Felliniesque ...

This photo sums up much of what began my experience of the Episcopal church in Scotland away back when all the world was young in the 1970s and I found myself in what I felt was more Fellini film than ordinary life. Then as today I was singing at a special service in the Cathedral of The Isles, on Cumbrae, and the then unfamiliar riot of colour and music and ritual made an enormous impression.

I suspect it had the same effect today on a bunch of tourists who appeared on the cathedral path just as we all emerged from today's Memorial Evensong for Canon Joyce Pow, who died earlier this year. But this photo was taken before the service, as I and other singers, dressed, incidentally, in red Whoopi Goldberg-type robes, waited for the clergy to assemble. The three figures following the last red-clad chorister are bishops - the past and present bishops of Glasgow and Galloway, followed by the Bishop of Argyll and The Isles, in whose diocese the cathedral lies. Behind them are members of the congregation who are in danger of being late, but we shall let them through before we process ...

If you've never visited this tiny cathedral, you should. I can't guarantee a trio of bishops, however ...