Further to my earlier post, Fr David’s funeral will be held at 12 noon on Friday 28 April 2023 at St Thomas of Canterbury Church, Magdalen Rd, St Leonards-on-Sea TN37 6ET.
I added some additional photos after posting the original notice, so you may like to revisit that post
We have recently learnt of the death of Father David Russell, pilgrimage chaplain from 2000 to 2017.
Father David was a “late vocation” and worked (as a teacher (I think) before training at the Beda College in Rome. On ordination in1978 he was appointed curate at St Joan of Arc, Farnham (the “cradle” of our A&B pilgrimages). Fr David joined us on the Pilgrims Way Pilgrimage in 1976, and then on the 2nd Canterbury Pilgrimage in 1979. I can visualise him walking through the forest near Benenden in Kent but the earliest photo I can find is in the procession to Arundel Cathedral at the end of that pilgrimage.
Fr David also took part in the 1980 St Joan of Arc Pilgrimage, a spin off from our pilgrimage, to celebrate the Farnham church’s golden jubilee.
Fr David had various posting around the Diocese, including St Leonards on Sea, but eventually settled in a flat in Portslade from where he supplied other parishes, often taking up residence for a number of weeks while the parish priest was away. Despite several attempts, David never passed his driving test (on the final attempt his car was driven into on the way to the test centre) so getting to these parishes made him an expert in train and bus travel.
In 2000 Fr David re-joined the pilgrimage as Chaplain, and served in that role until 2017. He strove to balance the needs of an Ecumenical pilgrimage and the rules of the Church, pushing the boundaries and getting his knuckles rapped more than once. He felt able to take risks to best serve his “mobile parish”. It didn’t always work, but David was genuine in his efforts to minister to the pilgrims,
During his time as chaplain Fr David was less and less able to walk with the pilgrims, and joined the support team, hitching a ride with the van, caterers or drinks car. He was the instigator of the group that played Scrabble in the evenings whilst others went to the pub (Fr David had given up alcohol at this stage).
Following a nasty fire in his flat in Portslade, Fr David moved to a convent in Littlehampton. Having lost his address book in the fire he rather lost touch with people, but was always interested to hear about the pilgrimage and the pilgrims.
Funeral details are yet to be announced.
May he rest in peace.
We are saddened to report the death of Debbie Ellis (née Davies) on 25 February 2023.
Debbie became instantly famous on her first pilgrimage in 1980 when she lost a contact lens on the lawn at Midhurst Convent and had the whole pilgrimage searching for it (in vain).
Debbie participated in several pilgrimages in the early 1980s and continued to drop in for several years, as well as being part of several pilgrim-centric groups (e.g. the boat trips).
Debbie’s funeral will be on 29th March at 4.15pm at Leatherhead Crematorium (Randall’s Park). Debbie requested bright colours only, as she wishes it to be a happy celebration of her life .
A get together to celebrate her life will be held at The Blue Ball pub
Walton on the Hill directly after.
May she rest in peace.
On this summer’s pilgrimage from Swansea to Hereford we were given a very generous welcome by church communities in Wales, for which we are most grateful. Helen Murphy, from St Catherine’s Church in Caerphilly, sent us an article she had written about our visit with permission to share it on our website. It is reproduced below,
Pilgrims
According to my records, it was 2nd November 2019 that Father Mark sent me an email from a group of pilgrims enquiring if they might hire St. Catherine’s Church Hall for one night in August 2020.
Over coffee, after the service held on Sunday 3rd November 2019, the congregation of St. Catherine’s unanimously welcomed the prospect of pilgrims staying in our Hall. But who were they?
Well, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton for the last forty-seven years has organised an ecumenical pilgrimage where up to one hundred people at a time walk to a Holy Shrine. For example, in 2019, this led them to visit the Shrine of St. Hilda which meant walking from Lincoln to Whitby. If you can walk up to fifteen miles a day, like the company of other people, don’t mind stopping at pubs for lunch and sleeping in church, scout or village halls and want to grow closer to God, then a pilgrimage could be exactly right for you! To find out more, go to www.thepilgrims.org.uk.
But that was in 2019; this is 2022 and in between the World has suffered a Pandemic which, in its way, has been as terrifying and devastating as any Medieval plague. And during this time, Sue Adilz, from the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton, and I have kept in touch by email and finally, on Friday 19th August, the pilgrims were here! They had started their pilgrimage at Swansea and their ultimate goal was Hereford Cathedral.
Forty people arrived in Caerphilly. Most of them stayed at St Helen’s Community Hall but twelve pilgrims slept in St Catherine’s Hall. Two vans laden with catering equipment and the pilgrims’ luggage always go ahead to set up ready for the weary walkers’ arrival at their home for the night.
