Widely appreciated hymnwriter and missioner, Graham Kendrick, also has critics; he was described by the journalist Quentin Letts as “king of the happy-clappy banalities”.

But in his 1950s song he prophetically expresses hopes – rarely discussed at the time but in the forefront of many minds now:

• Bread for the children, Justice, joy, peace
• Shelter for fragile lives cures for their ills
• Work for the craftsman, trade for their skills
• Land for the dispossessed,
• Rights for the weak
• Voices to plead the cause of those who can’t speak
• Refuge from cruel wars. havens from fear, cities for sanctuary,
• Peace to the killing-fields,
• Scorched earth to green.
• Rest for the ravaged earth, oceans and streams
• Plundered and poisoned our future, our dreams.

End our madness, carelessness, greed, make us content with the things that we need.

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To hear the hymn go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08utbDFP9AE

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