Bill's Comment Page

Tranquility, and equilibrium regained, during a walk on the beach

Although not in any way religious, I adore listening to choral music. Every Wednesday afternoon, BBC Radio 3 has a live broadcast of Choral Evensong from 4pm to 5pm, this week from Blackburn Cathedral. Today’s broadcast ended with a real treat – the organ voluntary was the Fantasia and Fugue in C minor (BWV537) by J S Bach, and Blackburn Cathedral seems to have a very fine instrument on which to play it.

After watching the exciting television images from Baghdad, culminating in the toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein in Firduus (Paradise) Square in Baghdad at 3.49pm (BST), I decided to go down on to the beach, which is just about 50 metres from my home, to have a very pleasant walk for a few miles at the water’s edge – no-one else on the beach at all. The weather here today is very sunny and bright, with a light and quite sharply cold breeze. Whilst walking along and listening to the choral evensong broadcast through ear-phones on my little pocket radio, I was able to reflect on what I had just been watching on television and to realise once more just how lucky many of us are here, and me particularly, living as I do in a stable and reasonably prosperous society. I hope today will see the beginning of a better future for Iraqis, too.

You can listen to today’s choral evensong on the net, for the next week until the next broadcast, by going to the BBC Radio 3 website and clicking on the choral evensong link under ‘Programmes on Demand’ at the right-hand side – a glorious sound awaits you.