The Fiddler and his Compostela

It's a funny old time. Like being in the waiting room of a train station willing the train to come but knowing it won’t come any faster just because you want it to. After the excitement of the New Year trip I have come back to a frenzy of things to do. Bills to be paid, tax returns to be submitted, house to be let, correspondence to be answered, work to be attended to. Errrr….run that back…just saying the words House to Let doesn’t in any way convey the effort and angst that has to go into preparing for this. First there are the estate agents.

Like vampires hungry for blood they responded to an initial phone call asking for information as if I was promising marriage or a gift of £1 million or both. “Let’s not chat on the phone, sir, I’ll bring the information personally, will you be in this afternoon?” They drive up in expensive cars with the grin and over familiarity of a slightly inebriated relative. I’ve discovered they want to talk about everything apart from how much they charge. I’ve seen three. I asked one of them four times about their charges only to be diverted by compliments about the décor, the flooring, the paintings. Stop! I don’t want to talk to you about my holidays, where my office is, what kind of car I drive, and the weather yesterday, today and tomorrow. Tell me please how much you can get me for my home and how much you are going to charge me for so doing. That’s all.
I thought I’d got the message through. I got the information. They followed it up in writing. Now they have each called “Just to see how you are doing?”. Grrrrr. I want a letting agent not a best buddy.
As you might have noticed I don’t like any of this. I don’t like change. And yet I dream of it, recently almost all the time. I’ve Googled “Camino Levante” so often I swear the websites appear before I hit return. The other day I filled in that horrible and detestable thing called MY TAX RETURN and with complete irrational loathing sent them the money I owed them. I’m never usually like this but this year routine tasks are interfering with my obsessive thoughts of packing lists and itineraries, guide books, albergues and hostals. You know…the vitally important things of life.
What on earth has happened to me in these 5 years since my first Camino? Then I simply decided to go for a long walk but of course I discovered as we all do that as well as the physical act of walking which is deeply meditative, the simplicity of the way of life, the friendship of strangers and the beauty of the countryside are actually a powerful spiritual brew. I don’t know if I can explain this adequately but in the beginning I thought I’d walk and perhaps sometimes try and pray although as you know I am quite uncertain at times what that is all about. I thought I’d visit churches – at least they are familiar territory to me. What I discovered step by step is that pilgrimage is all of these things and much more. For me it is the journey which empties my mind of the unnecessary and fills it with the essential: the smells and sounds of nature, the laughter of friends, the words of encouragement of local people, the bond with other pilgrims, the times alone where we face ourselves. Above all I suppose the experience opens my mind to God in ways which Church never does. Increasingly I’ve become bothered again by aspects of Church: by the lack of caring, the focus on power, the marginalisation of women inevitable in a male dominated organisation and the pompous self regard of many leaders. Now I find these feelings fading and taking on a new perspective. When I rage about it I want to take them all, Pope included, on pilgrimage. I realise I can only take myself.

As if to mark this mood January 25th arrived. Burns’ Day when we traditionally eat haggis and remember Rabbie Burns the National Bard of Scotland. Some of his poems chime very much with my thinking at the moment. I remember as a boy in school reading To A Louse where Burns with an acute eye sees a louse crawling through the hair of a young “lady” and with his scalpel lays bare our human frailty. He closes with the prayer that we be given the ability to “see ourselves as others see us”. Then in the famous poem A Man’s A Man for A That he expresses some of the essence of our pilgrim world. I give the translation from Scots here:
Is there for honest poverty
That hangs his head, and all that?
The coward slave, we pass him by -
We dare be poor for all that!
For all that, and all that,
Our toils obscure, and all that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gold for all that.

What though on homely fare we dine,
Wear course grey woolen, and all that?
Give fools their silks, and knaves their wine -
A man is a man for all that.
For all that, and all that,
Their tinsel show, and all that,
The honest man, though ever so poor,
Is king of men for all that.

You see yonder fellow called 'a lord,'
Who struts, and stares, and all that?
Though hundreds worship at his word,
He is but a dolt for all that.
For all that, and all that,
His ribboned, star, and all that,
The man of independent mind,
He looks and laughs at all that.

A prince can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and all that!
But an honest man is above his might -
Good faith, he must not fault that
For all that, and all that,
Their dignities, and all that,
The pith of sense and pride of worth
Are higher rank than all that.

