The price of a cathedral

We’ve all done it: been overcome by a sudden sense of hard-upness at the moment when the collection plate comes round at the end of a cathedral service. We fumble in our pockets, feel a £1 coin and a £10 note, and decide that the £1 coin will do. This is a cathedral, for goodness sake, not a parish church: they must be rich, with all those gold-coloured vestments and choristers in ruffs. But if we want our cathedrals to be alive and singing psalms in 20 years’ time, this misconception about cathedrals must change. Indeed, the sub-dean of Coventry is openly clamping down. At the end of organ recitals, he now employs a joke designed to elicit banknotes: ‘The lady collecting your donations today is rather frail, so please don’t load her down with coins.’ A survey by the BBC earlier this year found that out of 38 cathedral deans, 26 were ‘worried’ or ‘very worried’ about the financial future.