Did they understand Jerusalem?

But I wonder, when they chose it, if they realised the significance of its choice as it was written by William Blake when he lived at Middleton.

That was after he had been imprisoned in Chichester and tried for sedition.

Many people think the poem is about the industrial midlands but according to my old friend, the late local historian Bernard Price, it was a satirical back-stab at the burghers of Chichester for the way they treated him.

But it has made a wonderful rousing hymn.

Ken Strudwick

Chichester