Sweet singing in the choir

摘要

In May 1940, to avoid the people in the nearby market place, an RAF plane crash-landed on thernroof of the church of Saint-Jean Baptiste in the small northern French town of Bourbourg, 20km east of Calais. The church roof caught fire and was destroyed. The chapel archway collapsed the following year, while the ornamental tiling was dismantled for use by occupying German forces. The first record of the church, built by the monks of Saint-Bertin, dates from the 11th century. In 1955, restoration work started on the nave and transept but the choir in the eastern nave remained hidden by a brick wall, cut off from the body of the church and closed for worship for 50 years.