Gliding through the half-light in my comfortable cocoon of glass and steel, I had watched the cathedral materialise in the mist-laden distance, like some phantom vessel becalmed in the fenland sea. As I entered the stillness of the cathedral close, the heavily encrusted bulk was wrapped in a moist blur of sodium light. I was early and, despite a mood of contented anticipation, was insufficiently motivated to leave the ebbing warmth of my car and taste the chilling East Anglian air. What had induced me to leave the lulling peace of my central heating and endure over an hour of macadam madness? Why, indeed, was I not supping ale with garrulous menfolk in smoke-laden barrooms? What childhood memories could have indicated to the wise that, in my late fifties, I would happily forsake such things in order to endure a wintry drive to a lonely cathedral for Evensong? There was nothing strikingly obvious and yet, following a train of experiences through half a century, the pathway was remarkably clear, back to my earliest memories of school.

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In those days we were forever singing. We chanted our way through mathematical tables, every day, year after year, pausing only when the Headmistress made her daily inspection. That grande dame was greeted with a musical, "Good mórning, Mrs. Bénson!" Sometimes I surmise that, had her visits been after lunch, our musical journey might have followed a less traditional route, rhythmically at least. An earlier exultant serenade to "Ma Beano", however, took place as soon as we had hung our caps and berets, navy gabardines, scarves and mittens on our brass hooks and filed in orderly crocodile to the hall. It was our enthusiastic response to her "Good morning, boys and girls!" Afterwards we would sing at least one hymn and a sturdy folksong. Regardless of the sentiments expressed by the words, we jubilated with typical childhood vigour. One hymn, "God is working his purpose out" was sung often, and with extraordinary gusto, for the title of its tune was "Benson". Why it took God so long to work out what his purpose was became one of those primary school mysteries. We knew his purpose and with childish detachment we sang "Shun evil companions. Dark passions subdue. Look ever to Jesus. He will carry you through." The folksongs underscored the message, "Oh no, John, no John, no!". We would "never leave" her or "deceive" her, as "her shoes were number nine". In our small corner of the fracturing Empire we did not see the inconsistency of waving our Union Flags while singing, "All men must be free!" to a stirring melody from Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance marches; and, when the formidable Mrs. Benson let fly with its other famous tune, using the strident vehemence of a latter-day Clara Butt, we were left in little doubt as to the identity of the "Mother of the Free".

The war, though still daily re-enacted on playground and field, was already but a distant fable for those of us born after it had ended. By then Fruit Gums and Spangles were freely available; nevertheless we still made their pleasure linger as long as we could while, pilgrim-like, we trod our twill-worsted way to school. Going home, we flew, arms outstretched, in our Gloster Gladiators, still singing the song that "Mother" had taught us, to a tune we had learnt in Saturday morning cinema club, "Proudly, with high endeavour, we, who are young forever, won the freedom of the sky. We shall never die!" Barnes- Wallis (whose triumph inspired Eric Coates to write the music), Bader and Bannister were names from our "hero board". Jumbled together with Hillary and Tensing, Scott and Shackleton, Biggles and Tarzan, Jeff Duke and Stirling Moss, they bound the foundations of our "Land of Hope and Glory".

My first serious attempt to bid farewell to childhood came when I was eleven and the "Mother of the Free" announced, with some surprise, that I had succeeded in winning a place in a smart school in the cathedral city. This was a sophisticated academy with real football, cricket and test- tubes (all to be enjoyed in the proper clothes) and a grand piano. The Headmaster was a stern clergyman to whom I addressed but four words in the whole of my three years at the school, "Church of England, Sir!" I had no idea what the first three signified at the time but had been told that, like the fourth, using them was likely to keep me out of trouble. Not only was "The Beak" a cleric but he was also, mystifyingly, a canon. I had not yet learned that ‘cannon’ had a homophone. The school seemed to be carved out of the same block of stone as the adjoining cathedral. Once, each fortnight, we would stream through the abbey yard and cloister into a warm, sulphurous darkness to sing hymns with the great organ. Our form master, the glamorous and mysterious Dr. Tollemache, would float before us and, having made a wondrous sign and curtsey - which we all duly emulated - directed us into our seats then, in a firm baritone, led our rugged rejoicing.