Then let us pray that come it may
(As come it will for a' that)
That Sense and Worth over all the earth
Shall have the first place and all that!
For all that, and all that,
It is coming yet for all that,
That man to man the world over
Shall brothers be for all that.


I felt much more at one with the world when I recounted these sentiments as we tucked into haggis, tatties and neeps and observed that this was good pilgrim fare. Haggis is traditionally made from offal, suet, oats, barley and spices although nowadays thankfully a vegetarian version is available!
However this mood of preoccupation with deep thoughts and irritants such as estate agents didn’t last long. The gloom was broken by the Camino which appeared in the most unexpected way. Over the years I’ve been very cynical about theories surrounding coincidences. I always found sayings like they are “anonymous messages from God” bordering on the sickly sweet. Nowadays of course some people talk about “synchronicity” and I know some research has been considered about such happenings on the Camino. I’m also aware that despite my cynicism I’ve related one or two such examples from my own life in this very column. So in the midst of my semi – melancholic, January induced, mood I was hit right between the eyes by more evidence to wonder at. Try this one for size!

At the Confraternity Service held at the end of last year a young man came up to me and enquired if I had worked in the Pilgrims’ Office in Santiago. I said that I had. “I think you wrote my Compostela at the end of my Camino”,  he said. He could see I couldn’t remember him but he related some of the conversation we had. His name is Piotr from Poland who had been living in Santiago for 7 years. On a trip back home he met and fell in love with a Polish girl who was living in London. He decided to move to London but before leaving Spain made a pilgrimage to Santiago from Leon. On receiving his Compostela he also got my best wishes for his new life in London. Here he was in front of me. To prove the point he then sent me a photograph of his Compostela. “Is this your writing?” he asked in the e mail. Yes it was. Our previous meeting was confirmed.
But more than that. Piotr explained that he was a musician and that he would love it if we could get together, him with his violin and me on the organ. He managed to get over to Clapham last Sunday. Our rehearsal time was minimal but we decided to make some music flying by the seat of our pants and the score in front of us. Here is the result. The 500 people who were there appreciated it, fluffs (minor errors) and all. A Camino coincidence or not the fiddler and his Compostela has blown away my gloom:

The King on the Via de la Plata

From the bitter cold of London I headed to Sevilla in the South of Spain to celebrate New Year. When the aeroplane doors opened after the short 2.5 hour flight the change in the weather was obvious. I turned on my phone and a text from my daughter in Scotland read, “Better weather today Dad, only minus10 degrees”

But all things are relative and although I found the 20 degree Sevillan weather almost like summer, the locals were dressed as if to ward off an arctic cold. Women wore real fur coats and large Russian style hats and men wore long scarves wrapped around their necks on top of winter jackets and coats. Just like London the cold weather brings out street vendors selling hot chestnuts but there was something very incongruous to my eyes with the “chestnuts roasting on an open fire” under trees still laden with oranges.

Sevilla is one of the most beautiful cities of Spain. The gigantic Plaza España has been completely refurbished and the air is filled with laughter and the clip clop of the horse drawn carriages taking tourists around the town. After a couple of days there I headed further South to bring in the New Year with friends in Gibraltar. Crossing the border into this British Protectorate I showed my passport, passed through customs, walked past a British red telephone box and nodded to a policeman dressed as if he was in central London. The policeman was on the telephone to someone – speaking fluent Spanish. This small place of 20,000 permanent residents is a bit disorientating.They speak Spanish to each other and enjoy Andalucian style cooking but, being fiercely proud of their British citizenship, they speak English to outsiders. As a tax haven the streets are lined with shops selling discounted luxury goods, cigarettes and booze. So, armed with a bottle of Bells I set off up the hill to my friend’s house overlooking the Straights of Gibraltar. The view in daylight was beautiful with many ships parked in the bay awaiting further orders and ferries dotting back and forth to Tangiers and Morocco. As midnight on Hogmanay or the Noche Vieja approached, the ships turned on all of their lights and at the stroke of midnight their fog horns pierced the air as fireworks flew into the sky for as far as the eye can see. Happy New Year.

