St Martin’s really did once stand in the fields, just as nearby Haymarket was a market selling hay. But the church has moved with the times. In 1924 it hosted the first ever religious service to be broadcast live. You might have expected Westminster Abbey or St Paul’s to get the nod, but neither wanted it — many in the religious establishment thought it would be wrong to transmit divine worship over the airwaves, as people might listen in pubs. Dick Sheppard, St Martin’s vicar at the time, was delighted to receive a letter saying that people in one south London pub had tuned in. Not only had they sung hymns for the first time since childhood, they’d discussed his sermon over their beer.
Sheppard also got the better of George Bernard Shaw. He asked the playwright if he would contribute an article for the St Martin’s Review.
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