Paul Wigmore › Hymnals

Born 1925, London. Schools in Harrow, Bushey Heath and Barnstaple (N Devon). Many occupations between the ages of 14 and 42: apprentice mechanical engineer, shop assistant, junior clerk, photo lab trainee, National Service RAF photographer in India, Burma and UK, Kodak medical radiographer and haematology lab technician, then technical author. Publications and PR manager with air/sea lifesaving equipment manufacturer. PRO for the Christian Medical College and Brown Memorial Hospital, Ludhiana, Punjab. Freelance writer, graphic designer and photographer in Cambridge. Advertising editor and art director with Kodak UK from 1967 to early retirement in 1985.

Wrote first verse at age ten in Port Isaac, Cornwall, getting as far as:

Clouds race like tattered rags
across Port Isaac Bay,
... and then stopping. During brief acquaintance with Penelope and John Betjeman from August 1982 until John's death in July, 1984, encouraged by the poet to keep writing verse. Two collections of light verse published in 1988 and 1990. First attempt at a hymn text written ('ÄòMay we, O Holy Spirit, bear your fruit'Äô) at the request of Jubilate Hymns Limited in compilation of Hymns for Today's Church.

Something approaching 100 hymn texts now published, plus a couple of cantatas and one opera.

The Jubilate Group