Day forty

 9th June 2009     ENGLAND

This is the last day of our adventure

Carlo and I wake up in a church hall, one of thousands that scatter these islands… they all seem to have doors that creak, big widows, the same musky smell, a small kitchen area with tea urn and a serving hatch, not forgetting a noticeboard just inside the entrance, full of all the different activities, everything from the Woman’s Institute, dance classes for toddlers, the scouts and a bunch of other clubs. The RAF Mountain Rescue would at times use these village and church halls as a base camp when out on exercise (they probably still do). I think much of the social history of this island could be told through such places… if only walls could talk. As we are packing up, the Rev. J. Turpin comes in to check how it is we are. “All good. Thank you for allowing us to stay the night, much appreciated” … we talk of this and that, five minutes later the three of us are standing outside the main door we shake hands, and the day starts.

 This is the last day of our adventure… we will meet a bunch of guys in somebody’s café… Carlo and I will talk and after breakfast, these guys will walk with us. Sorry I’m getting ahead of myself… Arthur (the guy who had drove to the top of Scotland with Irina on the very first day of this walk… that was close to a thousand years ago I think) has driven down from Scotland… plus two other guys from London (Simon and Jeff… all from the same church) have also come to this town of Ringwood, the reason being, to walk the last day of this adventure with Carlo and me. It will be good to see them (not sure when or how this was organized, I’m guessing either Simon or Arthur was behind it, the diary I am using to write this blog only tells me it happened, nothing about the how). What I know is this… with Arthur being here, the problem of how it is I get back home to Scotland has been solved.

Yeah, it was good to meet up with the guys, also good to start the day with a full breakfast (all paid for this time… Thank you). Today’s not a big walk, not much more than ten miles (just half a thumb print left to walk from the thirty-nine and a half already done). I’m thinking I could have knocked a good few days of this walk… The reason for not doing that, is because the number forty was a part of the offering that I had put together.

Seems a long time ago since I was sat at home… a little lost… between two doors, redundancy behind me and three years of college in front of me… wondering how best to use this in-between time… The idea of this walk came to mind… I remember the map laid out on the table (a mug of tea holding down one corner), starting from the top of mainland Scotland, I walked one thumb over another trying to figure out an idea of a route, forty thumbs later my feet were wet (metaphorically speaking) I was stood in the English Channel and out of that deep blue sea I had this daft idea of doing the walk with no money. Instead of ditching the idea as soon as it had entered my head, the no money idea kind of stuck… it became central to what this walk was going to be all about… the putting my trust in the people of these islands, to take care of me… somebody should. At the time I really wasn’t sure how that would pan out. The idea of this walk started to take shape… a rough idea of a route was in place… the forty thumbprints, become forty days (forty being a good Biblical number) ... and where better to end this adventure than where it all kind of began… in the church I was baptised in. Today was the day that would happen… today would finish in a church, the offering offered up and a quiet ‘Amen’ said… and after, I would walk the half mile or so down to the beach and step into the English Channel, getting both boots and feet wet (this time for real)… and that would be the end… the last chapter, the last page of this adventure… What next… head home, kick off my boots, pick up another book… turn the page and start a whole new adventure… Three years of college… essays and deadlines… oh boy… that was going to be pretty tough for a guy like me… it would make this adventure look like no more than just a walk in the park.

… Sorry I’m getting way ahead of myself… again.

Today really isn’t that hard at all, the walking is easy, all pretty much on the flat, alongside fields, wetland, country lanes and woodland, all in the good company of friends. For the first hour or so, we chat, catch up, talk about this and that and laugh… for those that know the TV series ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ it felt a little like that, a bunch of guys with time on their hands, heading out on some daft adventure… not a bad place to be.

As the day moves on, the chat becomes a little less… I’m guessing we are all caught up in our own thoughts… I wonder to myself how it is I got here (Day 40)… I kind of knew the walk was doable, I also knew that both the head and heart needed to be in the right place… to not let doubt get the better of me, to have a sense of gratitude at whatever came my way (good or bad). I am well aware that I am as flawed as the next guy, a head full of contradictions and all the stupid nonsense that goes along with that… I think in part that is why I chose to walk with empty pockets… as clumsy as my faith maybe, I wanted to know what I believe in, is real… (as real as knowing when I drop a pencil it will fall)… Three things really, Creation, People and God…

Creation, I have never struggled with… in my mountain rescue days I have been on top of mountains in the dead of winter, in some pretty extreme weather, a bunch of troops needing to hold on to each other just to stand up, the sound of Gore-Tex and laughter fighting against a thousand mile an hour wind… taking a tumble, trying (without success) to get back on your feet, the other guys again laughing… screwing your eyes up against the sting of snow and ice… snot flying through the air… and an overwhelming sense of being alive… I have also woken up in a truck by the side of a quiet road, opened the curtains to an incredible sunrise, long shadows stretching over the landscape, a thin mist sitting over fields of gold, open the window to the sound of songbirds… Yeah, creation is both beautiful and awe inspiring at both ends of the scale.

People, to pick up a newspaper, or switch on the news, you would think that people are all bad… I don’t believe that… the vast majority of people are more than just good, they are incredible. Another story from my mountain rescue days (sorry for dragging you down all these memory lanes that are in my head). It was mid-winter; the team had been up in Scotland for ten days (ten days of no sunshine just rain). We were traveling back down south, in convoy on the way back to camp. On the motorway that runs alongside the Lake District, the radios crackled into life (these were days before mobile phones), the team was being asked if we could assist a civilian team in a call out, three walkers lost in the Cumbrian hills… a grid reference is given to where it is we are to meet up… a small out of the way hill farm, maps are dug out (no sat-nav either in those days). Winding our way uphill to the farm, the Sargent in charge of the team tells two of the guys, that as soon as we arrive, they are to get the field kitchen set up and to get tea and hot soup on the go. We turn up at the farm as the day light hours begins to fade, we didn’t need a field kitchen… the Woman’s Institute (the WI) had bet us to it, as we were getting kitted up (into gear that was still wet) ready for the hill, strapping on crampons… they were pushing hot mugs of soup and chunks of buttered bread into our hands. I have never forgotten those women… they had come from nearby farms and villages to play their part in finding these lost walkers… Sorry a bit of a long story I know… it was those incredible women, mothers and grandmothers on a cold wet winters night, in a barn on the side of a hill making soup and sweet tea (they didn’t need to be there, very few people knew that they were) they had shown me just how beautiful the human spirit can be.