Most of our music lessons were spent sharpening our vocal tools for these events. Dr. Epsom (not his real name but close enough, geographically, to encourage vivid memories) was, like Mr. Creakle, a tartar. History lessons threw no light on Tartars but my experience of Dr. Epsom suggested that they were likely to throw things at me. The good doctor would employ, as educational aids, guided missals and other weighty religious volumes and, so it was fabled, a violin. Sometimes when we sang he would stop playing the piano and leave us to continue unaccompanied. We knew that he had spied a malefactor or, worse, had heard a flat note. We could sense him rather than see him, as he stealthily slid behind our benches. If we remained completely cool, and sang on with lusty innocence, all was well but, were the slightest quaver to taint our voices, or the merest hint of a guilty flinch tremble on our hackles, then his ample hand would descend upon a cranium with the noise of a pistol shot. Like a bolt of lightning, once you had heard it, you knew that you had not been hit and were in the clear. As in the cruel world beyond the abbey yard, the meek and guiltless were wont to take the rap for the brazen and ruthless. Despite being a nervous child and so, from time to time receiving an undeserved brain-rattling clout, I remember those singing classes with immense affection. "The Flight of the Earls", "Annie Laurie", "All through the Night", and dozens of others, still bring joy and they echo in my memory. During these same years, my father and I would take to the high road, in a Riley or Humber, and explore the country, wielding, in his case, a Zeiss Ikon and, in mine, a Kodak Brownie box. The latter had a distinctive smell as did the wallpaper roll of film which fed it. As the hours and miles trundled by, we would sing incessantly, a sweet tenor and a piping treble, rehearsing a thousand melodies. Even to this day, alone behind the wheel of a car, I will sing away those motoring blues while creeping along the M25.

Dr. Epsom also taught us a mysterious activity known as "chanting". This was not the cruel playground chant by which every known insult was set to the music of the nursery rhyme "Baby Bunting", but an altogether more sophisticated cantillation. It involved singing a line of strange and fascinating words on one note until, just when we thought we knew what we were doing and, apparently, without warning, this note would abruptly change. Had we not changed with it, Dr. Epsom would certainly have given us his helping hand. The lyrics to this ancient form of rap were known as a "psalm", which had a silent "p"- and still does. Every word of that first psalm was hammered into our heads so that, by the time I was twelve, I would no more have dreamt of "doing evil to my neighbour", "using deceit in my tongue" or "taking reward against the innocent" than would I have given "my money upon usury". Today, as in that Old Red Sandstone cathedral long ago, the melody and rhythm of the psalm ring pealing in my ears as much as the school farewell hymn, "Lift up your hearts" which, with its "trumpet call in after years", summons my memories of School Yard and Abbey Gate. Meanwhile, at home on a Saturday morning, my electric trains would, on three rails, weave among the legs of the dining suite, to the music of "Children’s Favourites". It seemed to me, at the time, that there was "music for children" sung by Max Bygraves, Shirley Abicair and Cy Grant, and there was "music for adults" written by Suppé, Lehar and Beethoven. Together, we all sang hymns and folksongs. That is not ‘folk music’ but songs emasculated and sweetened for the upright piano in the rarely-used lounge. However, a change was in the air. My father had a new job in London and we were to live in Surrey where the vowels were long and BBC. I had a strong suspicion that childhood was coming to an end and that I had to leave behind not only perfect friendships but also steam traction, Ian Allen locomotive books, stamp albums, the "Beano" and the "Eagle", my Hornby railway and Dinky Toys, Meccano and Saturday morning music.

