SIR - I remember Roman soldiers clanking along the cloisters of Worcester Cathedral.

The Chapter House was crowded with exotic Eastern characters and the smell of greasepaint hung heavily in the air.

Our cathedral has surely seldom experienced such magnificence as the Christmas Mystery produced several nights of the week in 1934 and 1935.

For we boys of the voluntary choir, it all began back in the summer. At each practice we had to learn a new carol. Sometimes it involved new tunes to familiar words and sometimes the words were in Latin.

Following hour after hour of rehearsal, eventually all the cast came together. Led by Minor Canon EC Butterworth, who played the part of the prophet singing his prophecies in a rich bass voice to which we responded, we proceeded to the quire, which was screened off from the rest of the building. Once backstage and out of sight, we could relax and read a comic until called to our feet by our choirmaster, Edgar Day, to supply background music to whatever was going on.

The culmination came when we regressed through a packed nave singing a hymn of triumph. There was no tumultuous applause - such gestures were not allowed in church in those days - but it seemed everyone was overawed by what had been witnessed.

I was only 10 years old at the time, yet years later I become transported back to that occasion whenever I hear any of the carols we sang. For We Three Kings Of Orient, three of our choirmen were the Kings and went frontstage in Eastern dress to sing their part. I can even smell the incense - normally forbidden in the cathedral at that time.

Yet we never saw anything of what took place. Perhaps that is why they called it the Christmas Mystery.

John Hinton, Worcester.