25th January is the Conversion of St Paul's Day - With Music!

 This is a strange piece of music that you may never have heard before. Unfortunately the only place I could find it on you tube it cuts out after a few bars for ads.(or it may not when uploaded)

It's by David Grant and the Community Gospel Choir with music by Mike Read and words by John Betjeman. It comes from a CD called Words/Music which has many poems of Betjeman's set to music and sung by different artists. It was intended to become a musical of the life of John Betjeman but the CD was as far as it got.

I bought the CD in 2006 because on Radio 2 Terry Wogan began playing 'Myfanwy' sung by David Essex and I was a David Essex fan. I've never come across anyone else who has ever heard of the CD/Failed Musical.

The Conversion of St Paul, poem by Sir John Betjeman

What is conversion? Not at all

For me the experience of St Paul,

No blinding light, a fitful glow

Is all the light of faith I know

Which sometimes goes completely out

And leaves me plunging into doubt

Until I will myself to go

And worship in God’s house below —

My parish church — and even there

I find distractions everywhere.

What is Conversion? Turning round

To gaze upon a love profound.

For some of us see Jesus plain

And never once look back again,

And some of us have seen and known

And turned and gone away alone,

But most of us turn slow to see

The figure hanging on a tree

And stumble on and blindly grope

Upheld by intermittent hope.

God grant before we die we all

May see the light as did St Paul

I wrote about St Paul's conversion and photographed the pages from the saints book HERE in 2021 so won't repeat myself, but this is the weather rhyme that was once well known for this day - covering all eventualities!

If St. Paul's Day be fair and clear,

It doth betide a happy year;

But if by chance it then should rain,

It will make dear all kinds of grain;

And if the clouds make dark the sky,

Then neate* and fowls this year shall die;

If blustering winds do blow aloft,

Then wars shall trouble the realm full oft.

* Neate is an old word for cattle

Back Tomorrow

Sue