Strength and Tenderness

Strength and Tenderness, Doug Constable's first collection consisting of a hundred hymns and some poems, was warmly received. This further collection ranges more widely and contains four sections: recent poems (a sequence of twenty-seven sonnets responding to George Herbert's Prayer, plus other pieces inserted throughout the book), thirty-two hymns, eight songs for voice and keyboard, seven choral works, and two short pieces for piano. All the music - for hymns, songs and choral settings - range in style from simple and easily-learned to pieces for which some musical background would be helpful.

Doug is an Anglican priest living in south-west Wales. While still at school, he was a church organist and choir director, and and played piano in dance bands. As a minister, he served in housing estates, university chaplaincy, holiday conference-retreat chaplaincy, and inner-city parishes in Bristol, North Devon, Derby and Southampton.

Married with three children and three adult grandchildren, he is a progressive traditionalist and radical ecumenist, resolutely opposed to all forms of violence.