The television in the corner of this Gibraltar house of course also broadcast the BBC and the horns sounded again an hour later when Big Ben struck 12 in London. Gibraltarians manage to live in both worlds quite comfortably. There then followed TV reports of the massive street parties in Scotland where the Scots have made New Year their own.

In Spain although New Year is marked with smiles and handshakes what they have made their own is the Feast of the Epiphany when the Three Kings arrived to pay homage to the baby Jesus. For Spaniards this is the real Christmas and I arrived back in Seville in time to feel the excitement mounting. All day on the 5th of January, the eve of the feast, a festival atmosphere developed. Crowds drank cold sherry in the street. Tapas bars were overflowing. In the square in front of the church of Sal Salvador several hundred people assembled to chat and drink. The evening of the 5th is when the children would put out their shoes to be filled with presents in the same way as the children in other countries would hang up their stockings. But before the Christmas presents there would be the Cabalgata, the Procession of the Kings, a marvellous cavalcade depicting not only the Kings but scenes from fairy tales and childrens’ stories. This year in Sevilla 41 mobile scenes were to pass through the city during a procession lasting 6 hours. The start time was 4.15 but by 3pm the crowds were forming. By 4pm 250,000 people lined the streets creating a vast avenue of people through which the procession would pass. To symbolise the gifts to come everyone taking part in the procession throws candies to the crowd. Literally millions and millions of caramelos rain down.

Children waited expectantly with their empty plastic bags. Adults carried umbrellas which later they would open and hold upside down to collect the airborne candy. People appeared on balconies overlooking the route. In the distance the first of many marching bands struck up a tune. The Procession was underway. Scenes from Narnia, pirates, elves and fairies, Raiders of the Lost Ark and many more passed through a jubilant, cheering crowd. It was raining candy and both adults and children scrambled to fill bags for the sugar-fest to come. All too soon it was over and the bars and terazzas were again heaving with people with the adults drinking beer and the children munching merrily from bulging bags. Their big presents were still to come.

The Feast of the Kings is celebrated throughout Spain and I remember whilst walking the Via de la Plata on exactly this day 5 years ago I stopped in a small town where they were very proud of their procession of 14 tractors and trailers. This year other pilgrims would witness the sight as this epic route from Sevilla is growing in popularity. I decided to follow the arrows from the Cathedral and I was soon over in Triana, the artists’ barrio which lines the river. Almost exactly on the route is the Office of the Amigos of the Via de la Plata and right next door the Taberna Miami whose owner Juan has completed the Camino on horseback several times and is President of the Amigos. Don Juan is older now but he maintains the dress and swagger of a caballero. His hat is adorned with pilgrimage badges and he regales everyone he meets with pilgrimage folklore. He met me on the street shouting to everyone at the top of his voice that the Scottish pilgrim had come to see him. In that instant I could imagine Juan the pilgrim setting out on pilgrimage on top of his horse. Just like a King on the Via de la Plata.

Videos and slideshows

Recently on one of the pilgrim forums someone asked where they could get slideshows or pictures of the Camino routes to show their boss so he would be persuaded to give them time off to walk! I realised I needed to bring mine together in one category. Here is a selection:

The Sign

A few times on the Camino I’ve wondered whether or not I was walking in the right direction. When this happens on the routes all we have to do is look for a sign, a yellow arrow, to show us the way to go. The past couple of weeks have been a bit like that for me.

I shared with you in this very public forum that I’d decided to pack up and just set out walking to see where it took me. I felt good about the decision and equally good about announcing it. Then the doubts started: Will I have enough money? Will I rent out my home or sell it? If I rent it how much will I get and will the tenants ruin the place? What if I do all of this and get ill? How will I get a bank account in Spain and a mobile telephone? Nagging thoughts and a rising anxiety that seemed to attach itself to everything. The ground floor apartment in my building was flooded when a pipe broke in the apartment above. “Oh my God” I thought, “what if this happens to me when I am away?” I woke up in the middle of the night worrying about everything. “Do I have enough insurance?” “Do I have enough Spanish?” “What if something happens to one of my daughters and they can’t find me on Camino?” “What if I get robbed, or injured or… or …”

I started to doubt the entire enterprise. “Do you really want your life to go in this direction?” The question got larger and larger. Then like the star which appeared in the East or the yellow arrow on the tree when you think you are lost, a Camino sign appeared as if from nowhere…here is the story:

