WOMEN’S Institute members will be especially pleased to learn that the Sussex cottage where their adopted hymn, ‘Jerusalem’, was penned by William Blake, has been saved for the nation.

Blake was a spiritual athlete who, against all the odds, was able to develop his latent powers to achieve a great vision of the future: a better way of living (“Jerusalem”) than the neo-liberal capitalist model (“dark satanic mills”), “In England’s green and pleasant land”, and elsewhere.

Preservation of Blake’s cottage is a fitting tribute to his life and works; his hymn a clarion call to us all to strive for a better economic and social system.

Geoff Naylor, Colden Common, Winchester