Category: remembering

Day 97 of the End to End in 2019 continued along the Great Glen Way from Invermoriston beginning with quite a steep uphill section. You might be forgiven for thinking that the Great Glen Way had become a series of rest days after yesterdays unscheduled rest stop for poor weather. Truth was the Great Glen Way was quite demanding, especially coming as it did after the Three Lochs Way and the West Highland Way. There’s no doubt I was tired, so rest days had helped. After all I was not aiming for a record breaking LEJOG.

Unlike Ann Sayer, member of the Long Distance Walkers Association, who’s obituary I read yesterday. She still holds the record for the fastest Land’s End to John O’Groats walk by a woman. Completed in 1980 it took her 13 days, 17 hours and 42 minutes. She walked 830 miles (a lot by road) and averaged nearly 60 miles a day (which is over 3 times what Bob and Hannah each did on their LEJOGs and over 6 times my average). She died in April 2020 aged 83.  I salute her and anyone who walks the End to End.

I’m amazed how much of it I can still remember, even quite small details. Last night when I wasn’t sleeping, I ran my memory fast forward over the route from the Great Glen to the end. It was wonderful. On day 97 Bob, who had come with me on the first morning section, and I arrived at the Stone Cave. This is one of those places where all three of us have visited, and it definitely appeals to the hermit in me, although it is rather small.

Much more of course, do I remember the cake.  Day 97 ended at the Bunloit Pottery which serves fantastic cake (although I seem to have failed to photograph it which is surprising). It’s OK to pray for cake, especially on an End to End.

From the remembered gospel: Jesus said: ‘When you pray do it like this…’

High Holy One of Heaven, named as Father by your Son,
May the uniting of earth with heaven begin now and never end,
as we weave together your kindom.
May the bread we receive today be justly gathered and shared:
forgive us when we fail at this,
as we forgive those who fail us.
May we not be tempted to water down this commitment,
else we fall into less wholesome ways.

JAL: 23.07.2020 in Longdendale.

Day 61 of the End to End in 2019 officially finished at Eamont Bridge, but had several added on places we visited, including supper at Shap Chippy. It’s this I shall come back to, but not before mentioning lovely villages and verges, interesting henges and monuments, woolly alpacas, the beautiful blue valley of Haweswater and frustrating signs.

The frustrating signs occupied some of the morning and led to me getting a bit lost in a small wood, but then a small wood is harder to get lost in than a large wood. Eventually I came out at a bridge and was no longer lost. This all began due to a lack of accurate signs. Folks will use footpaths, even sporadically. It’s in the landowners interests to keep up accurate signs or else people wander about.

One very accurate sign said that Shap Chippy was open for supper. Of all the things of LEJOG, fish and chips are best. I had my first fish and chips and day 2 in Newlyn and there were many other subsequent suppers. Shap Chippy is a good one: high up in Cumbria, heading for the border, wet and windy it’s a timely place to stop. It’s also won loads of awards and during lock down it set up a fantastic local delivery service. I’d go back there any day!

I grew up on fish and chips. My family owned a fish shop, selling wet fish only by the time I was a child, in West Green Road, Tottenham. It was brilliant. On Saturday nights we were allowed to choose our own fish, any fish, from the shop, to have cooked for supper, as long as we tackled it ourselves (bones and all). That’s how we learnt about fish. We’d serve in the shop during the day time or help with jobs like timing the fish smoking or filling up the prawns and cockles. We learnt to work the till and do the money. I can still hear Uncle George saying ‘Hurry up, that lady’s got a bus to catch!’

That’s Uncle Len frying fish in the 1950s at West Green Road. The family shop went under the name of Ann Sewell and Sons. I remember my great grandma slightly but I remember Uncle Len, Aunt Olive and Uncle George best of all: generous, kind, welcoming. Of all the Sewell brothers and sister, I never knew Uncle Nick: he died on D-Day aged 27. On his gravestone in La Deliverande Cemetery are the words chosen by his family. It says: ‘A light is from our household gone, a voice we loved is stilled’.

The families of over 40,000 people are now experiencing this effect as a result of COVID19. Most missed at family meal times I suspect: food makes families. I remember mine every time I eat my fish and chips.

From the remembered bible: Jesus said ‘Happy are those that mourn, however odd that sounds: they will find comfort’.

On dark days, I remember the smell of fish and chips
and the tang of salt and vinegar:
my memories are stirred by smoked haddock or chewy shellfish.
Mourning and laughter side by side,
just as you are side by side with us, Fish Finder.
Whenever we sit down to eat and remember,
may your presence make our meals holy times,
festivals of the kindom.

JAL: 06.06.2020 in Longdendale.

 

 

 

On Day 35 of the End to End in 2019 I walked along the Severn Way via Worcester Cathedral. I was not the first person to walk to Worcester. A memorial stone in the Cathedral remembers a 15th century pilgrim who called in. It is a fine place and contains the burial place of King John, that most unfortunate of monarchs: he lost his crown in the wash. There’s also a memorial to Woodbine Willie, that well regarded WW1 Army Chaplain who wrote:

Awake, awake to love and work,
the lark is in the sky!
the fields are wet with diamond dew….

I expect he was thinking about the River Severn which carries on past Worcester, except on the days when it comes into Worcester: when it floods. The cricket ground, alive with small boys learning the craft in 2019, was underwater in February 2020.

He survived WW1 but died in 1929 after a further decade of work in grieving post war Britain. He certainly knew about the demands of ministry:

To give and give and give again,
What God has given thee.
To spend thyself nor count the cost,
to serve right gloriously…

(from the final verse of the same hymn)

Whilst over a century old, the words still resonate. There are many in 2020 who have given themselves without thought for the personal cost. I don’t know what pilgrimage was like in previous ages, but I do know it continues today. It is as much a state of mind as a bodily thing. I read how Ivor Gurney, the poet of the Severn Meadows, used to enjoy looking at an old map of Gloucester when he was held in the asylum where he later died, going over the routes he held in his memory. I pray that we all have routes to remember and routes to plan.

May the good angel of the Lord accompany you
(Prayer for Pilgrims seen in Worcester Cathedral)

From the remembered gospel
Jesus sent out 72 others saying ‘See that road, follow it. Don’t take a lot of stuff’.

We journey with you, Jesus,
following old routes, making new ones.
May your angels keep us company:
friends on the phone,
colleagues in the workplace at a safe distance,
volunteers in our neighbourhood.
With numbers going up everyday,
we are mindful of the human cost of this pandemic.
[pause to think of them]
From the Church Militant to the Church Triumphant,
help us to leave behind the stuff we don’t need,
to keep the faith in our century,
to serve others as you served.

JAL: 10.05.2020 in Longdendale.