During my fourteenth summer, while waiting listlessly to start at my new school and forge fresh friendships, I chanced upon the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan. They filled the lonely hours with humour and melody which, to my unsophisticated ear, were strange and exciting. By the time that long season came to an end I had heard them all, many times over, and considered myself something of an expert. My new school turned out to be a revelation. It was staffed by interesting men and a solitary woman, each of whom seemed driven by a powerful sense of vocation. When I returned to visit the place three years ago, in 2000, several were still there, as vivacious as I remember them in their youth. As luck would have it, back in 1960, I found a friend almost immediately. He was singing a song from "The Sorcerer" and I joined in. An amicable rivalry began from the start as, together, we explored a musical world vibrant with activity. After school, each would introduce the other to a new discovery; Richard Strauss, Berg, Wagner, Stravinsky, Mozart, Britten and Tippett. As a child "in the North" I would have swapped comics with my friends, but now it was opera scores and L.P.s. Peter had learned to play the piano and so had a considerable advantage over me in the making of music. At fifteen I started lessons but quickly realised that it was too late, that I could never catch up, so I switched to the organ. Peter soon followed suit, and when, during student days, I finally threw in the towel, he was studying organ in Germany; but I suppose I realised, even at school, that making music required not only a natural gift but also an early start, advantages with neither of which had I been blessed.

Another of my discoveries at this time was that a new stage of human development had been invented. There was now "the teenager". For a little while I flirted with this concept, which was beginning to have its own musical genre. However, it seemed rather a pointless delay in the process of becoming an adult. As far as I knew, adults read T. S. Eliot and Shakespeare, went to the Opera and symphony concerts and walked round endless galleries filled with Dutch interiors. Six years of "Top Ten" banality could only delay the process and so I gave it up. Geekishness did not exist in the 1960s and so those of us who refused to be teenagers were not stereotyped. As I write, a bundle of musings by modern teenagers has been offered in ‘The Times" One of them asks whether they can be blamed for the stereotype "the angst-ridden, self-centred, acceptance-seeking almost person that so dominates the most difficult and prejudiced age in anyone’s lifetime, yet seems too alien and inaccessible to anyone whose age isn’t encompassed by the bracket." She continues, "Or are we driven to it by fabricated ‘norms’ that advertisers and their products lay before us, preying on our need to be seen exactly like everyone else, or at least to behave exactly like everyone expects us to." Another young woman writes, "Teenagerdom is not so much a discovery of self, but a discovery of others: an unpleasant interlude in which the true nature of the "responsible adult" is revealed, and the snug delusion of childhood security becomes ever more gauzy. It is not we, but you who have the problem. We are just trying to deal with it". I do not remember many of my teachers deserving such criticism. The majority were fine role models, who understood and enjoyed their pupils, picking them up when they fell, forgiving and forgetting their failings and always encouraging their interests and creative urges. One of these, an Irish cleric, founded a madrigal society which inspired all of us who took part in it as we explored the riches of Tudor secular music.

As a sixth- former I was introduced to the world of cathedral choirs and soon found myself singing in one on a voluntary basis. I was a little out of my depth as I lacked the childhood experience of musical discipline that many other young men had, and my vocal equipment was merely satisfactory. Nevertheless I became totally devoted to the activity and was entranced not only by the music but also by the language, choreography and the apparent mysticism surrounding much that went on in the cathedral. Though my father was an atheist, throughout my eighteen years I had, like most young people in those days, been exposed to the myths and majesty of organised religion, whether at school, Sunday School or one of the uniformed organisations for young people. For many of us, too busy to think about it, a deity was assumed. Father and I continued to travel regularly, frequently and extensively, often for several weeks, and also by then mainly in Europe. We had, during the years of my adolescence visited ancient ruins, great palaces, art galleries, fountains, gardens and vast dark gothic cathedrals. As we sped between them, in a series of Rovers, the duets continued; folk songs, hymns and opera arias. Gradually my voice changed so that we were tenor and bass. In the early days I did not know that the arias came from opera, but later my friend Peter and I had become addicted to the genre, and made many visits to the Royal Opera House, where these melodies poured again from the finest singers, and I welcomed them as old friends.