John and Tineke, a Dutch lady who comes over specially to take part in these pilgrimages are in charge of this vanguard. The catering was done at St Helen’s which has a super kitchen and on the morning of Saturday 20th August, a prayer meeting for the pilgrims was held at St Catherine’s. It was a dreadful morning with the rain coming down like stair-rods; some of the pilgrims looked half drowned before they’d even left Caerphilly on their way to Newport and their next stop! Before they left, all those present stood to say the Celtic prayer from Northumbria which we, at St. Catherine’s, always say (or sing when allowed) at the end of every service. It begins: May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you, wherever He may send you, May He guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm…” – it was such an apt prayer for these people on this very wet, Welsh day!
To mark their stay, the pilgrims gave a small wooden cross to each person in the congregation who had come to pray with them so Janice, Daphne, Deryn and myself all received a cross which we will always treasure. Canon John from St Helen’s was also present, but he’d been given his cross earlier.
So that’s the background to the pilgrims’ stay but who were they honouring? The answer to that goes back to the 13th century.
In 1275, Thomas de Cantilupe, who had been Lord Chancellor of England under Simon de Montford, became Bishop of Hereford. He had become a trusted adviser to Edward I, but apparently, he was a feisty character, and he wasn’t afraid of putting the greedy Norman barons in their place. For example, when Gilbert de Clare of Caerphilly Castle fame, built a ditch, which can still be seen on the Malvern’s today, to try to filch hunting rights from the Bishop, Thomas de Cantilupe went to Law to win his case. Thomas even argued with the then Bishop of Canterbury, John Peckham, who was insisting on his right to visit the Hereford Diocese. This led to Thomas being ex-communicated. He had to travel to Italy to request that Pope Martin IV absolve him – which he did – and then Thomas promptly died! It is said that his body was then boiled with his flesh being buried in Orvieto, Italy, his heart returned for burial at Ashbridge, Buckinghamshire and his bones interred at Hereford Cathedral. So loved was Bishop Thomas that in Medieval times, his shrine was second in importance to that of Thomas a Becket’s in Canterbury Cathedral.
In 1320, Thomas, Bishop of Hereford was made a saint. In our modern times, his life has inspired Mother Theresa and more recently, Melissa Gates.
That answers why our pilgrims are going to Hereford but why does their pilgrimage start in Swansea?
In 1290, William Cragh, who, depending on which side you were on, was variously called an outlaw, a rebel, and a warrior. He was to be hanged by Lord William de Briouze in front of Swansea Castle for his part in the rebellion against the Norman baron led by Rhys ap Maredudd in which he apparently killed thirteen men. However, the gallows on which William Cragh was to be hanged collapsed twice before the deed was finally done. Lady Mary de Briouze must have been distressed by all this because she prayed to Thomas de Cantilupe to restore William Cragh to life – and her prayers were answered. As a consequence, William Cragh vowed to walk barefoot all the way to Hereford Cathedral, still with his noose around his neck, and accompanied by Lord and Lady de Briouze. William Cragh left the hangman’s rope at the shrine.
Our pilgrims have stopped at all the places associated with that journey which not only includes Caerphilly but also Margam Abbey though Father Mark was on holiday when our pilgrims visited it.
All this weekend, after meeting John and Tineke and Sue and their friends making this journey, I have had a hymn going round and round in my head: John Bunyan’s “Who would true valour see”.
This wonderful hymn ends with the words:
Hobgoblin nor foul fiend
Can daunt his spirit;
He knows he at the end
Shall life inherit.
Then fancies fly away;
He'll not fear what men say;
He'll labour night and day
To be a pilgrim.And I have no doubt that the pilgrims from Arundel and Brighton Diocese shall indeed life inherit.
Helen Murphy
St Catherine’s Church, Caerphilly
Our first full pilgrimage in 3 years gets underway tomorrow, Saturday 13th August. Indeed some pilgrims have already made their way to Swansea to avoid rail strikes.
If you aren’t able to join the pilgrims this year you can follow progress through the web diary at www.thepilgrims.org.uk/2022/home.php
If you are on the pilgrimage, make sure you know how to submit photos and comments (via Twitter, e-mail or upload) to share your experiences and photos.
Best foot forward!.
We now have a diary page for the mini pilgrimage at http://thepilgrims.org.uk/2022/mini.php
This page includes the itinerary (on the right hand side) and, at the foot of each day, within the “Walk Stats”, you will find a link to download the GPX file if you want to follow the route on your GPS device or compatible phone.
The diary is still empty (apart from some test photos!) and will remain so until participating pilgrims post content. If you are participating, that means YOU! There are 3 ways to submit content:
For those not participating, the diary should start to be populated once we gather on Friday evening / start walking on Saturday.