That is Creation and People, what of my understanding / believe in God… Yeah, I know, many reading this maybe don’t have a traditional faith, but I do think most people have a believe (as I have said in a previous chapter if using other words instead of ‘God’ such as ‘the universe’, ‘spirit’, ‘the force’ or ‘mother nature’ works better… who am I to argue). What I know is this, on that first day when I was standing in that small church in the hamlet of Altnaharra, close to the top of Scotland, with a bag over one shoulder, empty pockets, a toothbrush and little else, other than close to a thousand miles in front of me… I uttered a simple prayer, with not many more words than “This is me Lord…”. I would like to say I heard the words “Yeah I know” come back at me… I didn’t… but what was real throughout this walk, (for me anyway), was a sense, a feeling that the forces behind the universe (maybe the universe itself) was in line with what it was I was doing… yeah I know that all sounds a little bit ‘aye right whatever’… only to many times it felt that situations, places and people were put in place prior to me turning up… best I shut up… don’t want you thinking I’m a ‘new age’ kind of guy… I’m a truck driver, collar turned up, feet on the ground kind of guy…

I kick a stone a little too hard, it bounces to one side and is lost in the undergrowth, looking up I see the four guys (Simon, Jeff, Arthur and Carlo) they are all in front of me… Arthur calls out “If you keep dragging your feet, we’ll never get this walk done”. He laughs… I smile… and the five of us keep on walking. The sky is a little grey and overcast, in the clouds I see no rain… just my head and a whole bunch of thoughts. I wonder at what it is faith really is… I’m not sure I want to believe in impossible things … Yeah, maybe I am a dreamer, but as I said a moment ago, I see myself as a guy whose feet are firmly on the ground. It sometimes feels to me, that the world of science is a lot easier to understand. if I see a pencil fall, I kind know what’s going on… and if I want to better understand, I can pick up a book and read about ‘Newton’s law of universal gravitation’… such laws exist beyond who it is we are… it matters not from where it is we come from or what we believe in… drop a pencil and it will fall… and yet… at the same time I also know that I love my two daughters far more than Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution requires me too… Truth matters, be it in this world or in the world unseen … I think Albert Einstein hit the nail on the head when he said, “Science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind”… the mysteries of love, just like the laws of gravity are as real as real can be…

…The difference between people of science and people of faith (yeah, I know there are many people that are in both camps… that in my head, can only be a good thing), scientists are happy to revisit / question ideas that were once seen as true. People of faith are different; they will not question the religion that they belong too or allow other too. I’m not so sure this is a good thing (maybe that was ok a hundred years ago, but not anymore). When a teenager (or come to that, anybody) asks a difficult question, they need a better answer than, “That is for God to Know and not for you to ask”… that’s a great answer if you're wanting to push young people away… Sorry, sounds like that’s me standing on the back of a trailer again… best I climb down.

…This is the last day of the walk… I am walking through the county that I was born in. We are not many miles away from the small town of Christchurch, someplace in that town is the place I was baptised, St Joseph’s church. The end of this adventure is not far away. We pass by thatched cottages, an impressive redbrick mill, small steadings, fields, hedgerows and open moorlands… not sure how much of this I take in, the head is still someplace up in the clouds… what I do see is a landscape that very much belongs to these islands… an island that I call home…that said, I don’t really know this part of home very well, my dad was stationed here for a couple of years… and before I was two, we had moved on to another RAF Camp.

My head tells me I should be collecting my thoughts together, somehow making myself ready for when I step into St. Joseph’s church… I try, but it’s not happening… still up in the clouds, science to the left of me and faith to right of me (stuck in the middle). I don’t know how it is these two always seem to be fighting each other… they have the same mission and that is to seek out the truth.

The science as we know it today, kicked off in the middle of the sixteenth century… it was the start of The Scientific Revolution… a hundred plus years later, our understanding of physics, mathematics, biology astronomy, chemistry and other such subjects had taken a huge leap forward… mankind had stepped into the ‘Age of Reason’ (the Enlightenment). Most of this took place in Western Europe, a Judeo-Christian culture… for many of these great scientists, the wanting to understand the mind of God and His creation was how it is they got started, Johannes Kepler (the guy who figured out the motions of the planets) stated that ‘They were merely thinking God’s thoughts after Him'… I wonder at how it is today Science is doing all it can to push against the very foundations it was built on… can’t help but see a little bit arrogance in that… Yeah, I know I’m just a truck driver… what I do know is this, when climbing into the cab, I kind of know that somebody had designed this truck and behind the designer there was a mind … that can be said for a whole bunch of things, huge stones half buried in the ground standing upright and forming a circle, the magnificent cathedrals we see throughout Europe and around the world, the incredible engineering behind the building of a steam engine, a Dickens novel, a sheet of music written by one of the great composers, the know-how needed to create this laptop that sits in front of me and the writing of the software code that makes the thing work … none of this just happened by itself… you can let a billion years of evolution go by… it still won’t happen… not without the presence of a creative mind... when we see the  creation of such things, we know that behind them, there is a mind (with the passage of time a stone circle will not slowly turn into a cathedral... That is not me talking against evolution, I think it's real... we do evolve, adapt, change, grow... but I also think that that is not the whole picture)… Step into a cave that no one’s ever been into before and stumble across some ‘cave art’ from twenty or thirty thousand years ago… it was not weathering, nor some kind of algae or the crumbling of rock over time that created the images you see in front of you… You instinctively know (without being told) behind those handprints and crude etchings of stickmen, spears and bison there was a mind… a creative mind…

…with that in mind, how is it most scientist, not all but most fight against the idea that maybe… just maybe there is more to this world (and the wider universe) than meets the eye. We live in what many call a goldilocks universe… for this world and the universe to work, there are so many things that need to be just right… not too hot and not too cold, not too close and not too far, not too strong and not too weak, not too this and not too that… there are so many numbers that need to be just right… if any one set of those numbers are not as they should be, the whole thing falls apart. From what is huge to what is tiny there is evidence of design… we now know that within the strands of DNA there is critical coding going on, not with the zero’s and one’s that we are familiar with but instead with four letters, A,C,G and T (adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine) if that coding (software) is wrong, it’s game over… the machine, life and the universe stops working. There is plenty of evidence for design and coding taking place behind the creation of this world, all of which points to a mind. Some will make an argument against this thinking, by putting forward the idea that there are multi-universes and that we just happen to be the lucky ones, living in a universe where everything fell into place… for me, I’m not sure if that holds water… that’s like saying you have multiple scrapyards and a tornado rips through each of those yards and by chance after the tornado has passed by, in the middle of one of those yards an E-Type Jaguar has been assembled from all the spare engine parts, panels, tyres, nut and bolts that were laying around in that yard. You can have as many scrapyards as you like but without the presence of somebody who knows what they are doing (a mechanic… that is a mechanic with a mind, creativity and a purpose) there will never be in any of those yards / universes an E-Type Jaguar.

