I went to church last Sunday. This will surprise some of my friends. I am not noted as a regular attender of Church of England services. This is not because I don’t believe in God. But our relationship has always been a private one. One in which He or I can make our excuses and leave.
Not that I haven’t been inside plenty of churches. I have always had a great interest in them architecturally. There is an extraordinary beauty and felicity in driving through a country village during the summer and coming across a simple, 12th- century church. There is no light like that which shines through stained glass; all the best efforts of Hollywood in its golden age could not surpass it.
In London I used to attend church at Christmas, usually on Christmas Eve. There is a pretty Georgian chapel in South Audley Street where John Wilkes is buried. I wonder if the vicar ever realised that was the reason I was there. I hope not.
But my local church in St John’s Wood has always been easy on the eye. It stands opposite a statue of St George and the dragon. The building is neo-classical, with white columns and an ochre fa’ade. I have sometimes sat inside on my own, in a cocoon of dazzling whiteness. The windows are not stained glass, but the interior has a greater purity because of it.
Anyway, last Sunday I decided to attend a service there. There was to be a sung Eucharist at 11 in the morning. I suspected I was a sung Eucharist kind of girl – the more music the better. And the service at 8 was far too early for a Sunday morning.
I had heard that the choir was particularly good and that the vicar, the Revd Dr Anders Bergquist, did not bang on.
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