Have I found my calling?
(dedicated to Richard and
Jeni, who both tried but ... ... ...!!)
It seems some time
since I have written anything creative, vaguely intellectual or indeed
irreverent; it’s got something to do with her indoors and a cracked record that
keeps repeating things like “Why aren’t you on the roof!” “Oh, there you are, I
thought you were on the roof!” “Once the roof is finished you can do what you
like!” ... ... ... ad infinitum!! In fact, I’m thinking of walking to Santiago along
the route of St Jacques or Camino de Santiago de Compostela, it’s only about
1500 km, and as well as a clue as to what might come later it might give me a
month or three’s peace!!
So, be warned what
follows is certainly irreverent, possibly creative but may fail intellectually!
In the distant past, it
might surprise some of you to know, that I thought about becoming a vicar, yes
you did read that right – taking the cloth, become a priest! I was only about six at the time and became a
choir boy at St Mark’s Church, Biggin Hill, a church with a remarkable history
that, quite literally, started in Peckham, SE London, with an equally
remarkable vicar, the Rev Vivian Symonds. He moved to Biggin Hill as a curate,
in 1951, found there was no proper consecrated church there and therefore he
couldn’t be ordained. So with limited
funds he quite simply set to and almost singlehandedly, moved a redundant
church “All Saints, Peckham,” brick by brick and created the current St Mark’s
Church in Biggin Hill, also not surprisingly known as “The Moving Church,”
whilst carrying out the job of parish priest and chaplain for the nearby famous
RAF Station. For the full story, visit www.bigginhill-history.co.uk/movingmain.htm. Now whether it was the amazing story behind
the church and particularly the herculean task carried out by the vicar, or
simply the fact that he would fairly regularly give me and the other choir boys
half a crown for services rendered, and I know many of you will have jumped to
the wrong conclusion here – the press have a lot to answer for!! - it was for singing at weddings!, but he made
a great impression on me and for a time, I wanted to be like him. But, at six, I also wanted to ring the bell
on a fire engine, with my brother as the driver!
Then many years later,
having moved on through being an architect, a vet, a chef and various other
diverse and varied careers, I was influenced by a young teacher at my secondary
school, who made a similar impression, although being only small when he tried
to tackle me on the rugby field, it was me who made the impression and left him
rubbing a sore head and asking how much I weighed!! But, as I guess the expression is, that was
it and the rest is history, as I headed for the blackboards in various parts of
the country. Interestingly, throughout
my career, said blackboards, for politically correct reasons, became chalk
boards, which in turn due to technological advances became whiteboards – I certainly
taught through interesting times!! (Why
I ask myself can we h have whiteboards but not blackboards?) Although, briefly during this time there was
another vicar who had a profound effect on me, but again it might have been for
ulterior motives, quite simply that he got me legitimately out of the rather
Victorian boarding school in which I was incarcerated! The Headmaster could barely object if we
wanted to go out in the evening to “prayer meetings” at the vicarage, even if
we didn’t have any of our 3 late passes left for the term!! These evening meetings took place in the
converted garage of the Vicarage, included girls (a rarity as I was at an all
boys school!), coffee, discussions on a variety of issues which were certainly
not exclusively religious and more importantly introduced me to Folk Song and
life on the streets, as in down and outs rather than prostitution! Now, I should explain here that these
seemingly rather revolutionary evenings didn’t get me thrown out of school and
into the gutter, but the vicar in question had come to our sleepy little south
coast town from the bright lights of London, the church of St Martin’s in the
Field off Trafalgar Square to be precise, where he had been instrumental in
setting up the Crypt Folk Club, as well as being very active in the Soup
Kitchen for “down and outs” or homeless people, also in the Crypt, and
Centrepoint, a hostel for young homeless people set up by the church and housed
in a next door building. Through his
contacts we were to visit both the Folk Club and Soup Kitchen and, with the
latter in particular, to broaden my experience and outlook on life. He went on to open a Folk Club in a redundant
church in the town, where again due to links with the church we were able to
go. It was here I saw such amazing acts
such as Decameron, Davey Graham, Holly Gwinn Graham, Mike Moran, Keith Pearson
(now part of Coup de Grass) and many more who started my enduring love of Folk
Music. All exciting stuff, and set up by
a vicar, so as an impressionable young lad ... ... ..., just perhaps ... ...
... the cloth ......... nah, not really!!
A recent blog post you may have read, chronicled my return to the stage!
after an absence of many years, and watch this space for a future post –
Musical Moments in Time – Remember Monster Mash, sung by Bobby and the
Crypt-Kickers in 1973, well ......... but, that’s another story for another
time!!!
And, it was fairly
recently, whilst still “teaching,” although this involved increasingly filling
in forms, maintaining buildings, fighting with budgets, percentages, jobsworths
and supposed educational experts, as well as the odd unruly pupil, that two
very different vicars; one who found religion whilst in prison and another who
wore Doc Martin boots and swigged pints of bitter with the best of them, when she wasn’t feeding the chickens or
polishing the old VW campervan, that both the aforementioned tried to convert
me, or maybe that should be save me!!! One
simply saw me as something of a light-hearted challenge, although like the
young teacher above found me to be something of an immovable object, the other
tried more subtle means!!