Sorry I rattle on… I many times get lost in my own thought. I was never too sure how this blog was going to turn out… the original idea was to use the story of the walk to say thank you to the many people that I had met and who had made this walk possible. That said I kind of knew, my thoughts would get caught up in the story… and that is all they are… I’m no boffin nor a theologian… all the above (from the beginning of this walk, up and till today) are just the muddled-up thoughts of a raggedy truck driver walking with his hands in his pockets, kicking stones along country lanes, over hills and woodland tracks… his collar turned up against the wind and rain (…collar up against the wind and rain … aye right… the real reason for the collar being up, is because he’s kidding himself that he looks cool… I think best to play along with him).

And that is the five of us walking into Christchurch …two other guys meet up with us in town, Andy and Mike… We find St Joseph’s church, a redbrick building… so this is it, the walk is done. We walk up to the door, I reach out to the handle, not really sure what I’m supposed to be thinking or feeling… I pushed against the door; I push again… Great… it’s locked, didn’t think that through very well… Jeff steps in “The vicarage is next door, give me a moment… five minutes late he is back rattling a set of keys. The seven of us step inside… not sure if I have just walked into a church or a car boot sale, tables are laid out all around, full of stuff people don’t want any more… A long way to walk, from the Top of Scotland to the south coast of England only to step into something resembling a charity shop… I remember a story about a guy who stepped into a temple and turned the tables over… I think best let it be… it is not what we see, it is the motivation behind what it is we see, that matters. The money makers here are making money to help others, not themselves…

Behind this old church, there is a new church, St Joseph’s 0.2. It’s open, I step inside, the other guys hang back... I guess they knew I needed, a moment. Standing close to the front, I let my bag fall to my feet… “I am here”. I turn full circle… maybe it sounds daft, but I feel the spirit of the walk inside, and all around me… I open my mouth to say something, but there is no sound… instead I close my eyes and imagine the church full of all the people I had met on this walk, their impossible smiles, warmth and generosity… they too belong to this moment… I open my eyes and they are gone… all but one, Carlo is standing just to the right of me. I say a quiet thank you (in saying thank you to Carlo, I felt I had said thank you to all the others). And again, I try to offer a small prayer, I start to mumble something or other, but it’s not happening. I decide to say a prayer that many of us will know… and even that I muddle up.

…Our Father,
Who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come. There must be lights burning brighter somewhere.
Got to be birds flying higher in a sky more blue.
Let Thy will be done, we’re lost in a cloud, with to much rain.
We’re trapped in a world, that’s troubled with pain.
Still I am sure that the answer gonna come somehow,
On earth as it is Heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread.
Out there in the dark, there’s a beckoning candle.
And forgive us our trespasses, while I can think, while I can talk.
As we forgive those who trespass against us,
While I can stand, while I can walk.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
Tell me why, oh why can’t my dream come true.

Prayers muddled up with dreams or maybe dreams muddled up with prayers. For that Kingdom to come, for that dream of a better word to happen, I don’t think we can just sit on the edge of some Village Hall dancefloor… and wait for God or some other guy to make a move… maybe they can take the lead… but we need to follow, we also need to step onto the dancefloor (take responsibility) … and do what it is we can to make this world a better place… be it an outstretched hand, an impossible smile, a quiet prayer, a listening ear, a shared pot of tea, to speak words that let others know that they are more than just special… The music that makes this dancefloor (this world) go around is love… and love is everything… without it nothing, nothing at all… God, religion, people, this incredible world nor the heavens above, not even a dancefloor would make any sense at all.

The End…

… Not quite… after we came out of the church, the seven of us walked the half mile or so down to the beach. It was in the church where this adventure had finished… the walking into the ocean (with boots still on) was I guess the full stop to this story… and after, with dry socks and a worn out pair of trainers on… and boots in a bin (they had had it, not one for holding on to things). We find a pub and share a meal together… and after we all shake hands and climb into different cars… Carlo and me climb into Arthurs car, I shut the door, the walk is done. We drive back to Carlo's place ‘Cleeve House’, we stay the night and the next day, me and Arthur head back to Scotland. The next door I open (not literally) will be the doors of Oatridge College… three years of essays, deadlines and exams. oh boy!.... Bring it on.

Day thirty-nine

8th June 2009    ENGLAND

Thank you for the days… broken pencils and possibilities  

My eyes are closed, I’m still in my sleeping bag, awake but not awake, I hear Carlo in the kitchen area, the kettle being filled, the flick of a switch, again the sound of a tap, yesterday’s mugs being rinsed, the fridge door opens and shuts… sounds like tea is on the go… and still I keep my eyes closed, I just need a squidge longer. My thoughts are not of today… they are already one day ahead … the last day of this walk… day forty… tomorrow I step into the church I was baptised in, some forty-six plus years ago… a church that I have not been in since (military families never stay in one place very long). Cannot help but wonder, when I step back out of that church, how it is I get back home to Scotland, and what it is I do next; the start of college… three years of essays and deadlines… is still a few months away… oh boy! I really don’t know how all that’s gonna pan out… the phrase ‘biting off more than I can chew’ comes to mind… I had left school with nothing at all… that was something like thirty years ago… I enjoy picking up a book, learning new things and yet at the same time I am aware that I am slower than most… Hmm… I kind of already know college is going to be a pretty big mountain to climb (who knows, maybe my mountain days will come in handy… probably not), and what of the time in-between the finishing of this walk and the stepping into a classroom, I guess I’m going to have to find a job… not too worried about that… We live in a world where stuff is forever needing to be moved from one place to another and for that to happen you need truck drivers.

Carlo gives me a nudge “Morning Paul, I’ve made you a tea”. “Thanks Carlo”. As I climb out of my sleeping bag, I clear my head of all thoughts of what happens after tomorrow. I maybe just a few days away from finishing this walk… only it is more than just a walk… at the top of Scotland I had offered the next forty days to God… this is day thirty-nine, for another two days my thoughts of what happens after the walk will need to be put on hold. I am wanting to keep this offering as pure and as focused as I can, to do that, both head and heart need to be in the right place… a place of wanting to give and a place of having tremendous gratitude for what has been given. The day after tomorrow will need to wait… I have a promise to keep.

