Monthly column on hymns and songs

Christopher Idle  |  Features
Date posted:  1 Dec 2002
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Did you see me on the telly last week? No, wait, it was five months ago, but (a) how time flies, and (b) this gets written so far ahead that it was last week. It depends where you count from.

Anyway, BBC Songs of Praise did a Sunday on Isaac Watts. Finding no one else, they went into the highways and byways, and enticed me into the studio (actually a well-known London library, but not the Evangelical one) to answer questions on the little giant who is my hymnwriting hero.

The next bit won't happen to you if you are never on the box, or if you appear every week. I get prime-time exposure on average once every 20 years; the last time was when our church nearly burned down. Soon after the broadcast finished, the phone calls started; next day, the letters. This was more fun than the programme; it was good to hear that I sounded sincere, looked smart and seemed relaxed - by way of contrast, I suppose, from usual. Some friends even noticed what the subject was, and one or two, that the Lord came into it and (we trust) was glorified by some of it.

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