Here are 36 hymns written between 2005 and 2008 since the author's last anthology, A Door for the Word. What makes this book especially interesting is the second half wherein Bishop Dudley-Smith gives a detailed account of the genesis and theology of each hymn. Between two and five tunes are suggested for each text and there are the usual indexes of Biblical references, metre, themes and subjects.
Educated at Cambridge University, Timothy Dudley-Smith was ordained in 1950 as assistant curate of St Paulâs Church, Northumberland Heath. From 1953 he was head of the Cambridge University Mission in Bermondsey, London, and in the 1960s served as secretary of the Church Pastoral Aid Society. In 1973 he became Archdeacon of Norwich and in 1981 Bishop of Thetford; he retired in 1991. He is a Fellow of the Hymn Society of the United States and Canada, and in 2003
was appointed an honorary vice-president of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland. In the same year he was awarded an OBE for services to hymnody.