By seven thirty we are back on the road, I say road, it is not long before we pick up the ‘Avon Valley Path’… a path that we will stay on for much of the day… a path that will take us around the edges of fields, alongside wetlands, through quiet valleys and sunlit woodlands. We are walking through an area called the New Forest (a National Park)… it has been called the New Forest for just short of a thousand years… since 1079… that is when William the Conqueror claimed this area as his own. The word ‘forest’ back in those days meant a wild area set aside for the purpose of hunting, deer, wild boar and the like (an area of over 200 square miles). I guess in times gone by, if a king wanted more land, that was that…  peasants and the few sheep or cattle they had didn’t matter… allowing livestock to graze, foraging for berries, collecting firewood or the taking of a rabbit for the pot, was no longer permitted… this was now the king’s land… the lives of common people didn’t come into the equation… I think sometimes when we read history, we get caught up with the Kings and Queens… with this or that battle… it can be easy to forget about (push to one aside) the downtrodden… they, like you and I were real people… they also had hopes and dreams, fell in love, had little ones that were loved… and also needed feeding… when evicted from their homes, there was no taking the decision to court, no compensation, no government handouts to fall back on… Times were hard… 

…How is it, as I walk through this little bit of ‘chocolate box’ English countryside, my thoughts are not of what is in front of me, but instead I think of those that had walked these tracks close to a thousand years before me. I don’t doubt there are people living on this island today that are going through hard times (and we should do what it is we can to help those that are struggling). But there is no comparing today with the lives of those that lived a hundred plus years ago (never mind a thousand years ago). Today we have a National Health Service (yes, I know it’s under pressure and needs fixing… but it’s there) … We have stable governments (and yes, we can and probably should grumble at what it is they do… or don’t do… keeping in mind we have a responsibility to take those grumbles to the ballot box… for those thinking of getting rid of government … Anarchy in the UK would be No Fun at all… it really wouldn’t be… a dog eat dog world… no thank you). Doing this walk has made me much more aware of the many things we should be grateful for. For one, I am glad that I live now and not a hundred plus years ago… yeah, I know, the world is still a long way from what it could and should be … I still hear the Tiny Tims of this world calling out to the man on the street “Sir can you help me” and I think twice, ‘cause it’s another day for you and me in paradise’.

It's late morning, we have just stepped off the path onto a quiet country lane, the sun is pushing through the clouds. Carlo points to a sign just in front of us ‘The Sandy Balls Holiday Camp’… the idea of breakfast comes to mind. We step through the gates, an impressive place, a proper family getaway resort… log cabins, swimming pools and a restaurant… again we look at each other and then step through the doors of Aubrey's restaurant… ten minutes later we both have a full breakfast in front of us… a huge thank you to Francesca and Dell… a little over half an hour later, we step back outside… we are full… if we don’t get to eat again today, not a problem. We again pick up the ‘Avon Valley Path’, better to hear the sound of birdsong than the noise of traffic…there’s a quiet breeze moving through the land, branches above gently sway, the long grass in the fields play at being an ocean, waves slowly moving from one side of the field to the other… the birds high up in a sky of blue and white have little interest in playing along… I guess nobody wants to squawk like a seagull. 

My thoughts also seem to get picked up swirled around, settle for a moment, and a moment later they are back up in the air. I don’t know if it’s because this walk is coming to an end, but the ideas of gratitude seem to be high up in my thoughts… my thinking is, gratitude is the glue that holds all that other stuff I’ve talked about together… truth, goodness, love, falling pencils, beauty. Take gratitude away, and it all starts to fall apart (ok I’m joking about the pencil… Hmm, maybe only half joking… the force that will cause a pencil to fall to the ground, is the same stuff that allows us to see the sun rise every day… and that is gravity… ‘Thank you for the days’… and for the pencils that don’t have broken lead). And here’s the thing, to have gratitude you don’t need money, possessions nor status… I have met many people, not just from these island, but from around the world, different countries in Africa, North and South America, European countries (both from the east and the west)… people that have very little and yet possess a proper heart of gratitude, be it for the smallest of things… a genuine smile, a proper meal, an unexpected act of kindness. If you flip that coin, I think it’s safe to say, we all know people, that have a nice house, a good job, a steady income, and yet instead of gratitude they have resentment (… I just read what I wrote… it sounded a little unfair… of course you also get people that don’t have much at all (or people that somehow feel the world owes them something or other) and that are full of resentment. You also get people that have much and are incredibly grateful). Yeah, I’m not sure where I was going with those thoughts (…in amongst those answers that can be found blowing in the wind, there are also a whole bunch of muddle up thoughts getting knocked around)… That said, it is still incredibly humbling to meet people that really do have next to nothing and can still maintain a heart of gratitude, that I think is something to admire. I don’t think gratitude is a given… it is something we need to constantly work on.

Up above, the sky is still a mix of blue and white, a little bluer maybe… I’ve not walked in proper rain since I think Ireland… the wind seems to be pushing the clouds to one side… looks like it’s gonna be another bright (bright) sunshiny day. Carlo is the pace setter; I fall in step behind… we cross over streams, walk alongside fields, climb over styles, open and shut gates, pick up country lanes, walk under pylons, across open moors and through small broadleaf woodlands… the soundscape, mainly birdsong and a steady breeze, occasionally the sound a stream or the hum of power lines… in the distance the noise of tyres on tarmac. We talk a little (again about this and that), we kick a few sticks and stones (well I do) but much of the time we are quiet, caught up in our own thoughts. The backdrop to those thoughts (the soundscape as it were) is that sense of gratitude… the quiet sound of silence… the feeling of being at peace with a world that is not yet at peace with itself… not forgetting a steady hum of electrical thought signals bouncing around in my head.  

It is late afternoon when we walk into the small town of Ringwood… We step into the ‘Caffe Nero’… and again I share something of our story… and again I am taken aback by the kindness of strangers “What will it be tea or coffee”. “Tea would be magic”. “Go find a seat I’ll bring it over”. We find a quiet corner… I am glad of the chair, the legs ache. I untie my laces… the feet also need a break (I don’t think these boots will be coming back up to Scotland (home) with me… they are all but done). A waitress brings the tea over, she asks me “Have you really walked all the way from Scotland”. I nod my head “From the top of Scotland… aye”. She smiles and says ‘wow’… I smile back and say thank you (not sure if the ‘thankyou’ was for the tea or for the ‘wow’).