Until I was eighteen I did not understand that my father was an unbeliever. Perhaps he had decided not to influence me, in which case he must have had a very strong will during those days, and I must have disappointed him greatly when, at college, I became a confirmed member of the Church of England, having, during the intervening years, finally learnt what these three words meant. I threw myself into Anglicanism with unrestrained zeal, first as server for the Franciscan friar at college and later as an acolyte and crucifer at the cathedral. I was singing in a choir on at least three days in each week and, at the cathedral, often spent my holidays as a virger and guide. The college was an all-male institution when I arrived and so the Psalms of David were chanted to Gregorian tones which require no harmony. In fact, in earlier days, the college had had a fine reputation for such chanting. Interesting though it was, and quite beautiful too, it was not my preferred choice, so I was not disappointed when the college started to admit women, which greatly increased the possible repertoire.

The music of the church had become very important to me when, while still at school I had heard Allegri’s setting of the "Miserere", a piece of music which continues to make converts every day. From that moment I began to collect gramophone records of this highly specialised music. I thought "If the anorak fits, then wear it". Not long ago there was a television programme about Asperger’s Syndrome, a "colour" within the autism spectrum, in which it was suggested that the condition might be considered an extreme form of maleness. During the programme, a young Asperger’s lad, who was obsessed with the doors of juvenile courts, was asked why he had no interest in the doors of adult courts. His response was that they were boring. When it was suggested to his father that there might be a genetic disposition to Asperger’s, he denied any kind of obsessive behaviour. His wife, however, asked that he should show his ‘album’ to the interviewer, which he was delighted to do, though hurriedly pointing out that he had an ‘interest’ not an ‘obsession’. What he liked to do on family outings was to photograph radio transmitter masts - all of them - and his collection filled a thick album. Fifteen years on from Allegri’s "Miserere" I had one of the largest and most complete collections of its kind in the world, and it was still expanding at an alarming rate. It certainly alarmed my bank manager. Cost can have an unexpected influence on the nature of collection. A thousand CDs for example, represents an investment of about £15,000 and, in the mind of a true collector, this expense can be the more easily justified if the collection is complete. Mine includes recordings made as long ago as 1914. No matter how poor the quality of a recording or performance, every relevant record will have a place in it. If there were many missing, there would be little point in such a policy. Thirty years ago I would visit the National Sound Archive to learn of early recordings. Recently the NSA contacted me for help in filling some of their gaps.

Another of "The Times" teenagers wrote, "Happily I accepted my identity years ago. I am a geek. I role play, war game, know Buffy scripts off by heart and refer to Stan Lee, the creative father of Marvel Comics, as God. I will never be popular with those who get drunk at the weekend, many of whom would rather insult than befriend me. Some people look at me with pity when I declare my geeky-ness. Why? I’m happy, and it’s not like I’ve suddenly become sub-human". Trainspotters, stamp collectors, computer buffs, football supporters, chess players, lovers of choral music; they are all geeks, specialists or enthusiasts, depending on who describes them. The trainspotter is a "sad anorak" to the football supporter who may, in his turn, be an ‘obsessive, drunken hooligan’, but each has accepted an identity and each is happy to be a part of his group. The misfortune is that one will depersonalise the other in the process of stereotyping. When I was twelve years old I was a trainspotter, though such a label, at the time, would have been greeted with derision. I did not spot trains. Why would anyone wish to spot trains (or the front doors of adult courts)? I was interested in locomotives and solely in steam locomotives. It is true that I did log them in a book carefully devised for that purpose, and I did stand at the end of a platform in grey flannel shorts and a peaked cap, enshrouded by the requisite, oversized duffle coat. However, once these romantic engines had been consigned to the scrapyard, and the peaked cap to the bonfire, I left the platform edge for ever. Today, if I pass by a railway preservation society, from which emanate plumes of smoke and condensation, only the merest shudder of nostalgia thrills me. The neural pathways that were once a part of my childhood identity are overgrown and all but forgotten; but whenever I hear psalm 15 or pass through the doors of a cathedral, I am on a direct route home, happily walking through another beautiful and well- loved country.

