The poor Lambeth church providing choristers for cathedrals

So many areas of our national life are now dominated by the products of private schools, from journalism via county cricket to film and theatre acting, that it's heart-warming to read this in the Guardian.

St Paul’s Cathedral school, one of the UK’s most prestigious private schools, has long been associated with the musical elite. So was seven-year-old N'raeah, from south London, nervous about auditioning for its internationally renowned choir?

"No," she said, beaming. "Everybody’s counting on me to sing beautifully."

And sing beautifully, she did. N'raeah is the fourth chorister from St John the Divine, Kennington (SJDK) to win a fully funded scholarship to one of the UK’s most prestigious musical institutions in recent years.

Other choristers from the church have secured scholarships at Westminster Abbey, King’s College, Cambridge and St John’s College, Cambridge, with some going on to perform at national events including the coronation of King Charles III.

What makes SJDK even more remarkable is serves an area of Lambeth marked by high levels of deprivation. Yet its success is taking place against a general picture of a decline in music teaching in primary schools – a decline that is doing nothing to widen the talent pool on which cathedral choirs draw,

I remember watching a documentary about York Minster years ago and being struck by how middle-class it all was. Couldn't they find even one working-class kid in the city with a good singing voice?

But there are now three cathedrals in England – Peterborough, Southwell, Bristol – where the choir is not attached to a fee-paying school, so other models are possible.