The tea is all gone, I re-tie the laces, push myself up of the chair with a grimace and a quiet groan, we again say thank you for the tea and head for the door, me doing the best I can to turn a hobble into something that looks like walking… Carlo smiles, he seems to be still in fine fettle... that’s annoying…. We decide to see if we can find a place to stay the night. Not far from the café there is a church St Peter and St Paul Parish Church, we walk up to the entrance, the Minister (a Reverent J. Turpin) and a few others come out the church heading our way. We introduce ourselves and again share our story and ask if it is possible that there would be a quiet corner someplace in the church that we could spend the night. We are told to come back and meet him at seven-thirty, by that time the church hall would be free… it is my turn to say wow. “Wow, thank you so much”.

Carlo’s phone pings, there’s a couple living in Ringwood that know Carlo, they had been following the progress of the walk through the simple blog I /we put out there at the end of each day… Alan and Ulrike had figured we were in the area and was offering to pick us up and take us home for dinner… how good is that…a little over half an hour later we are at their home, with a hot dinner cooking away on the stove. 

With dinner done and a coffee in hand, we sit and talk… I am reminded again at how much Carlo is respected within the church, he has many years of both teaching and being a pastor, he is somebody that will always put the other person first, mix that with being a very hands on kind of guy (I guess you have to be when living in an old Edwardian house)… it is a privilege to spend time with this guy… that said there is one downside to Carlo, and that is he walks to fast (… yeah ok… maybe that’s just me walking a little too slow).

Alan drops us of back in town, we meet up with the Rev. J. Turpin, we are greeted warmly, and again I wish I had a better way to say thank you. We set up ‘Basecamp Church Hall’, in the small town of Ringwood, a town that sits in the New Forest, close to the south coast of this island… the day like this walk is all but done.

It’s getting late and I’m wide awake, the pylons in my head are still humming, I pick up my broken pencil and scribble down some thoughts. I’m thinking if we want to be a part of building a better world, a good place to start is ‘Basecamp Gratitude’. With gratitude, there is the desire of wanting to give something back… it sees the good in this muddled up world, the beauty and the possibilities. That is not to say we shouldn’t sometimes be critical at some of the nonsense we see around us… the thing is not to let critical thoughts turn into cynical thoughts, do that and we start getting a little too close to ‘Basecamp Resentment’… there is no building going on in that camp, just knocking things down… a lot of shouting, demanding that they have rights… I sometimes wonder, do they see any good or beauty in this world or only that what is wrong. It’s true the world (life) is not fair (good but not always fair). Pointing fingers will not create a better world… Yeah, people have rights, I won’t argue with that… but more than this people have individual responsibility (we need to look at ourselves before judging others)… with that understanding, the question becomes ‘What can I give?’ and not ‘What can I take?’ That in my head is the difference between gratitude and resentment. 

 

Day thirty-eight

 7th June 2009 ENGLAND

Stepping off the dancefloor

The sun is up bright and early… a little too early… I’m still in my sleeping bag, it’s just after five. Looking outside through the shed window (… sorry the summerhouse window) I see blue skies. I shut my eyes and a Blackbird sings… morning has broken on day thirty-eight… I keep my eyes closed; I just need another hour. I remember as a kid I always thought the world stopped when I closed my eyes, and only started again when I opened them in the morning… Apparently, I was wrong… the world does continue to spin, and with the moon up close, they are both caught up with a bunch of other planets in a never-ending merry-go-round… and at the centre of that merry-go-round a proper star… like a huge disco-ball, throwing its rays of light across a dancefloor. I have read there are nearly four thousand dancefloors (solar systems) in our galaxy (the Milky Way)… and that there are close to two hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe… that’s a lot of dancefloors…

…It is not just the dance of the solar system spinning around in my head… but also the thoughts of yesterday… that of battlefields and tanks. How is it a bunch of guys (mostly men) in the corner of some dancefloor close to the edge of the Milky Way are forever kicking up trouble… surely, we can do better than this… there has to be a better dance than, two steps forward and one step back.

It’s just gone six thirty, I hear Carlo make a move… the thoughts of a fight kicking off in a blue corner of some beautiful dancefloor fade. “Morning Carlo”… “Morning Paul”. Twenty minutes later our bags are packed. While sat at the table, looking at the map, there is a tap at the  door… Paul, the guy who had allowed us to stay in their ‘summerhouse’ for the night, brings in a tray… a pot of tea, milk, sugar and cups. “Diane is making some toast and marmalade… I’ll bring it over in ten minutes… she is also making some sandwiches for you to take away”. It is because of moments like this, that I didn’t really have any choice, the putting together of this story kinda needed to be made.

[The writing of this blog has taken far longer than I had planned, much of it done at the end of a working day… a laptop propped up on the steering wheel, the original diary and a coffee alongside… many times staring at the screen for an hour and more with not much happening at all … if after this walk I had not gone to Oatridge college for three years, and the having to write essays and the like, this ‘Truck Driver Walking’ blog I think would not have happened. I don’t find writing easy… I’m pretty sure some of my thoughts (although clear in my head), when written down come across a little clumsy. All that said, I am glad I opened the laptop and started to tap away at the keyboard. Many times, throughout this story I have asked the question ‘How better to say ‘thank you’ to the many extraordinary people that had made this walk possible … putting those ‘thank yous’ down on paper (screen) seems to make them a little more real… I hope so. Another reason for writing was to give a shout out for ‘Sunrise Africa Relief’ (a charity that I am involved with). What also came out of putting this story together, that I wasn’t expecting… is that it put me back in touch with guys from my mountain rescue days (earlier this year I had the chance to meet up with some of them). Sorry I’m rattling on, best get back to the story at hand…]

Tea and toast done… the map is folded up; we figure we’ll let the legs decide where it is we stop today… I am no longer in the highlands of Scotland, nor amongst the Welsh mountains, where places to stop at the end of each day needed a little more thought.

By eight we are back on the long and winding road that will lead us to the doors of Salisbury Cathedral. The roads are quiet, we pass through a number of small villages. Rivers and railway lines seem to be taking the same route in to Salisbury as we are, several times we cross over the river Wylye, a chalk stream… they are pretty rare, formed where springs permeates through a bedrock of chalk, giving them pure clear and constant water (they do not rely on surface run-off from the rain). Such stream provides a unique habitat for a whole bunch of creatures and plants. There are only thought to be a little over two hundred chalk streams in the world, 85% of them are to be found in England. I look across at Carlo and like me I think he is also lost in his own thoughts… me, I’m thinking we live in a beautiful world, a world we need to take a little more care of… it is our home… the only home we know.

