18 DECEMBER 1982, Page 33

Come by here

Sir: Many years ago in the West Indies they were singing a simple hymn, 'Come by here, O Lord, come by here'. No one could doubt its meaning although the local pro- nounciation was such that it could have been written `Kum-ba-ya'.

Out of this, and a frantic desire since the Sixties to find acceptable myths, has grown the mysterious hymn Auberon Waugh says his church has now accepted (4 December). It was a nice enough little hymn in the first place, but it is only because illiteracy and blackness are believed by many to be of themselves profound that it has become so popular.

Jane Webb 8 Drummond Road, Hythe, Hampshire