Some time ago an e mail popped into my inbox from Pietro. He explained that he was a pilgrim and had travelled the Camino Inglés using my Guide. Here is what he wrote:

“Dear Mr Walker,
I obtained your guide for the Il Camino Ingles via the Confraternity website and it was excellent.
I did Il Camino in September 2009 as part of my BA Photography degree at the University of Portsmouth.
I produced an A4 size book for one of my project and finished with a BA First Class with Honours in Photography.
Within some of my text I would have probably used similar wording from your guide and in my forward I acknowledge this, hopefully you do not mind?
Would love to talk to you in any event if you could e-mail me your telephone number I would then ring you.
Thank you for the guide, without it my pilgrimage would have been a lot harder.”

I wrote back to him saying I didn’t mind in the least what he did with extracts of the Guide and that started an exchange of correspondence. It was clear that as well as being a photographic project, his Camino had had a profound effect. He sent me a CD of his Camino Photographs. They are excellent. I’ve cheekily posted one or two of them in this blog. Then the other day, at the height of my doubting about packing up and leaving the postman brought me a copy of Pietro’s book. It is delightful and I leafed through the photographs enjoying them once more.

Then I was drawn to the Introduction and as I read the words I could not believe what I was seeing. Here is what it says:
“This book is a celebration of my Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela which started as my project for my BA (Hons) Photography. However it developed into a lifetime experience.
Do we sometimes receive a sign? I got a push in the right directions one morning whilst collecting the Church Hymn Books at Sunday Mass. I had racked my brains for a topic for the project for my degree with little inspiration. Suddenly there, inside the hymn book, I found overlooked copies of the previous two weeks’ Sunday Bulletin containing an article on “The Pilgrim Way to Santiago de Compostela.”
Being a photographer there was even a picture of the Sunday Bulletin in question. I stared at it. I was astonished.
To explain. Every week thousands of copies of the Sunday Bulletin are produced by Redemptorist Publications and sold to parishes all over the United Kingdom. They have stories and articles on one side and the local church prints their information on the other side. Some three years ago one of the priests in the parish where I play the organ in London was appointed the Director of Redemptorist Publications, a highly successful company. One day he said to me, “I’m looking for ideas for the summer series and I thought about “Pilgrimage”, why don’t you write a few articles for us?” “And,” he added, “We pay good money for all contributions.” So I produced a couple about Santiago and they asked for more which I supplied, the fees going to the Confraternity of St James. Then they asked for another entire series about pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Before my first pilgrimage the most I had ever written were business reports to Boards of Directors. This was much more enjoyable and from that Rebekah Scott suggested I start this blog.

It was so long ago I’d forgotten about it until I was looking at my own words reproduced in Pietro’s book. Pilgrims encouraging and inspiring other pilgrims. How could I have doubted that the Pilgrim World is for me and that I was going in the right direction?
So I have stopped writing down my finances over and over again hoping that they will look different every time I do it. I’m lucky I have enough to live on if I don’t buy a Ferrari. My plan is in place. The housing market remains depressed so I am going to lease my house. I am going to resign my remaining work responsibilities and just after Easter will walk the Camino Levante from Valencia. I do not intend to return to live permanently in the United Kingdom.

I am open to all possibilities on the Way. Some readers have written with helpful encouragement…” a priest is converting his home to an albergue on the Via de la Plata,” “ The church of San Francisco in Santiago has no organist”, “Someone needs to write a Guide in English to the Coastal Route in Portugal.”

I have some ideas of my own. I’ve been talking with my friend in Gibraltar about a new circular pilgrimage route unconnected with Santiago in the South of the Peninsula. I’ve agreed with him that if some of his fellow Gibraltarians want to develop this route I’ll help them.

I also think that English speaking Pilgrims in Santiago need a place to give them information and assistance … then there are the families with children who walk the Camino and have to stand for hours in the queue at the Pilgrims’ Office … then there are the people in wheel chairs who can’t get up the stairs. Maybe with a little backing in Santiago the Confraternity of St James will open a Welcome Centre to help all of these groups. Hey I could be the first ground crew to get it going.