A couple of guys walking down a country road, looking as if we don’t have a care in the world, talking this and that and again back to kicking stones… where we stay the night, no idea… a meal at the end of the day… again no idea. What I know is that the sun is shining, and this walk is all but done… that offering made at the top of Scotland (the forty days) and the promise to God that on the 9th of June, I would be at the church I was baptised in, some forty-six years ago … crumbs, at the time of making that promise I really wasn’t sure… I remember the first night of the walk, on the moors… sleeping on heather… looking up at the stars, the clouds moving in, drizzle not far behind… a can of Irn Bru in hand, wondering had I made a promise I couldn’t keep…

Carlo asks me if it is ok to meet up with another friend when we get to Salisbury, her name is Marion… ‘Of course, its ok’… in my head I don’t see Marion… I see a cup of tea and if I’m lucky a slice of cake… Yeah I know, I need to be better than that.Carlo points up front, in the distance we see the spire of Salisbury cathedral. Over the many centuries, cities have slowly built up around these cathedrals… but still they dominate the cityscape… and the wider landscape. I wonder at the guys that had designed and built these incredible structures (over eight hundred years back)…and of those caught up in the project, the guy’s sourcing, mining and transporting the stone, the labourers working alongside the stonemasons, the scaffolders, the admin guys keeping track of the materials coming in and the wages going out, the small army that would have kept the workers fed and watered. It must have been extraordinary to see these buildings take shape. 

Most of these cathedrals took a number of generations to build (many of those digging the foundations would not have seen the roof go on)... They thought not of the now, but a hundred plus years in to the future, the generations not yet born (that includes you and I). They understood that the tomorrows matter. I'm thinking the same can be said of those that built Stonehenge (that's just up the road) over 5,000 years ago. I wonder if future generations will look back in awe, at what it is we would have built... and did we have the tomorrow's in mind... I hope so.  

Early on in this walk, I had talked about how it is we belong in two worlds… with one foot, we stand in this physical world of wind, rain, blue skies and grit and the other foot stands in that invisible world of truth and beauty of love and faith… when stepping through the doors of a cathedral that idea becomes a little more real… outside the world keeps on spinning, twirling, dancing through a nightclub full of stars. Inside the cathedral, you enter a different realm… the noise level drops, the air is a little cooler, there is a sense of stillness… and for the moment, a chance to step away from the dancefloor… to take a breather.

I wonder... how is it a cathedral always looks bigger on the inside than it is on the outside… There is a sense of time standing still… it feels as if I could be standing on ground a thousand years either side of now (…a time machine without the Daleks). We both sit down for a moment… The stone walls and pillars of this cathedral, the high ceilings, the light coming through the stained-glass windows, the many candles flickering, all challenge me to become a better person than what it is I am… I close my eyes… It’s a curious thing, the idea of wanting to be who it is we are, only better; it would seem, that is how we are put together. It is not hard to imagine a time when this cathedral was still a building site, I see a stonemason at the end of a working day, sat on a block of stone (or maybe his labourer sat on an upturned wheelbarrow) having these same kind of thoughts…that desire of wanting to be better… to do what it is we do, the best we know how… the need of wanting to do good in this world… the idea of wanting to offer up the work done that day… to a God… to an unseen world of beauty and truth… to future generations. The question is; where do all these ideas, thoughts and desires come from… We are so much more than just physical beings.

Carlo and I push ourselves up onto our feet, we can’t stay too long… we have Marion to meet up with. Again, we step through the huge wooden doors of this incredible time machine and head back out onto the dancefloor… into a world of noise and grit. Five minutes later we are sat on a bench in the grounds of Salisbury Cathedral, we dig out the sandwiches that Diane had made us this morning, a family of ducks waddle up to us… it seems wrong not to share our lunch with these guys… fifteen minutes later Marion turns up, holding three take-away coffees and a bag of pastries (yeah, you're right, I feel a little bad). We sit talking and sharing stories… the ducks are sat at our feet listening into the conversation… after half an hour, we stand up (the ducks as well) we say thank you to Marion for the coffee and cake, shake hands and head of in three different directions…hobbling, walking and waddling. Heading south out of Salisbury, we stumble across a ‘Youth Hostel’… hmm I wonder … it’s a little early, but could this be a place to stay the night… No it’s not happening the place is full… “Sorry, but please stay for tea and biscuits”… and we do… Thank you. I’m thinking maybe that unseen reality I spoke of yesterday wasn’t anticipating we were thinking of stopping in Salisbury… I am pretty sure further down the road someplace has been made ready. I guess I shouldn’t be thinking like that, but hard not to when looking back on the last thirty-seven days.

Church of St Laurence, Downton (Photo from web)

Out of town and back on the open road, the weather is good, blue skies, hedgerows and fields. We reach the village of Downton late afternoon, a settlement, like so many on this island, can trace its inhabitants back in time to the Saxons, and then back again to the Romans, and then back to the Iron Age and still further back… to Neolithic times. It was these guys from the late Neolithic period (2500 BC.) that we believe built Stonehenge… I wonder did they also at the end of a long day lean up against one of those huge stones, look up into the night sky and wonder what it was all for… were they also curious about those that had come before them, those that had created the earthwork henge, that they were now building on top of… I know this, to have built such things, tells me that they to also had some kind of understanding of that invisible world of truth, goodness and beauty… Hmm, my thoughts seem to be a little bit all over the place, I think I’m still caught up in that time machine from earlier. 

Once in the village we come across the Church of St Laurence (a church that was pretty much built yesterday… not that long after the Norman conquest of 1066)… the style a little bit Norman and a little bit Gothic. In finding the church, we make contact with the minister, a Rev. Frank Gibson, and again we share something of our story. We are told to follow him, and five minutes later, just around the corner we are at the church hall being told to make ourselves at home… there are washrooms, a small kitchen area (a kettle, teabags, milk and sugar). I know this kind of thing keeps happening time after time, but still, it is bewildering… I am knocked out the park for six every time… and still I don’t know how better to say thank you. We set up base camp, have a wash and put the kettle on… sat on a chair with a brew in hand, Carlo asks me “Today and yesterday… is that how your days finish?” “Not every day, but most of the days have finished with a roof over my head”. “Really… whaa”… Yeah, I can go along with that.

We head back out, in the hope of finding a bite to eat… a bag of chips maybe. Just around the corner from the church hall there is a pub called ‘The Kings Arms’. We look at each other, hesitate for a moment and then step inside. The pub is quiet, we walk up to the bar and again explain ourselves to the lady behind the counter… with the hope of being given a sandwich (this part of the walk I don’t find easy). “Does sausage, egg, chips and beans sound good”… “Wow, Thank you so much”. Tasha (that is her name) smiles and simply says “That’s ok”.

