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'Sheringham, you're useless!'

That cry, echoing across not the sands of North Norfolk but the concrete of South London, comes to mind whenever I see the name. The first (and last) time I saw the footballer Teddy Sheringham in the flesh he was getting some unsubtle old-fashioned stick, from his own supporters of course, at Millwall. I have had a soft spot for the man ever since.

For those who care for none of these things, let me explain that while Mr. Sheringham never reached the highest pinnacles of footballing glory, he did play for promising clubs like Manchester United, Tottenham and Portsmouth, and in the process won a fine array of cups and trophies. He was often capped for England, and scored some crucial goals for his club and country. All this is by the way.

Rejects and stars

But, like so many other true stories, it goes to show how today's rejects may become tomorrow's stars. To move from earth to heaven, Scripture itself has the supreme example in Psalm 118 as fulfilled in the gospels.

It happens to people; it happens to books; yes, and to hymns. The classic Dictionary of Hymnology, edited by Dr. John Julian 100 years ago says this about 'Amazing Grace': 'In G. Brit. it is unknown in modern collections'. This seven-line entry ('As pants the hart' has 29 lines) also gives a wrong Bible reference, but its general point cannot be faulted. JJ also observes that 'it is far from being a good example of Newton's work'. Especially, we might add, when given an entirely spurious (and American) last verse about a thousand or ten thousand years, which is still perpetuated by some hymn books which should know better.

News of Hymnody

Some of George Herbert's classic verses were not only unknown in his lifetime, since they were printed only posthumously, but they were not seen or sung as hymns for another 100 years.

Such fragments of hymn-history, readily available in the hymn book Companions I have referred to before, sometimes encourage me when the general scene does not. News of Hymnody, a 22-year-old quarterly, comes out for the last time this very month; why? During my two spells in its editorial chair, we had a constant stream of appreciative letters. But it was not glossy enough or expensive enough to compete with the array of periodicals about other sorts of music, or liturgy, healing, prophecy, yachting and what not. The positive spin is to say that its concerns are now expressed in other ways, mainly on various kinds of website. Well and good, but there is no substitute for paper.

Other anxieties

Hymn writers are not getting any younger, churches think they have a balanced diet if they wedge a lively song or two in between 'Praise, my soul' and 'Will your anchor hold'; new hymns are printed among conference selections for 'worship', and then somehow never get sung.

Then again, as you may have read here before, the great Anglican translator John Mason 'Jerusalem the golden' Neale had a good friend in Benjamin Webb. Webb famously said in the mid-1800s, 'The age of hymns is past'. So I cling to the hope that many of today's excellent new texts and tunes, dealing with topics of which Dr. Julian knew nothing, in language as fresh in our day as Watts and Wesley were in theirs, may yet see the light of day in a hundred years or so.

Watch this space. We may have to wait for the Song of Moses and the Lamb. Meanwhile, keep your eye on the Sheringhams of this world, before we reach the next.

Christopher Idle

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