Quentin Letts

Quentin Letts: Why hymns are the true voice of England

For Italians it's romantic arias. For Germans, lieder. Give me Isaac Watts, John Bunyan and Edward Elgar

Photo by George Pickow/Three Lions/Getty Images 
issue 14 December 2013
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When all seems too gloomy to endure, I take myself up to the British Camp in the Malverns, there among the windblown tufts and Iron Age ditches. With the rain lashing and my trousers flap-flapping like two Spithead flags, I lean on the gale and claim my birthright: to hum hymns of England and think of our forefathers.

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