Letter: Girls in the choir

Sir: Why is there such a fuss every time an Anglican cathedral forms a girls' choir (report, 17 May; letters, 18, 19, 20 May)? If, as the Church Times reports, there has been a decline in the number of boys enlisting in choir schools, is it not perhaps a duty for our places of worship to train female choristers? Far from destroying 900 years of cultural heritage, it would appear that we probably need girls' choirs to preserve it. Who is to sing the great wealth of liturgical music if the boys don't want to and the girls aren't allowed to?

DIANA BURRELL

London E3