Every Christian should go once in a lifetime.
No, not Oberammergau or Spring Harvest; I mean the Christian Resources Exhibition from which I returned in May, staggering off the Waterloo train with armfuls of evangelical paper and plastic. I had heard of it, but never been; truly, the half was not told me.
It happens at the Sandown Park racecourse. I had not realised that the virus of betting on horses could spawn such a magnificent complex of absurd buildings and such spectacular views of Surrey suburbia - as if the Christians at Corinth had taken over the hilltop temple for their annual convention.
This column deals with hymns. There were plenty. A fine text by Caryl Micklem crept into the 160-page Exhibition handbook. Down every aisle you could find hymns in books, hymns on tape, hymns on screen; instruments to play them on; microphones to sing them into; live singing, too, if you knew where to go. The London Emmanuel Choir and Garth Hewitt were there on the day I was, all sounding exactly as I remember them a century ago.