Who knows? One thing I am now certain of is that in the 7 or 8 weeks it will take me to reach Santiago from Valencia the steps beyond will be revealed. I’ll let you know.

So friends another year comes to a close. I am full of hope for the year which comes. I pray that all of you will have a peaceful Christmas and that 2011 brings you health, prosperity and more steps on the Way to Santiago.

I’m off to Sevilla for New Year – I’ll report to you when I return!

Friends

Hola

I haven’t written to you for a while. I’m afraid I have been preoccupied with other things. A few weeks ago I lost a friend and it has had quite an effect on me. I've been thinking a lot about the nature of friendship and the place that friends have in my life. I’ve also been remembering the people that I've met through the pilgrimage routes to Santiago, a few of whom I suspect will be life-long friends.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past, 
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, 
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, 
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight: 
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, 
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er 
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, 
Which I new pay as if not paid before. 
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.

William Shakespeare Sonnet 30 

I don’t make friends easily and I don’t go out looking for friends. I understand what people mean when they say that they are looking forward to their pilgrimage “because of all the wonderful friends they will make along the way” but my first choice would usually be to walk one of the less travelled routes where meeting other pilgrims is the exception rather than the rule. Of course it is great to meet other people at the end of a day’s walking; to have dinner and chat about the adventure. However I rarely come home with a pocketful of email addresses.  I suppose I am a person with a very few really good intimate friends and a larger network of acquaintances.  I could count the close friends on one hand probably. They are the people who I might not see for a considerable time but when we get together it is as if we have never been apart. They are the people who have no expectations of me save that I will just be myself.  They are the people who dare to laugh at me and when they do I usually join in. They are the people with whom a friendship is an adventure because we are prepared to share together the triumphs and the real tragedies that occur in all of our lives. I think most of all we are friends because we won’t ever demand anything of each other save our friendship. 

Remembering, how we two walked

The roads to Santiago

How simple was the life we lived

How good the friends, how clear the way

The feelings deep, the troubles halved

A milestone on the road of life,

So many miles that stay with us

Those roads to Santiago

It’s true, it changed so many things

It made us care in different ways,

We shared that life, it made us new

Camino then, Camino now

Remembering still, how we two walked

The roads to Santiago

Roads to Santiago  Cristina and Paul Spink

In many ways the pilgrimage routes to Santiago are like friends to me now. As time goes on we are getting to know each other more closely. The routes are always there. They are full of promise and always bring something new. They expect nothing except that we walk them. They don’t even demand that we walk them to the end. Just that we start.  Increasingly, because of the Guides, people write to me when they are planning their pilgrimages. I feel privileged to have the e mail exchange with them because it is full of their excitement and questions. I get to see their plans change and develop over time until eventually the plane tickets are purchased and I send a final “Buen Camino “ email.

Sometimes I am a little concerned at the expectations they have of themselves and the Camino. I was very much like that myself. I used the programme at the web site Godesalco and worked out the stages I was going to walk on the Via de la Plata. Blisters put paid to that plan and I had to adjust to the realities of the pilgrimage. In doing so I slowed down, built stamina and began to enjoy the pace which emerged. On a few occasions in the last couple of years pilgrims have set out and I have either never heard from then again or I have received a plaintive email where they explain that they had to give up usually for a physical reason. The sense of failure from them is palpable. Yet, I don’t recognise the language of failure when it comes to pilgrimage. For me it isn’t like that: the difficulties, the illness, the injuries, the “giving up” are all part of the experience and learning the Camino brings.

Pause for reflection, Montes de Oca - Michael Krier

One winter I was on the Camino Frances and the weather was dreadful. I looked at the weather forecast and saw that there were to be three weeks of continuous rain ahead. As I walked along a rain sodden path a younger pilgrim passed me. He turned and we had a few brief words before he set off at a much faster pace than me.  The next day as I approached Villafranca de Montes de Oca, 40 or so kilometres from Burgos the rain beat down all day. I felt I was in danger of the recurrence of a serious chest infection from which I had only recently recovered. Hot and wheezy the next morning I checked the long range forecast again: rain, rain, rain. I made the decision to take a bus to Burgos, on to Madrid and then home. Luckily I only had an hour to wait and the people in the bar directed me to the third lamppost past the church which was the bus stop. I stowed my rucksack with the rest of the luggage when the bus arrived and got on. No sooner had I sat down, after removing my hat and rain gear when I turned to see who was tapping my shoulder. It was the young man who had passed my on the path a day or so before. “This is too much” he gestured out the window to the storm we were driving through.  This was Daniel from Malaga who had always wanted to walk to Santiago. We then went on to have a long conversation about pilgrimage, life, politics, God, walking…and when we might be back on the route when it was drier.

