For my 50th birthday I was whisked to Rome last weekend for a dreamy few days in the Eternal City. The streets were packed but it was easy enough to escape the crowds by dodging down a sunny alleyway, or jumping on the Metro and the sights, smells and sounds will stay with me for a lifetime as will a new-found fascination for Roman building techniques and materials (did you know that Roman concrete, made from a combination of lime and pozzolana, or volcanic sand, is more durable than Portland cement?)

However, one crowd that we deliberately sought out was the huge mass of people from all nations who thronged to St Peter’s Square to hear the Pope celebrate Mass on Easter Sunday. I am an Anglican but to be part of such a huge and joyous crowd, all celebrating the holiest of days in the Christian calendar, made our differences in beliefs immaterial and this, plus the glimpses of services going on in churches all over Rome, made up for the fact that this was the first Easter in many years that I have missed a service in a local church.

From being in a country full of people who are open and comfortable with their faith, it was with some bewilderment that I returned to Britain to see that the Prime Minister was in hot water for saying that Britain is a Christian nation. Apparently 55 ‘prominent people’ (who seem to be more a rag-bag of self-seeking media luvvies) have written an open letter objecting to the PM’s “characterisation of Britain as a Christian country and the negative consequences for politics and society that this engenders.” It surely must have escaped their notice that Christianity is the single most important element in England’s history, that it underpins our legal system, constitution, art, music and architecture and that the majority of people still describe themselves as Christian? But even putting aside these facts, it is their argument that belief is somehow a negative thing that most annoys me. I, like many others, am in the amateur league of church-goers, often too tied up with family commitments on a Sunday to make it to a service, but I see almost every day the comfort, help and support that the Christian church and the faith of others can bring.

Like the Prime Minister, I am unashamed to admit to a belief in God, and proud to live in a Christian country where tolerance for those with different beliefs is also part of our national identity.