By the 1980s I was teaching science and, as a housemaster, was struggling to maintain a house discipline based on religious precepts rather than moral standards. My wise little children could not understand how religion and the science I taught them could be reconciled and, as they grew older, they became less patient with me. The worst influence, though, was the local Anglican church, where I was obliged to lead them each Sunday morning, for their regular infusion of piety. It demonstrated an example of the ‘evangelical movement’ which had begun to sweep through the tottering Church of England, and it boasted guitars, tambourines, a drumkit and a fiery curate who wielded and smote a "filofax" bible (with a zip fastener). Initially the children had too much loyalty to their school to rebel at what they felt was an insult to their intelligence, but when the preacherman invited them to rise up and be healed of their dyslexia, they withdrew their support, and took their comic-books to church as a distraction from the fire and brimstone. I could bear it no longer myself and so, when I became Deputy Head, I would send other colleagues to the front line, while I took daylong walks into the hills with renegade pupils. Often, up to twenty were happy to walk fifteen miles in rain or snow as an alternative to spending an hour in the church. At the same time, we explored humanism and built a new morality based on mutual respect. By this time I had resigned from the cathedral and the hole in my life had been filled with an exploration of an ever- widening world of rationalism and science.

For a few years my record collecting ceased, and during that brief interlude the compact disc arrived. I baulked at the purchase of the many back issues that would be necessary to bring my collection up to date, but gradually I came to realise that it remained an important part of my identity. I also returned to choral singing and began to make regular visits to cathedrals for choral evensong.

                                              ***

So the mist grew both inside and outside my car and the thought of the music overcame my inertia. The lights of the shivering town were being extinguished one by one, as shopkeepers, anticipating no further custom, closed their premises a few minutes early. Apart from a dim glow in one of the doorways, the cathedral itself seemed still and lifeless. Leaving the car a respectful distance from the great west doors, I pulled my overcoat tight about me, and walked towards the heavy iron handle which represented the final barrier to the conflicts within. Forty years before, it would have been far less complicated and the entrance would have been the door to certainty and youthful joy. Now each pleasure within the ancient walls must be balanced against realities that four weary decades have imposed upon them.

Cathedral stone offers a cool respite from harsh, summer sunshine but, in February, as a chilling night enclosed it with clammy fingers, the few who reached the oaken door expected the air inside to offer a welcoming warmth. Though warmer than the close it was insufficient to allow me to remove my gloves once the metallic latch had been replaced. The dimly lit columns of the nave led my eye toward the distant chancel where robed boys and men were taking their places in the choir stalls for a rehearsal. Nearby, a brightly lit room with no ceiling indicated that the book and gift shop was still open. This particular conflict does not concern me but there are still priests who rant about money changing hands in the Temple. As yet I have not experienced the pleasure of seeing a meek, offended Anglican overturning tables of teddy-bear choristers or felling, like Christmas trees, rotating racks of snow-scene cards. It is in such places that I discover the rare CDs which no longer find their way into high-street stores - not even on home ground. Most cathedral shops also have the grace to stock some recordings by other choirs. One is not entirely restricted to a CD of carols by the resident choir, which might well be a reissue of an LP that was released fifteen years before, at half the price. "Lovely carols, dear. It’s a really good choir you know, and Dr. Jones is such a nice gentleman." Nice he may well be but the recording was made by his predecessor who retired over a decade ago and died last Easter, much loved and lamented. Since then, I wondered, has the choir gone into a decline? As I reflected on this, a familiar rhythm of chanting penetrated the thick gloom of the north aisle and, impelled by a mild infusion of adrenalin to quicken my pace, I set off down the tall narrow passageway towards the north transept.

Fragments of familiar phrases filled the fragrant air. "How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord, forever?" "Lighten mine eyes that I sleep not in death." "They are corrupt and have become abdominal." (or was it abominable?) "Eating up my people as it were bread" (Perhaps it was abdominal). Faint odours of Edom lingered on every breath and, with the cool interest of a connoisseur, I tried to identify them. Was it myrrh or frankincense perhaps, or the less expensive Priory and Abbey, names not only associated with redolence in the sanctuary but also chosen by two leading choral recording engineers for their record labels? Once I would burn these resins in an antique silver thurible, while listening to Palestrina and Victoria in my flat. Now I wonder what, as a result, is growing in my lungs. So the first conflict is played out. Fragrance is a powerful stimulus which may jolt the mind back decades. Pear’s Transparent Soap has me, a small carefree boy, fifty years ago bouncing marbles against the skirting board in my great aunt’s house in North Wales: but this pervasive smell of ecclesiastical nostalgia may indeed be an air that kills, as the choristers inhale their Aeolian inspiration