Later back at the church hall, sitting on my sleeping bag, legs stretched out in front of me, a mug of tea alongside, leaning up against the wall (or was it a block of stone, maybe an upturned wheelbarrow… I’m not sure). I close my eyes, and as best I can imagine stepping into that unseen world where truth and beauty, love and faith are caught up in some intimate dance. I think many times we over complicate faith… to step back into that time machine and to go back to the dawn of time ‘Genesis’, God’s first words were “Let there be light”… (and there was). And then after each different stage of creation, God saw that it was good… I wonder… could faith be as simple as that. Yeah, I know I’m just a truck driver... but what if that light represents… Truth… Beauty… Goodness… and I guess above all that stuff they call Love (... and when we open our eyes each morning to such a light, is that not something to say thank you for)... and what if we lived in such a way, that like God we saw the good in the world around us… we didn’t judge, compare or look down on others, but instead saw the best in the people around us.

Carlo gives my leg a tap “Hey dreamer, you want another brew”. “Yeah, that would be great… thanks”... I guess that'll be me back in the world of teabags and grit.

 

Day thirty-seven

 6th June 2009     ENGLAND

Let us not forget

These last five or so weeks I have woken up on the moors, in woodlands, fields and meadows… sheds, bothies and barns… a porter cabin, a fire station, in the back room of a pub, a train station in Scotland and a workhouse in Wales …in the homes of strangers… the night before last in the home of a friend not seen for many years… not forgetting the youth hostels, hotels and churches. Today I add to that list by waking up in an Edwardian manor house… it would seem, home is where I hang my hat… and where it is I kick off my worn-out boots at the end of each day (…the hat being my imaginary cloth cap). In a dormitory, I lay in a bottom bunk, again with hands behind my head, listening to this old house waking up, people talking, floorboards creaking, doors opening and shutting, pipes banging, the thud of someone crash landing from a top bunk, and of others laughing… no sound of any swallows this morning. 

In the big hall downstairs, the breakfast table is set. Carlo already has a handful of logs crackling away in the stone fireplace. People come down the stairs in dribs and drabs, some head for the warmth of the hearth, others (that are not yet properly awake) sink into the old sofas near the bay windows and some are already sat at the far end of the breakfast table. Another twenty minutes everyone is sat around the table, grace is said, and we break-fast. Toast, milk, jam, sugar, cereals, teapots and more all move up and down the table like some chaotic chess game... everybody wins, nobody goes hungry. While helping to clear the table, Carlo asked me how many more days I have before I reach the south coast. “Four days, that includes today… you should come along”. Carlo smiles “When are you leaving”. “Just need to pack my bag and that’ll be me… ten minutes”. 

Ten minutes later and the bag is packed, a photo is taken outside the house with some of the guys… I cannot help but wonder at what they thought of this (not so young) guy and his stories of Gruffalos and Angels… that said there was one here who knew something of my story and that was Amalia, she with her dad, Omar, had met me outside Carrickfergus Castle in Northern Ireland, a number of weeks back (that was on Day 17… it was Omar that had given me the money for the ferry ticket, so as I could get back across the ocean and into Wales… again I say a quiet “Thank you”). And what of my thoughts as I bid farewell to these (annoyingly) young faces… it is one of hope, each one of these guys an inspiration, I see them helping to create a better… a kinder world. I wonder at what adventures and stories they will bring back to this old house in twenty years from now.  

Outside this big old house and with collar up, bag over one shoulder, I look to find Carlo and Barbara, to say thank you for allowing me to stay the night… as I turn around, I see Carlo stepping out the front door, walking boots on and a bag over his shoulders. “You did say, I should come along… that is if you're still OK with that”. “Whaa”… I hear myself laugh and with a big grin on my face, I say “Yeah yeah of course… glad to have you on board”. And with that the two of us head up the driveway… not sure what Barbara thought of the idea. It will be good to share something of this walk with another.

Carlo is not only a little older than me, but he is also a little quicker than me, I am a step or two behind, and wondering if I can keep this pace up for another four days. Things were looking grim… I’m thinking this ex RAF mountain rescue guy is going to have to swallow his pride and ask Carlo to slow down a little… only I don’t have to, without saying anything, I think Carlo realizes that I have been pretty much on the go / none stop for a good number of weeks, and that of course the guy behind him (me) is going to be slowing down a little… Carlo drops down a gear… in my head I say thank you.. for understanding that I didn’t want to have to say ‘can you slow down’… Things were looking grim but they’re looking good again… it’s not always easy to swallow your pride. The weather today is good for walking, not to hot… a mix of sunshine and cloud. Carlo tells me a friend has phoned him, a guy called Terry and that he is driving out to meet us… half an hour later, the three of us are sat on the side of the road, with a hot flask, chocolate bars and biscuits… hmm, a food delivery services, this bodes well… I’m kidding, thank you Terry, the treats were very much appreciated… not sure but I think the last time I tasted chocolate was a couple of weeks back, just south of Belfast… a chocolate chicken, given to me by the young Princess Erin… no I’m wrong, there was the cottage chocolate factory in North Wales… Thank you again to both. 

Walking through Salisbury Plain we pass many signs warning us of tanks and sudden gunfire. It is on these open plains the British Army gets to play with tanks (sorry, train with tanks)… It was in September 1916 when the tank first rolled on to a battlefield, it was during the Battle of the Somme in The Great War (WW1)… a war that would end all wars…sadly that never happened... a hundred years on, and tanks are still being used on battlegrounds around the world. My dad was in the military, my three brothers also… Navy, Army and Air Force and I as well… that said I still wonder how many more shells need to fly from the cannon of a tank before they are forever banned. 

On this walk I have passed through many a small village each one unique and yet at the same time, kinda similar… most of them will have a village green, a church, a Post office, a pub, a corner shop, and many still have an old red telephone box, but what it is they all seem to have without exception is a war memorial made from stone, with the names of those killed in the First World War engraved into that stone… and twenty years later we did it all again… World War Two… the stone engravers dug out their chisels and hammers and added a whole many more names to those memorials. There are over 100,000 war memorials registered in the UK (and that’s just in the UK). It is estimated somewhere between seventy and eighty-five million people perished in those two wars… a number hard to get your head around… how to make sense of that… other than to say… to many people have died.

