O I have heard the Gospel told

Like 685, this was written by Hilary Jolly around 1996, ‘in response to coaxing from Chris Hayward’; like that and 789, it was drafted while walking with her dog on Coe Fen in Cambridge. While in no sense an imitation of 860, still less a replacement for it, it expresses a similar commitment to passing on what the author, and each singer personally, has received (cf 1 Corinthians 15:1–2), with the same longing ‘O …’ and the same kind of gentle repetitions, all addressed to the same ‘Master’. It is first published here.

This is also one of at least two texts of that period which were intended for the tune AULD LANG SYNE. It was felt that ELLACOMBE did more justice to the seriousness of the words, without weighing them down with too much ponderous or emotional solemnity as some 19th-c tunes have been known to do with words on such a theme. The tune, however, is naturally in much demand; for eg 472 (since EH) or 865. An early form of the tune, arranged in the key of G major, appeared in Xavier Ludwig Hartel’s Collection of 1833 from Mainz; Hartel gave the date as 1700, but the earliest known source is a book from 1784 used in the chapel of the Duke of Würtemburg. Its present shape is found in another German hymnal for 1863, and the 1868 A&M may have been the first book to set it to a English hymn—in this case by J J Daniell, for children, Come, sing with holy gladness. The tune-name means ‘elf-hollow’.

b Watford, Herts 1945. Watford Girls’ Grammar Sch and Ecole d’Etudes Bilingues du Lycée Français de Londres. Following a ‘Damascus Rd’ conversion to Christ, she became a member of St Andrew the Great Ch, Cambridge, worked for the church part-time 1994–2002, and also from 1999 as a charity shop manager for a Christian youth and community centre. She has also been involved in supporting sufferers from schizophrenia. Encouraged by Christopher Hayward (qv) she began writing hymns, often as she walked with her dog on Cambridge’s Coe Fen. Her first published work was the prizewinning text (1999) for the St Paul’s Cathedral Millennium Hymn Competition, Through the darkness of the ages, though other texts had already come 1st and 3rd in a smaller-scale competition run by the Association of Christian Writers. Her best-known hymn now features in Sing Glory (1999) and elsewhere; one not included here is the carol-like text, O Mary, rock your little boy. In 2005 she joined the Jubilate Hymns ‘Text Advisory Group’ (TAG) for the assessment of new hymns. See also the survey and appreciation by Brian West in HSB 19.10, April 2011. Nos.685, 789, 861, 1163.