The air was warm on this bitter evening. What must it cost to maintain such a temperature gradient? Not even cathedral deans can break thermodynamic laws. Glimpsed between the pillars to my right was the empty nave: a vast space with no chairs and no people. That is the way I like to see it, and therein lies another conflict. Who is to pay for this seasonal battle with the Second Law? It is certainly not the townsfolk scurrying home before the ice hardens on the roads. Not one looks in on their Wonder of the Fens. Is there no love, no pride and no care? Is there no relevance? Yet I, a renegade, a foreigner, expect warm, perfumed, evocative air on a Friday evening in February. In some cathedrals a man in black might ask me for a £5 entry fee. "This, being a very old, very cold and very big building requires your support. We ‘demand’ £5 from all who would enter. We used to ‘suggest’ but are now in danger of growing as old and cold as the crumbling stone." Will putting a banknote in the offertory plate salve my conscience? The cathedral is yours and mine, part of our cumulative identity, until the masons’ bill comes in or the pipers have to be paid when it becomes the responsibility of the regular worshippers. They should bay for their pleasures, for their indulgent anachronism.

By now I had reached the crossing and to my surprise saw, not the expected internal illumination of the lofty lantern atop the tower, a beacon to wool-clad pilgrims crossing the fen, but a subdued kaleidoscope lit from without; not a faint glimmer for their lonely comfort, but kilowatts for ours. Beneath, the organist was generating a series of gently flowing arpeggios, a familiar introduction said to represent a maiden, spinning at her wheel. This peaceful accompaniment scarcely hinted at the power hidden in the complex instrument, "dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce". Each long pipe, from many ranks, is a working man’s monthly wage, and more. Over this delicate tracery of notes rose a solitary boy’s voice. It filled the air from stony floor to lantern, an incomparable sound generating harmonics from arch and pillar; it was the culmination of six endless childhood years of preparation; it made my heart leap; it was confident and beautiful… and it was flat.

What does it cost to have singing like this? Who, walking into a cathedral and hearing it for the first time, could conceive its history? By its very appearance, the masonry of Stonehenge and the Tower of London advertises their antiquity, but this boy, singing slightly offkey, was a newcomer, just a school child of little consequence, here today, gone tomorrow. Then, his friends, young and old, not submerging him but supporting him with firm chords, enticed him to return to the key of G. His voice, becoming more used to the cathedral air, much cooler than that of the schoolroom, responded quickly. A slight raising of the palm of his hand towards the conductor was acknowledged by an approving nod and, because the choirmaster knew that the boy was now in control, and would not repeat the error in performance, broke off and moved to a different piece of music. The special qualities of the boy treble sound, which has filled our cathedrals for centuries, enlivening music inspired by it and specially written for it, can merely be emulated by adult voices, but not replaced by them. It is one of the few fields in life where children and adolescents can operate at a very high level of expertise. It offers superb training in a positive, role- modelling environment, but it is training on the job. This is no preparation for some distant musical goal. This is the goal and it is the highest peak. It gives boys and young men the experience of being a valued and indispensable part of a community, at a significant stage of their development. It is, of course, elitist but no more so than a football or gymnastic team. It sometimes seems that the word ‘elite’ has been hijacked by those who would tear away all yearning, beauty and ambition from the fabric of society in their dubiously motivated attempts to make all men mediocre. The music of Orlando Gibbons, and the sound of those who sing it, may not be to the taste of everyone, but then neither are rugby football, pre-Raphaelite art and traditional jazz. We respect those who prepare our food, manufacture our cars or care for our health and education to strive for excellence, so why not our young musicians?

