Singing Songs of Praise!

PUBLISHED - 26th October 2026

A day of filming at Torch House.

‘Praise the Lord. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him!’ – Psalm 147:1

How true that line from the Psalm is; it is wonderful to sing uplifting songs and hymns to glory God. It was in recognition of how important singing is to Christian life, that the television programme Songs of Praise was first created in 1961 and the show is still going strong to this day. It airs on the BBC on a Sunday afternoon, shining a light on Christian community and music around the UK. And you may well be wondering what this has to do with Torch Trust? Well, we are very excited to tell you…

It just so happens that 2026 marks the 500th anniversary of William Tyndale translating and publishing the New Testament in the English language for the very first time. This allowed ordinary people to read the Bible directly for themselves, opening up worship and connection with God in a whole new way. The producers of Songs of Praise decided to mark this very big anniversary with a special episode focusing on printed Bibles and, of course, they knew how vital accessible Bibles are to millions of 10 people worldwide – so they got in touch with Torch!

With initial discussions a success, a filming day was planned this July. The crew would come to Torch House and learn all about how our various accessible Bibles reach so many people both in this country and further afield. The day dawned and the crew arrive, starting with filming shots of the library and embossers, and they even used a drone to get some outside shots of Torch House.

Next it was Micky Mills’s moment for a star turn in front of the camera as the crew filmed him embossing a couple of volumes of the Bible, with Paul Rhodes binding them. The Songs of Praise team then interviewed trustee Sheila Armstrong about her many years of varied experiences with Torch, what having a Bible in braille has meant to her, and the difference accessible Bibles really make to blind and partially sighted people.

The busy day of filming continued with Paul up next! He was filmed verbally explaining the process that the crew had captured earlier of embossing and binding a volume of the Bible. Paul was then interviewed about Sight Loss Sunday and the places that we send braille Bibles to around the world.

We asked Paul how he found the experience of being interviewed for one of the BBC’s most enduring shows and he said: ‘It was great to have Becci and Sam here, filming for Songs of Praise. There was a fair bit of setting up to be done when they arrived, with some drone footage of the outside of Torch House and lots of shots of the production department where all of the filming took place. They then filmed the whole process of making a Compass Braille English NIV Bible, we have the Bible in 60 different languages now. They filmed the embossing, cutting, collating, binding and labelling of the Bible volumes. It takes 43 volumes to make a whole NIV Bible, it was great for them to be able to show the size of a complete braille Bible.

‘I don’t think sighted people appreciate how big it is unless they can see it. I had a short interview where I was able to talk about the importance of being able to give Blind and visually impaired people an accessible Bible in their own language to read. I’m excited, and nervous, to see the finished program!’

It was fascinating watching the process of filming a television show – it took way longer than you might expect! The crew would swap cameras to get different shots and had Paul and Micky repeat the process of embossing and binding a few times so they had multiple takes to work with. It was a pretty full-on day and they spent a good four and a half hours at Torch House filming (with a working lunch), for what will likely be only a few minutes of the show. It’s amazing to think of how much effort goes into creating the programme that we can so simply tune into on a Sunday afternoon!

Zoë Byron, our Communications and Marketing Coordinator, was present for the day and shared how much she enjoyed being part of it: ‘We had such a fun day when Songs of Praise came to film. They took some videos of a braille Bible being produced and interviewed both Paul Rhodes and Sheila Armstrong about their experience of producing and using braille Bibles. It was a really interesting time and a great experience watching how the camera operators were so impressed with the set-up we have in production. We are excited to see what makes the cut in September!’

As Zoë says, the show will be airing this September, specifically on Sunday 13th. This date may very well have passed by the time you’re reading this but you may still be able to watch the show. Most episodes of Songs of Praise are available on the BBC iPlayer so please do check it out if you would like to!