Both might now be
rather surprised to find I am regularly in the habit of rescuing lost souls and
returning them to the correct path to enlightenment! Maybe I’ve been saved as well as those I
rescue, and here I continue with an article I recently wrote, in a series entitled
“View across La Manche.” La manche
meaning sleeve in French and what the French call The English Channel, to go in
the Magazine of the Association of Countryside Volunteers, of which I am the
Magazine Editor and current Vice Chair
View across La Manche
I’m sure that many of you will recall Marian
Shepley’s moving account “Easter 2011 ~ A walk along a Camino (......and Alan
came too!)?” You may also recall the
extract I included of a letter I had written to Marian after receiving her
account. In this I mentioned that one of
the official Ways of St James passes through St Laurent de la Salle, very close
to our new house, and how the gîte opposite has regular pilgrims staying
overnight on their journey along the route.
They often have interesting stories to tell and I thought it would be
interesting to tell you a little more about “Walking to Santiago,” although
rather irreverently when stopped by one of these pilgrims asking “Is this is the way to Santiago” I do have to
stop myself bursting into song and singing “Show me the way to Santiago!”. Yes, I know it should really be “Is this the
way to Amarillo” but it scans just as well and there is something rather
bizarre about being stopped by a complete stranger in the heart of rural
Vendée, France, and being asked the way to a small city of some 95,000
population in the north western tip of Spain about 1200 km (750 miles) away by
foot or 750 km (460 miles) if you happen to be a crow!!
But, all the routes
have in common, the scallop shell route markers, the shell ridges orientated in
such a way as to show the direction of the route and designated stopping points
(such as the gîte opposite our house and churches or public buildings) where
pilgrims are able to get their “St James Passports” or credencial stamped with official
stamps and a recent pilgrim staying in the gîte told us that this passport is
vital to be allowed to stay in one of the hostels or refugios along the route
in Spain. “Ours” and I believe the other
routes, also have guide books with the Way shown in them, but those I have seen
to date, when rescuing pilgrims who have strayed, are very simple and quite
difficult to follow, however experience also tells me that the route is
extremely well marked, except perhaps when there is warm wet summer weather,
and the undergrowth takes a spurt!! I am
not sure if I would want to rely on these simple guides, but I suppose there is
the consideration of not carrying too much weight when walking for two or three
months, and as pilgrims I guess they have a powerful friend on their side, or
at least kindly natives who will rescue them when they are in need!! I have fairly often found a lost soul
walking around in circles completely off the map and with no idea where they
are, often it is a case of bundling them in the car and returning them to a
part of the route I know is nearby and wishing them God’s speed, or at least
“Good-bye enjoy the rest of your walk.”
The pilgrims also often carry a scallop shell like a badge attached to
their rucksacks, but this was also a useful item in the past, being suitable as
both a drinking vessel and a makeshift bowl.
In pre-Christian times
the route was a Roman trade route christened “The Milky Way” as it followed the
Milky Way to the Atlantic Ocean. Then,
in Medieval times a common Spanish legend about El Camino de Santiago, a popular
name for the Milky Way, tells of how the stars of the Milky Way are actually
formed by the dust created by the feet of all the pilgrims and indeed
Compostela itself means “field of stars!”
Well in excess of
100,000 pilgrims have “completed” the route in recent years and in 2010, a Holy
Year, over 279,000 pilgrims received a Compostela, or certificate of
completion. However, to qualify for this
you must have walked a minimum of 100 km or cycled a minimum of 200 km and your
passport is carefully checked to verify this before you are asked if the
purpose of your camino or walk was “religious”, “religious and other” or simply
“other”! For the first two you will
receive a Compostela in Latin, but for other your Compostela will be in Spanish
and will ask for this heathen to be blessed!
Each day at noon a
pilgrim’s mass is held in the cathedral and those pilgrims who received their
Compostelas the previous day are announced, with their country of origin and
starting point of their pilgrimage.
“Pilgrims” walk, or
indeed cycle or ride on horses or donkeys for many reasons, be they religious
or simply as sport and a challenge. For
many it is a spiritual journey to remove themselves from the rigours of modern
day life, or others use it as a religious retreat. In “autrefois” (olden days) such pilgrimages
might have been made as a penance to “atone for temporal punishment” and to
this day there is a tradition in Flanders, to free one prisoner each year, on
the condition they walk the route to Santiago, accompanied by a guard – I
wonder if the guards are volunteers or perhaps it’s part of a disciplinary
procedure, for misconduct!!
Well, some of you may
recall that whilst still a Headteacher, if there had been a particularly trying
day I would joke with my staff and say “If I’m not here in the morning I’ll be
on my olive grove in the south of France!”
Well, I ended up not in the south of France and certainly not in an
olive grove, however, should I go missing, it might just now be worth a look
along the route to Santiago!!
A final thought, and
not wishing to be irreverent, you must have to be fairly well off to be a
pilgrim these days (so maybe I won’t get far!!); one last year was walking as
far as he could in two months starting in northern Brittany, having flown over
from Canada, to where he was flying back after two months and he had allowed a
generous fifty Euros a day for the duration.
If you do the maths it certainly isn’t a cheap package holiday, although
some of the refugios on the popular stretches are very cheap some even free,
and you have to get up most days and walk anything up to 25 to 30 km at least
(15 to 18 miles), day after day after day!!
But, the walk provides lots of time to admire the scenery, to think,
take stock and for many to find peace or spirituality, as well as a hell of a
sense of achievement. And, the pilgrims
come regularly, often alone or in pairs, in all shapes and sizes as well as
ages from 20 ish to 86 being the oldest I’ve heard about and he was walking
from London to Santiago de Compostela, following the death of his wife.
P.S. The roof is indeed now finished so, as they
say hereabouts à bientot.
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