Twenty minutes rehearsal for a forty minute service does not permit the luxury of a complete sing-through. As they rehearsed the opening bars of the Tudor anthem, I thought: these people have been making this music live for half a millennium, each boy passing on his enthusiasm, his skills, his manners, his sense of community, place and proportion, and his respect for the music and the musicianship of his fellows. When each moves on, he is potentially an alto, tenor or bass in the making or, at the very least, one who values the heritage. Is this heritage any less valuable than the carved stone or the coloured glass? When I visit a gothic cathedral in France on a Friday afternoon I hear no choir sing. In consequence the experience is diminished, for music and building evolve together as one organism. Castles often have re-enactment societies, but, pleasant and informative though their activities may be, they are essentially charades. A choir of men and boys is as much a part of a cathedral as its organ, its glass, its stone and its clergy. Mercifully this is usually recognised by the church authorities who might otherwise replace them with a small, less expensive group of professional adults. However, assaults continue, not by a cruel adversary seeking to destroy, but by a fair-minded foe seeking only equality where, for centuries, there has been none. It seeks to give little girls the opportunity to enjoy the same experience as the boys. Sadly, insufficient thought was given to the means by which the equality should be achieved. Long term consequences do not appear to have been seriously considered. Also a good opportunity to use girls’ voices imaginatively, and wisely, has been lost.

Despite many attempts in recent years to feminise boys, to get them to lay down their water pistols and embrace Cindy dolls, they have resisted the call so vehemently that a few authorities have had the temerity to admit that there may be a fundamental difference between the brains of boys and girls. Some of the more interesting phenomena of our brain functions, exceptionally high IQ, autism, dyslexia, etc., do seem to visit their favours disproportionally onto males. Large numbers of boys tend to prefer the camaraderie of those who share both their fascinations and their faults. Until recently, like rugby football and trainspotting, singing in a cathedral choir was a masculine occupation. Choristers could hold up their heads in the company of schoolmates when they sang, because they could be assured that this was a special activity peculiar to males. However, this is changing and today the boy chorister, in cassock, surplice and ruffle is becoming a rarer sight. Once, most towns would have boasted at least one robed choir, and many villages too. Before the Second World War, London had fifty five. In each cathedral diocese the choirs formed a pyramid of specialised musical talent which had, at its apex, the cathedral choir. A fine young singer could work his way to the top. Today some dioceses have but one or two boys choirs in all, which has seriously depleted the reservoir. Few boys sing at school and only a fraction of these attend churches. Even fewer are religious. Here lies my next conflict.

My identity includes not only a love of this highly specialised musical performance, with its attendant educational facility, its language and its ceremony, but also an almost missionary atheism; and the two share the same pew very uneasily. Should I support a system which exposes children to a mythology which has the potential to be life-destroying as well as life enhancing and comforting? As a science teacher I am required to offer to my pupils probabilities of a high degree, to give answers to their questions for which there is some evidence. When I first became unconverted I put this dilemma to a group of cathedral choristers. They admonished me for suggesting that they were not sufficiently intelligent to see past the pomp and platitude when they sang in services. At the time it suited my needs to shrug off the responsibility so easily, though even now it continues to tug at my heel like a ball and chain.

In the quire I awaited the arrival of the choristers. Congregations at evensong are not discouraged, of course, but they are superfluous and, certainly with regard to the music, are expected to participate in silence. Traditionally, the choir offers its poetry and music not to or for anyone, but on behalf of the people. There are those who demand contemporary English texts and what they mistakenly call "contemporary" music. They will not be at evensong and though they might attend a Sunday mass, their iconoclasm is aimed at the parish church. They are a part of the reason why parish music is in decline but, to be fair, it is their church. Not for them the austere beauty of a Tallis motet, especially when the words are in the Latin tongue. Perhaps their god has neither Latin nor Greek.

