You’d be hard pressed to find a more continuous strand in British culture than the chorister. They’ve been warbling in Westminster Abbey since the 1380s. Every national occasion is marked by choirs, the choristers dazzling in their splendidly anachronistic ruffs and robes, present at moments of collective joy or sadness. Funerals, memorial services, royal weddings, carols from King’s College, Cambridge. They are ornaments to our culture.

Oodles of composers, musicians and singers, professional or not, have, over hundreds of years, stood in the choir stalls at dawn, at midnight, and lifted their voices to the vaulting roofs. Some of the most beautiful music in the canon was written for choirs: Gregorian chants, Thomas Tallis. I challenge anyone to listen to Edgar Bainton’s ‘And I saw a New Heaven’, or Jonathan Dove’s ‘Seek Him that Maketh the Seven Stars’, and not be moved. Early on during lockdown, I drove to the silent shops and John Tavener’s ‘The Lamb’ came on the radio. Such was its emotional impact, I had to pull over.

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Choristers are symbols of excellence. The singers are trained in an exemplary manner: the discipline needed for a crack choir to rise early, sing at several services, and stay up till late if needed is extraordinary.

Yet choirs are under threat, from a number of........

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