I hadn’t seen my friend who died for some time. Quite a long time in fact. As it turned out we ended up living in different parts of the country. I bumped into him earlier in the year at Heathrow Airport. I was leaving as he was arriving. We only had a few minutes together. We both crammed the events of the intervening time into those minutes and of course we promised to be in touch soon. A ruptured aneurysm in his brain removed that option for both of us. He was years younger than me and this was a shock. But in the sadness there is much to celebrate. His short life was well lived. Full of hilarity and pathos his professional success only endeared him more to people he knew. His passing is a lesson.

So, over the next few months I’m putting plans in place to make a big change marked by a big pilgrimage. The notion has been in the air for some time. I now have the courage to do it. I think.

Can I give up everything and just walk a path and see where it takes me? I’ll let you know.   

The Holy Year comes to an end

The Holy Year soon enters its final month.  To mark the end of this last Holy Year until 2021, the next time the feast of St James, 25^th July falls on a Sunday,  the Confraternity of St James organised a Thanksgiving Service last Sunday. It was well attended including a senior representative of the Spanish Embassy in London who read a passage from scripture. Colin Jones, the Chairman of the CSJ led the service and the Confraternity choir sang anthems from the Codex Calixtinus and led the singing. The Hymn to the Apostle, better known as the “Botafumerio music”, was played and sung as those who attended re-enacted the scene in Santiago by sprinkling grains of incense on charcoal.

 The service was to have also been attended by Don Jenaro the Canon in charge of Pilgrimages at the Cathedral in Santiago but ill health prevented him from being there. However he sent a special message:

Greetings to all members of the Confraternity of St James from Don Jenaro Cebrián, Canon Delegate of Pilgrimages, the Cathedral Church of Santiago de Compostela, given this day of 21 November in the year Our Lord 2010.

My dear members of the Confraternity,

I write to you from the Tomb of The Apostle on this day of great celebration. You have joined together to praise God and to celebrate the end of the Holy Year 2010. I am very sorry that I cannot be with you. In this pilgrimage of life we encounter many challenges. The present challenge I face with my health has prevented my physical presence with you … but please know that you are in my thoughts today and you will always be in my prayers.

You meet today on the Feast of Christ the King, Cristo El Rey. This is the end of the Church’s year. Advent follows, then Christmas with all of the joy that celebrations of the Incarnation of our Saviour brings. Today however is not the end of this special year in Santiago. The Holy Year continues until on the last day of the year when the Holy Door is closed again, this time for another 11 years until the year of 2021 when the Feast of Santiago again falls on a Sunday.

This has been a great year of celebration in Santiago. Over 260,000 pilgrims will have journeyed to the Tomb of the Saint by foot, by bicycle or on horseback. In September, we were delighted to welcome in Santiago members of your own group. In recent days we were humbled to receive the Holy Father himself when he made pilgrimage to Compostela. In addition to the walking pilgrims many millions have come by bus and train and aeroplane to pray in our Cathedral … to walk through the Holy Door and to hug St James. Whilst people have arrived by different means, all pilgrims are united in a common expression of hope and prayer for a better world. This is at the heart of pilgrimage. Pilgrims set off from all different places but walk the same road to the same holy place. It is the experience of that journey in which pilgrims come to know other pilgrims, come to discover Spain and come to encounter God.

Today I hope that you also give thanks, as do we in Compostela, for the magnificent work of the Confraternity of St James. Supporting pilgrims, providing information and resources and, of course, your two albergues at Rabanal and Miraz. These facilities for pilgrims have been provided through your own efforts to raise funds and a continuous stream of volunteer hospitaleros. The albergues on the routes and the hospitaleros who give a Christ-like welcome to weary pilgrims are the spine of the Camino.

