As Chancellor, I am fortunate to travel regularly around our great cities and I am always amazed at how regional history has shaped our relatively small country in such diverse ways.The local history of our cities can often be distilled in a few institutions: town halls, market squares and sites of early industry. We have an extraordinary ability to preserve these historic places, not as relics or museum pieces, but as centres of social, civic and community life. Nowhere is this more evident than in our cathedrals, providing important places of worship as well as active centres for their communities. Just down the road from my office in the frantic bustle of Whitehall sits Westminster Cathedral. There, dozens of volunteers help in all kinds of ways, from acting as information guides and s