I have often admired the way that the Daily Service, each weekday morning at 9:45 on Radio 4, Long Wave, finishes its broadcast a split second before the pips for ten o'clock. How do they time it so exactly? I found out in September.
With 79 other singers, I was a BBC pilgrim in the steps of St Paul in Greece. We were accompanied by three producers, two technicians, a musical director, and an organist; and locally, by two delightful and knowledgeable Greek young women as guides. Two skilful drivers, of two large coaches, completed our company.
St Paul came to Greece's northern coast in response to a dream. A man of Macedonia had urged him, "Come over and help us." And so he did, travelling by sea to a harbour town then called Neapolis, but now known as Kavala. This was our first stop also, though unlike St Paul we came in by air - a flight from Heathrow to Athens, and an internal flight onwards either to Kavala itself, or (the unlucky half of the party) to Thessaloniki, from where a two and a half hour midnight coach journey finally got them to the hotel around three in the morning.
Kavala is only a few miles away from Philippi, site of not only a Roman battle celebrated by Shakespeare in Julius Caesar, but also of the Philippians to whom St Paul wrote so affectionately. After a morning rehearsal in the hotel - the first time we had all sung together, and half the party feeling decidedly bleary-eyed - we piled into our coaches and drove past the ruins of Philippi to a little river a short distance beyond. It was perhaps the size of the Windrush.
This was the place where Europe's first baptism took place. Lydia, the seller of purple from Asia Minor, was baptized by St Paul, and offered hospitality to him and his companion, St Silas. Father Eleftherios is the priest of the fairly modern Orthodox church built in her name. He gave us a warm welcome. Once again we rehearsed, before recording a number of pieces for the Sunday morning broadcast.
Sunday worship comes on Radio 4 between 8:10 and 8:50. That day it was to be a very composite affair: our recorded singing came from the high-domed church, a round building, gleaming with colourful stained glass, mosaics and frescoes, all centred on a big baptismal font, large enough for an infant to be totally immersed, as is the Greek Orthodox practice. But the spoken parts of the service were recorded by the Neapolis waterside, among the Philippi ruins, and finally by the gently babbling waters of the little river itself. Listeners in UK said it was totally seamless!
Rehearsals and sightseeing followed one another relentlessly day by day. But there was also time for prayer and thoughtfulness. The Sunday afternoon, after recording Monday morning's daily service, we had a moving service beside the little river, renewing our own baptismal vows and joining in Communion. Each morning on the coach there was a little act of worship, and nearly every evening there was an opportunity for Compline. Before each run-through of a service there was a prayer, and both run-through and actual recording were genuine worship, not just a performance.
The run-through gave the answer to my initial queries about time-keeping! Stopwatch in hand, one of the producers would time the material to the second. "Two minutes too long: we'll omit verse three of the second hymn." Then they would also look at the script for the spoken material. A half-sentence here, an adjective there, rephrasing this point, omitting that one: finally we would be ready to record for real.
Each day we would record the next day's service. On Thursday, however, we had so much travelling that there was no time for rehearsing together, let alone recording. We rehearsed on our coaches! And on Friday morning we transmitted live from Corinth.
Stephen Shipley was the presenter. We had gone through the usual run-through procedure, had a breath of fresh air, and were set for 11:45 (Greece is two hours ahead of Britain). All went well. Stephen, stopwatch in hand, was keeping an eagle eye on the time as he spoke and led us in prayer. Then came the last hymn. Did we take it a bit slower than before? In the penultimate verse, he began to wind his hand frantically round and round. The conductor very often made quite a long break between one verse and the next. Not that time! We sang the last verse with gusto - but without rallentando. And I don't think we crashed the pips.
Mary Paterson