And so, dear members of the Confraternity of St James, I want to address each one of you individually, particularly those who have returned from a pilgrimage this year. I want to invite you to look deep into your hearts on this auspicious day. For one moment I ask you to remember the gifts of pilgrimage … the hands of friendship you were offered, the bowls of food, the tears you shed, and the laughter too, the effort you put into your pilgrimage and the challenges you overcame. I ask you to remember those moments of intimacy when you were drawn close to a fellow pilgrim, drawn to the beauty of the countryside of Spain, drawn to the solitude of your own company. In each of these aspects you were drawn to God. Today, above all, I ask you to remember the joy of arriving at our Cathedral, kneeling at the tomb of the Saint, the pilgrims’ Mass, the Botafumeiro, and getting your Compostela.

I invite you now to remember the prayers you said in the depths of your heart and to make these same prayers again.

My dear friends … the Holy Year will end, but your pilgrimage will never end. Continue it. As you go forward in your lives celebrate Santiago, our Patron Saint, celebrate the Confraternity of St James and all of its good works … but, above all, praise our Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Go forward in your lives with your pilgrimages continuing every single day and when you falter just keep on walking.

Viva Santiago!  

In true pilgrimage fashion everyone attending obtained the sello of the church on their Commemorative Orders of Service before they left. 

After the service 50 members attended lunch at La Terazza to raise funds for the extension to the albergue at Miraz - £500 was raised. Well done everyone.

     

English breakfast

I love being in Spain and I particularly like to walk the routes less travelled such as the Camino Inglés. I can understand the attraction of the busy Camino Francés but these days perhaps it is a little too commercialised including cafés advertising English Breakfasts as if the medieval pilgrimage route was on the Costa del Sol or the South Coast of England. I prefer a quiet way with homemade Spanish food in the evenings. So when I saw a week free in my diary and a flight to Santiago for £36 I couldn’t resist.

But I had some choices to make: Should I walk the Camino Inglés to up-date the Guide book ready for next year? In the time available should I walk from A Coruña in 4 days or Ferrol in 5 days? Or should I stay in Santiago and help out in the Pilgrims’ Office with the surge of pilgrims expected for the Pope’s recent visit. Two e mails made up my mind. First was a prescient note from Mari in the Office saying that numbers in the start of the week leading up to the Pope’s visit were half that of the previous week. Pilgrim numbers were dwindling. Secondly I got a note from a pilgrim who had walked the route from A Coruña and had got “horribly lost”. Since with this route and the Guide this is nearly impossible the decision was taken – off to A Coruña.

I like A Coruña a lot. It is the seaside resort of choice for Spanish people and you will rarely hear an English voice. It is the more authentic starting point for the Camino Inglés with records showing that pilgrims from Northern Europe would arrive there by boat for the relatively short walk of 75 kms or so to Santiago. However since it doesn’t meet the 100 kms requirement to qualify modern pilgrims for a Compostela a second branch of the route was designated from Ferrol which is approximately 118 kms from Santiago. The route from A Coruña is very straightforward, nowadays well waymarked, and passes through beautiful hamlets and miles of pastoral countryside. The first Guide in English to this route had been produced by a member of the CSJ. There were no arrows or signs and simply using the main churches and common sense they had discerned the route medieval pilgrims might have taken. They described this in the Guide and when I came along a few years later I walked “their route” and up dated the directions and information. Having spent two days exploring what could have caused the pilgrim's confusion I discovered that at some point either the local authority or local Amigos had waymarked a route which in parts is substantially different for a few kilometres. I’m pleased to say it is now sorted out and the new version of the Guide will avoid any confusion. Promise.
Because pilgrims can’t get a Compostela for walking the route from A Coruña it isn’t known how many start there as the numbers are not registered. Certainly in the previous times I have walked that arm of the route I haven’t met any other pilgrims and I have been struck that local people didn’t really know much about it. But the Camino Inglés has been growing in popularity over the last few years and here are the numbers of pilgrims who walked from Ferrol:

2000 - 98, 2001 - 131, 2002  - 181, 2003 -  260, 2004  - 3,096 (Holy Year) 2005 - 651, 2006  - 804, 2007 - 1,085, 2008 - 1,451, 2009 - 1793,  2010 - so far this year - 6,000 (Holy Year)

