'Not all American twentieth-century Gothic is successful. The Washington National Cathedral surely is. The largest completed ecclesiastical structure in the country, its solemn stony immensities would cover Tom Quad and then some (I’ve checked). The three young crucifers, heavy crosses flush to their foreheads, deserve praise for their harmonious stride in surely one of the longer such processions in Christendom.

Our English choir, with American reinforcements, rose to these proportions. Every chord extolled the robustness of the special relationship. If Evensong’s nineteenth-century hymns, fourth-century AD Creed, and first-millennium BC Psalms look backwards, I too gave myself to nostalgia. I felt once again my gown about me, my stomach atremble in anticipation – or fear – of the food at Formal awaiting me.

We had an American accent for the first reading, and an English for the second. Canon Rosemarie Duncan’s voice rang out with clarity and confidence in the call and response. The final Psalm was sung in procession, an innovation I do not remember seeing at the House. It was particularly arresting. The voices faded in a delicate diminuendo as the choir paced away into the infinite church, first out of sight, then out of hearing. A splendid Evensong was over.'