A quality service after tea and cakes at Wimbledon

Broadcast News by Joanna Moorhead RAISING funds for good causes is no picnic these days unless, of course, you have the good fortune to attend a church right next door to the All England Tennis Club in London, SWI 9. The Anglican St Mary's, whose spire dominates theTV screen at the close of every Wimbledon broadcast, has a canny congregation who last year raised £16,000 for charity selling tea and cakes to peckish punters en route to the ground.
This year St Mary's will be the venue for a mid-championship Morning Service (Sunday, BBC1, 9.15am). It may not be the sort of "service" we're most used to seeing from Wimbledon, but there's no getting way from the tennis.
Chris Gorringe, chief executive of the All England Club, will read the lesson, and the hymns, sung by umpires and ball boys and girls as well as regular churchgoers, will be accompanied by film shot behind the scenes of Centre Court.
You may. of course, have hoped to find in the religious programmes a corner of refuge from the wall-to-wall tennis coverage of recent days. If so, you could hardly do better than to tune in to Ad Lib (Thursday, Radio 4, 9.30am), when Robert Robinson visits the Carmelite nuns of Dolgellau in Gwynedd to probe the realities of life in a community separate from, though fiercely part of, the outside world. No talk of tennis here, as the nuns reflect on what brought them to Carmel and how they cope with their tough regime. Among the many interesting issues they touch on is the paradox that, within a closed-off convent, they have found a liberation denied to so many in the world. "I really think it's the people outside who are shut up," explains one. "By coming here you do acquire a feeling of freedom freedom of spirit. freedom to enjoy everything..."
It's often rather difficult to accept nuns as the real women they undoubtedly are when you meet them in the flesh or see them on television, such is the power of the habit.
Disembodied on the radio though. their garb obviously poses no problems at all, and part of this programme's charm is that it enables the sisters to have their say in a very straightforward way. with Robert Robinson umpiring (if you'll excuse the term) in his usual, down-to-earth Stop The Week fashion.
Other Highlights
Sunday: 12 Noon, ITV: Fr Pat Lynch takes his turn as Catholic contestant on the light-hearted religious game Divine Inspiration: 6.25pm, BBC1: Rock star Rick Wakeman tells Alan Titchmarsh about his six favourite hymns in Sweet Inspiration; 7.30pm, BBC2: Prague: The City Where Time Stood Still tells the sorry tale of how so marvellous a jewel should have been allowed to sink into such disrepair. Churches and convents are among the many buildings visited by the cameras, and Franciscan nuns describe how they were ousted from the Convent of the Church of St Bartholomew, and the discoveries awaiting them on their return; 10.20pm, BBC1: Heart of the Matter looks at the issues around how to ration health care. and asks whether doctors are playing God in choosing which patients to treat and which to ignore; I1.30pirn, Radio 4: Catholic Steven Miller is one of three ordinands from different traditions who reflect on their preparations for their ordination services in Seeds of Faith.
Tuesday: 7.4Sam, Radio 4 (also Wednesday and Thursday): Fr John McDade's Thought for the Day; 5.10pm, BBC1: Pupils of St Cuthbert's Catholic Primary in North Shields demonstrate their newly-invented game of Touch Hockey in Active.
Vatican Radio: English programmes can be heard in the UK on 1530 kHz on medium wave and on 5882, 6245 and 7230 kHz on short wave beginning at 7.50pm and 5am.