It felt good to be at the Royal Academy and to look around and sense that everyone there is somehow or other an active artist. I felt proud to be there and very interested in everything and everyone around me.

The prelude to the day is a procession for about three hundred yards down Piccadilly from the Royal Academy to St James’ Church. There we are welcomed in for a church service in this beautiful and atmospheric place. The sense is of robust Christianity welcoming the heathen, and everyone tongue in cheek with good manners all round. It is the Church of England at its very best, aesthetic, tolerant, humorous and with some great songs.

For someone who loves to sketch, I was lucky to lodge in a prime spot on the balcony where I could scribble blissfully away.