ST PAUL'S CATHEDRAL SCHOOL CHORISTERS: 1 FEBRUARY

St Paul's choristers with their Director of Music.  One of the boys said during a question and answer session that he found the ruffs a little uncomfortable.

St Paul's Cathedral School is the school nearest to the Hall.  It is an independent co-educational school for children 4-13 and is situated in New Change close by the cathedral.  It is also the choir school for the cathedral and there are 34 choristers who board in a house near the school.  We have traditionally supported one of them.  For more details go to http://www.spcs.london.sch.uk/

On Tuesday there was a recital in the choir of the cathedral at six in the evening.  The atmosphere of St Pauls on a winter evening is a sublime amalgam of grandeur and peace; a great building anchored on its hill with only faintest hum of the City intruding.

The recital not only included some moving and delightful pieces of choral church music but also interviews with various choristers describing their life at the School.

This was followed by a reception in the Crypt around Nelson's tomb.  A post of 25 January noted that Nelson's funeral took place at St Paul's on January 9th, 1806.  I did not realise that in a curious piece of re-cycling, and I suppose desire for economy, he was interred beneath the black sarcophagus originally made for Cardinal Wolsey in the early 16th century.  The crypt is a very British place where memorials and tombs to British heroes, generally military,  are jumbled up with those of the lesser known.

Afterwards I was invited out to supper by the Master Girdler, Lord Strathalmond and his clerk, Ian Rees.  Ian is an old friend from my days in the Army.  They both looked after me very well..

A pitfall I managed to avoid was one that occurred to a most distinguished Master Draper a decade ago.  As he entered the Choir at St Pauls the Draper chorister, whom he had interviewed prior to entry a few months previously, gave him an enormous wink of welcome quite expecting one in return.