Here you will find the direct links to the publicity material and booking forms for this year’s pilgrimages that David introduced in his recent post..
Background: Much to be thankful for
Considering joining the pilgrimage next summer? There’ll be another taster pilgrimage in Spring 2022.
We are saddened to report the death of Jane Potter, wife of Mark who has walked with us in recent years and sister of pilgrims Clare Gamble, Mary Yeomans and Imelda Simons. Jane was a “pop-in” pilgrim especially since Mark started walking with us, and would have met many pilgrims over the years.
Jane was diagnosed with advanced cancer in December last, but died in March from an infection following surgery to remove the cancer.
Jane’s funeral, a Requiem Mass, will be on Tues 3rd May at 10.00am at St Dunstan’s Church, Shaftesbury Road, Woking GU22 7DT. Family flowers only. A Tribute / donations page will be set up for The Fountain Centre or Survive-Miva via Woking Funeral Service. Only coloured ties at the funeral, as Jane did not like black ones! The Mass will be live-streamed for those unable to travel. See https://st-Dunstans.org
We send our prayers and condolences to Jane’s family, not forgetting son Christopher. May she rest in peace.
Some years ago we started pulling together information on our past pilgrimages and sharing it online. Part of this was to answer a question about where we had visited most often (Arundel Cathedral was the obvious answer). That gave us a list of all the “waypoints” with their grid references, so why not display them on a map?
We created a mapping page, adding the historic pilgrimages to it and then adding each new pilgrimages after the event, but technology moved on and our solution recently stopped working. Rather than try another sticking plaster on the old code I decided to look at a whole new way of managing the data and generating the maps.
You don’t need to know all the gory technical details (but I’ll add them add the end for the geeks), but you can see the results at http://thepilgrims.org.uk/newmapping/index.html
When the page opens you should see England and Wales with a lot of black dots (places we’ve visited) and coloured lines (the routes we’ve walked). As you zoom in the black dots will split , ultimately into individual locations, and as you zoom out they merge again.
At the top left of the map there are buttons to zoom in and out and a measuring tool (though you can zoom with the mouse wheel or your fingers, depending on your device). Top right there’s a button: it might look like a sandwich but it represents layers and allows you to choose what you see on the map. By default all pilgrimages are shown with the stops (black dots) on top.
Clicking on a black dot should display information on the location and the year(s) we visited it. Clicking on a route line should show the name of the pilgrimage and a link to its diary (and maybe which day it was). However, we’ve found clicking to get info a bit hit-and-miss – it probably works best if you deselect most of the pilgrimages and concentrate on those that are relevant..
You’ll notice the early pilgrimages (1975 to 2006) join the dots with straight lines, but from 2007 we’ve used the detailed routes. A good example is the penultimate day of the two St David’s Pilgrimages between Nolton Haven and Solva: the 2010 route follows the coast but the 1992 route walks on water across the bay!
We’ve also found that some of the grid references (often done by eye from a paper map) are a bit off (Some aren’t even on the detailed route!). I’m fixing some of them in slow time. If you find any real howlers let me know and I’ll prioritise those.
Finally, I found an interesting use for the maps this weekend: I’d been out for a cycle ride on the south side of the South Downs, stopping (as is my habit) at churches I passed. Comparing with the pilgrimage maps I found that 4 of these we’d visited on the pilgrimage: Chalton (1982), Blendworth (1982 and 1989), Up Marden (1989) and East Marden (1989) and could compare the photos in our diaries with the current day, but mostly feel a connection to the pilgrimage.
Hope some of you find this of interest.
The technical stuff:
Following the “pilgrimage of day walks” this year, we are celebrating with a one-day reunion in Caterham on Saturday 30th October 2021.
Please join us for the A&B Ecumenical Walking Pilgrimage Reunion Walk. We will start at the Church of the Sacred Heart, Essendene Road, Caterham CR3 5PA where there is a car park. Please gather at 9.30 am for a 10 am prompt start. We will follow a circular walk around the outside of Caterham including the London Loop, the Downlands Circular Walk and the North Downs Way. We will stop for a pub lunch between 12 and 1 pm at The Harrow Inn, 235 Stanstead Road Chaldon CR3 6AJ. We will return to the Church of the Sacred Heart for a Reunion Service at 5 pm. We will go for a meal afterwards at The New Caterham Arms, 83A Coulsdon Road, Caterham CR3 5NF at 6 pm
If you plan to come to the reunion, please e-mail organiser John Doyle on reunion21@thepilgrims.org.uk and let him know:
The deadline for food orders at The Harrow is Tuesday 26th October.
Also please download this booking form, fill it in, and attach it to the email that you send to John.