When writing a review like this it is interesting to reflect on how one's opinions alter with experience!
St Alban's had used Hymns A&M revised for some 25 years and the books, although usable, were getting a bit tatty. We therefore decided that we would replace them. An opportunity therefore arose to get something more in line with current usage (other than our Youth services where we do not like to restrict our choice) thus avoiding the need for specially printed hymn sheets. We found the selection of a new book quite daunting - we needed a book with a wide cross section of traditional and modern hymns and were at first unable to find anything remotely meeting our criteria - until Hymns Old and New came along. I seemed to meet our needs exactly. One thing did make us hesitate and that was the lack of a melody only edition for the younger choristers (all 24 0f them!). We also liked to have available some for the more musical members of the congregation. However, the advantages seemed to outweigh the disadvantages, so we went ahead with the purchase.
The good points about the book were:

1.A comprehensive selection of hymns, one of the best I have come across (except as pointed out below)

2. Convenient alphabetical order

3. Some excellent  new 4 part harmonisations.

This all seemed to good to be true! However over the course of time many serious shortcomings revealed themselves. They can be summarised as follows:-

1. No melody only edition (I admit that we already knew this before our purchase) (and regretted it ever since!)

2.In the full music edition the words are written under the first verse. This can be very confusing, especially for the accompanist as it is easy to lose one's place whilst following the other verses. The adults in the choir have also pointed this out, as they, likewise have great difficulty in following the music. Even the ends of lines are not marked in the music as this would to a limited extent alleviate the problem. Another solution would be to have ALL the verses laid out with the music. My preference as an an organist is to have the music and the words laid out separately as in most hymnals.

3. The binding on the full music edition is flimsy - many of our books are beginning to fall apart (my organ edition already has).

4. There are some rather unnecessary alterations to some of the words which are both irritating and cause difficulty to partially sighted members of the congregation.I find it quite incredible that an editor can waste so much time scouring each hymn and eliminating every mention of men or soldiers. A young chorister recently commented “Why doesn’t he get a life!” Obviously inclusive language must be introduced, but (as in Common Praise where alterations have been sensitively done and is in most cases barely noticable)
5. Some of the modern hymns are superfluous With so many new hymns constantly being published most churches (ourselves included) use specially printed sheets for these anyway.

6. There are some quite dire accompaniments for the unison hymns (as well as some good ones by such composers as Noel Rawsthorne) -
 Whilst on the subject, why not have a little bit of variety in some of the unison hymns with some optional harmonies?(There are some wonderful new four part harmonies written in this book) A good example would be the chorus of 'Make me a channel .' An excellent example is to be found in Common Praise' by William Llewellyn.  (no 519) I have harmonised 30 of these hymns myself. It seems to me that the hymns/songs with simple chord structures should have these as the basis for the harmony (as Christopher tambling has done with great success in “ Moses you’re the man” )

I do hope that some (if not all) of the problems can be sorted out in future editions. I speak as the organist of a church with a large choir and as an organist at the crematorium (which also uses this book).

At the crematorium, some of the hymns missing (owing to political correctness) have had to be pasted in the back of the  book. These include popular hymns such as 'I vow to thee my country', 'Onward Christian soldiers' ,'Now the day is over' and the proper version of 'Once in Royal David's City'! I don’t particularly like'Onward Christian Soldiers' but most people who are not necessarily churchgoers do. It is not for us to decide whether they are allowed to sing it or not.  (see Times online for their view of this)

the idea behind bringing out a book with a selection of popular hymns was a good one. It is unfortunate that a book such as this fails in so many other respects.I look forward to some more offerings from Kevin Mayhew, and from what I have seen in newer publications the outlook seems promising. But PLEASE can we have a book that lasts! Churches are usually short of cash and cannot afford to line the coffers of publishers

We have now introduced Common Praise as a more sensible alternative for the choral services

PS. Since writing this article, most of our Hymns Old and New books have fallen apart after only 4 years of use.