I set off not knowing whether more pilgrims had left from A Coruña than before but I noticed a difference as soon as I started walking. One or two people even in the city smiled as I went past with my rucksack. A van driver at traffic lights sounded his horn and waved “buen camino”. The route goes past the beautiful Parish Church of Sigras with an historic pilgrim hospital and is then out in open countryside. Passing a little cottage a man dressed in overalls emerged from the garage adjacent. He responded to my greeting with, “Hola, de donde es usted?” “Soy de Escocia” I replied in Spanish. He continued in broken English, “but if you are Scottish why are you walking the English Way?” He asked laughing at his own joke. This was Guillermo who 20 years ago lived in Inverness in the North of Scotland learning welding. “near Loch Ness, but I didn’t see the monster” he laughed again. He confirmed there had been many pilgrims passing his garden gate this year and after a little wished me “buen viaje”.

Apart from his warmth there were other clues that the route is more popular. The waymarking has significantly improved and the tradition of passing pilgrims placing a stone on top of the waymark was more physical evidence that told me that pilgrims have indeed been on the route. There was none of this four years ago when I first walked. In a bar the owner gave me coffee and asked if I needed anything to eat. “Are you walking to meet the Pope?” she enquired. I explained that I was walking to avoid the crowds going to Santiago to see the Pope. She lamented the effects of the economic crisis in Spain on small rural communities but she said that this year in particular there had been a lot of passing trade from pilgrims. Further on I encountered two signs a few kilometres apart which I hadn’t seen before. The first was offering to buy Gold from the villagers of Galicia. I think this is a powerful symptom of the recession. No less so but perhaps a more attractive response further along the route was a new sign advertising “Horses to rent”.

Signs and notices are often very good indicators of what is going on in places and along this route local people could not fail to see the increase number of Camino signs and yellow arrows. Sadly, I also saw the beginnings of the “DO NOT” approach which I hate on the very popular Camino Frances. Here is an example. Rather than saying “Pilgrims if your are wet, please come in and shelter” the sign says “Pilgrims, don’t come in if you have wet ponchos and rucksacks”. The route becoming more popular has its downside.

I was thinking about all of this when José, the shepherd appeared from behind a hedge. It was one of these conversations when total strangers talk as if they have known each other for years. His English was excellent and José explained that he had worked all over England as a waiter for almost 30 years when he had been forced to return to the village in Galicia where he was born to look after ailing parents. “They are both dead now” he said, “it is just me. I have the house and a pension from England”. We chatted for a while. “José, what do you make of the pilgrims?” I asked. “Without the pilgrims who do I talk to? He asked. “The sheep?

I arrived in Hospital de Bruma in the company of two lassies from Madrid who had walked from Ferrol. I had a fond reunion with Carmen and Benino, the wonderful hospitalera and her husband. For those not sleeping in the albergue or who want food Benino has painted blue arrows showing the short walk to Meson do Vento and my hostal of choice, the highly recommended O Meson Novo. There I was greeted warmly. “El Señor de la guía esta aquí” I heard them say. This is a family run roadside bar and hostal which has rooms which are not only half the price of the hotel across the road but are also double the quality. When I first arrived at the O Meson Novo 4 years ago I asked if they provided food. They looked glum. “We really don’t do meals but we could do sandwiches or a ración for you” they said. In fact they produced a splendid meal of delicious boiled ham, french fries and fresh salad. The following year a couple of us arrived cold and hungry. “Do you have any soup to start with?” I enquired. “I may have a packet in the kitchen, would that be alright?” The lady was hesistant. When it was served she had obviously added things like pieces of real chicken. Fabulous. This time I sensed a difference. I checked in and showered. It had been a long day. When I got downstairs the lady said, “now sir, what do you feel like eating…just ask and I will prepare it?” What a difference. “Have you had many pilgrims here since I saw you last?” I asked. “Lots”, said Don Antonio who fetched his wife and they spoke in the English they had learned 25 years ago when they worked in Leeds, “oh yes, a busy year, we like the pilgrims, many of them have your guide, we try to help them if they have problems, if they need to make phone calls or if they need informations.” Then with chests swelling with pride they announced “and we can now do English Breakfasts if you wish, – bacon, sausages, tomatoes, fried eggs, fried bread. Oh yes, the English Breakfasts, we do them here.”

Something is happening on the Camino Inglés.