Letter: Morning has broken, and so has the joke

Sir: The desire of your religious affairs correspondent to extract the last ounce of humour from his account of the BBC's 'hymn videos' project leads him to repeat the mistake of attributing 'Morning Has Broken' to 'the Muslim Yusuf Islam' ('BBC puts its faith in hymn videos', 4 June).

Though recorded by Cat Stevens (then neither a Muslim nor Yusuf Islam), 'Morning Has Broken' was composed by the English writer for children Eleanor Farjeon, who died in 1965. My hymn book tells me that the words are from 'The Children's Bells'; the tune, 'Bunessan' (minus Cat Stevens' extra flourishes and obligatory key change), is a traditional Gaelic melody.

Yours faithfully,

WILLIAM ROWELL

Norton-le-Moors,

Staffordshire

4 June

(Photograph omitted)