The choir began evensong with "O nata lux". Towards the end of this simple but profound introit is a delectable musical moment known as a "false relation". It is an "unexpected sound" yet one we all know is coming so that the anticipation is as thrilling as the execution. What of the boys? Do they, in their mock-Tudor ruffs, look and sound as angelic as generations of their mothers would have us believe. During my many years of listening to descriptions of angels, I have not been swayed from the image I knew as a child. In an old illustrated bible there was a graphic depiction of Jacob wrestling with one. I did not know from which of the nine orders it came, cherubim or seraphim, perhaps, but it was certainly giving Jacob a hard time despite the handicap of a surfeit of feathered appendages, two of which were obscuring its vision. It had the look of a creature to argue with whom would be ill-advised and, were it to sing, one might expect a voice of Pavarottian proportions. Choristers, at their best, look and behave like the intelligent, enthusiastic and skilled musicians that they are. Their voices are those of boys, unmistakeably so when trained to exploit the slight roughness which allows us to distinguish their spoken voices. A vulnerability which heralds their farewell to childhood is often cited as being the quality which makes this the time when the voice is at its finest, often for just one short season. However, seventy years ago, boys were singing the top line up to and sometimes beyond the age of sixteen, well past puberty, and sometimes joining the armed forces still singing with an "unbroken" voice. There is so little interest in the subject these days that to suggest ‘the debate still rages’ regarding what has caused the change is somewhat of an exaggeration. Once it was fashionable to suggest that good food or genetic changes were hastening the onset of puberty, with its attendant voice change, but boy singers of the 1930s dispute this, pointing out that their speaking voices had actually "broken." Today, we are more likely to be told that social and educational expectations militate against treble voice singing among boys much beyond the age of thirteen. A high quality boy soprano, in the first half of the twentieth century, could expect, at the age of fourteen, to make a reasonable living from his voice for two or three years. That option is no longer available to him.

The chorister who had had a pitch problem during the rehearsal was now in complete control of his voice and his "Magnificat" rang firm and true, lingering in the empty, black stillness, defying time. We sat for the second lesson, a reading from the Bible. If the choristers were not listening, it was not apparent; for their self-discipline was such that they sat quite still and not even their eyes wandered. The sight of young men patiently waiting and thinking is uncommon in twenty first century Western culture but is rather refreshing to witness in these isolated pockets of pseudo- monasticism.

There is an aspect of cathedral worship which might be expected to cause an atheist like myself considerable internal conflict. There are parts of the service in which members of the congregation may take part; a hymn, perhaps, a prayer, several "amens" and a creed, the latter being a publicly voiced statement of belief. How can I justify indulging in such blatant hypocrisy? The answer is twofold. First of all, I appreciate that there are committed believers all around me. They have gathered together to share with others their mutual understanding and love of a perceived supreme being. They neither require nor desire an audience to gawp and distract them with jarring errors or even offensively conspicuous non-participation. I am careful, therefore, to sit, stand, revolve and gesticulate as is the custom of the place, always discreetly watchful for minor variations. The American composer Ned Rorem is a Quaker and an atheist, living his life according to the Friends’ precepts he grew up with, but not acknowledging any deity. I know of an English composer, an ex- cathedral chorister who declares himself an Anglican by temperament rather than belief. I can give voice to the creed, lulled by its poetry, perhaps because I can omit the first line, at least in spirit- "I believe in God", and I am in wholehearted agreement with many of the sentiments expressed in the beautifully crafted prayers so, like Causley’s Timothy Winters, have no reservations in shouting ‘Amen’. However, I will not subscribe to the daily sin, guilt, confession and absolution. As a chorister I may be called upon to sing, "Foul, I to the fountain fly" but I believe it no more than that Puff, the Magic Dragon, "frolics in the autumn mist".

Cathedral music is a potent part of my identity, an identity formed by conflict. Thousands of hours have been spent listening to it, making it, writing about it and collecting recordings of it. My comfort and joy comes not from Beatles or Spielberg, trains or teddy bears, football or alcohol but from the resplendent sound of a choir enlivening the soaring arches of a darkened gothic pile, illuminated only by warm candlelight in an atmosphere fragrant with oriental resins, and where, when the music has ended and the echoes have died, there is a peaceful and perfect silence.

Article Copyright  Edward C Wuskin. 2004

Reproduced with permission