book open at the correct page, balanced precariously on the pew. The rest of us hurriedly flicked to 466 while singing the first verse, knowing it by heart from a thousand school assemblies. ‘Our shield and defender, the ancient of days…’

I can’t believe I’m writing this in the past tense, but it has been so long — almost 15 months — since anyone not in a choir sang a congregational hymn. How I miss that light-headedness, almost faintness, of standing up after a long service and singing your heart out, filling and emptying your lungs, fortified by the tiny wafer and sip of sweet wine. The experience was always tinged with relief — ‘Phew, we did it, survived the sermon, wasn’t too bad, gosh, still managed to be an hour and a half long…’ But mainly it brought us all together into a heightened state at that final moment before the doors were flung open and we were released back into the cow-parsley churchyard.