Although Carlo had slowed his walking down, he is still setting a good pace, probably not a bad thing… I’m thinking that I was maybe slowing down a little too much… my hands are no longer buried in my pockets and the kicking stones, that’s not happening anymore. Carlo has introduced a little more discipline back into the walking. As we walk, we talk… I have a lot of respect for Carlo, he’s a guy who has taken his faith and has made it apart of how it is he is lives his life… me I try to do the same, but I know I’m not there yet… like this walk I am a good number of steps behind Carlo (… more than a good number). We walk into the village of Tilshead and find a pub called the Rose and Crown, we step inside, explain ourselves and again people give… after thirty-seven days, I am no closer to knowing how better to say thank you. It is always good to sit down with a pot of tea… we look at the map, there are a number of place we could aim for before the day is done, figured we would play it by ear, let the legs call the shots… the tea is gone all too soon, the thank you’s are said and that’s us back on the open road walking over the plains… the skies are looking good, just needing to keep an eye out for any rouge tanks… I’m hoping they don’t hunt in packs.

It is hard not to think about the military when walking through this part of the UK. Salisbury Plain was purchased by the ‘War Office’ (now called the Ministry of Defence) that was over a hundred plus years ago, for the purpose of training the armed forces… the wider county of Wiltshire has always had a strong connection with the military (the Romans would have known this place well)…  

…I again think about the thousands of War Memorials scattered throughout these islands.
Long before the wars of the twentieth century… a number of War Memorials did exist up and down this land, only then these monuments were built to celebrate famous battles and the officer’s from both the Navy and the Army that had led and fought in those battles… the names of the lower ranks… the common man… the many who had fallen in such conflicts were not recorded on these monuments. It was only after the Boer War (1899 -1902) that attitudes began to change. The turning point was the First World War (1914 -1918)… with the sheer numbers killed in that conflict, it felt no longer right to celebrate such things… the nation was grieving (pretty much every family had lost somebody). The logistics of bringing so many of the dead back home was close to impossible. The solution was to create cemeteries close to the battlefield where they had died… the downside of this, was that families back home didn’t have a gravestone nearby, a place to focus their grief or to lay flowers… and that is how the War Memorials we see today came about, most were funded by local communities. The names of the fallen engraved into stone… not for the purpose of celebration but instead to be remembered… and their sacrifices not forgotten.

The road is long, my legs and boots are worn and Carlo is fast… but all is good… again we talk about this and that, we share some stories, we laugh… at what I don’t know … and other times we walk quietly, wrapped up in our own thoughts. Tanks aside, Salisbury Plain is a peaceful place, a vast open space in the middle of what is a crowded part of this island… huge skies and open moors… there is something a little special about this area. It is on these plains that two and a half maybe three thousand years ago, early Mesolithic hunter-gathers (over I don’t know how many generations) built the iconic Stonehenge… I wonder at why it is they chose this place… it is believed some of the stones (weighing between 2 to 5 tons each) came from the Preseli Hills in Wales, that’s over a hundred and forty mile away (…wow that would have been some blog to read). We are missing something; these guys were far more than just hunter-gathers… they understood something more about how this world (this reality) works, than what we give them credit for… you don’t drag heavy stones across country for a hundred miles and more for no reason at all.

I am taken out of my thoughts by the ping of Carlo’s phone, a message from a guy called Andy… he would like to meet us… this is all good… an hour later or thereabouts we meet Andy just outside the small village of Shrewton… sandwiches, tea and biscuits. Thank you, Andy… very much appreciated. 

Back on quiet roads and no more than a few hours we walk into the village of Winterbourn Stoke, passing a church called St. Peters we see a sign ‘Cream Teas in the Church All Welcome’. Carlo and I look at each other and with a quiet nod of understanding, we head into the church… there is a table to one side with a tea earn, homemade cake and biscuits… the welcome is incredibly warm, a few moments later we are sat on a pew with a cup of cream tea, a saucer and a slice of cake. Paul, a church elder sits with us, intrigued by our story, asks if we have a place to stay the night and offers us the summer house in his garden. “Wow… thank you, we would really appreciate that, Thank you so much”. 

We walk back with Paul to his home; he introduces us to his wife Diane and then shows us the summer house… It may sound daft (and maybe a little arrogant)… but time and time again it has felt that a reality I don’t understand has been one step ahead of me on this walk… getting things ready… anticipating where the day would end... Yeah I know, that all sounds a little spiritual and it’s not really what I am… I’m a truck driver, feet on the ground kinda guy… for things to fall into place once in a while, I get that… but time after time… that’s a little more than just chance, I would say that’s bordering on the spooky... Paul and Diane let us get settled in, and an hour later they bring out soup, toast and tea… “Thank you”.

That night it seems to take forever to fall asleep… it is hard to imagine the tens of thousands of young men that had died on the battlefields of Europe, the beaches of northern France and other faraway places (thousands of them no older than the guys I had shared breakfast with this morning)… many would have died, never knowing what it was to have danced with a girl or to feel the butterflies in their stomachs as this girl (a girl they had never met nor never will do) reaches out her hand, and what of that impossible smile they would never see… they would never get to know what it is to hold their own child. That is what they gave up… that is some sacrifice… and that is why we don’t forget. 

How is it (for me anyway) easier to better understand tragedy when looking at an individual and not the thousands that were caught up in it… in my head I see another guy dying on some other battlefield, reaching to the inside pocket of his trench coat, and pulling out a letter from a girl by the name of Veronica... Bang Bang… ‘I really wanna hold her’… and somehow knowing that’s not going to happen (not in this world anyway). Sometimes we grumble at the stupidest of things or we get on our high horse about stuff that in the bigger scheme of things really doesn’t matter at all. I cannot begin to imagine sitting in a trench that is being heavily bombed, with the dead and the wounded all around me… and wondering if I would ever get to see my little ones again… to hold them tight… Yeah, before we grumble at what it is we don’t have or about the stuff that doesn’t really matter… let us stop a moment and look around at what it is we do have... and what it is that does matter.

… it’s the middle of the night, I’m wide awake, in a sleeping bag, in a shed (sorry… in a summer house), in a small town that I don’t know… yet all is good… I have a full belly, a roof over my head, outside there are no bombs falling, no bullets flying. Back home in Scotland, two little girls are waiting for their dad to come home… and he will… I feel a huge amount of gratitude and a sense of responsibility to those that came before.

Hmm… gratitude and responsibility… add a third component… the ability to love, and we have something here… A solid foundation… the beginning of a faith… the start of a journey… the what it is we need to live the best life we can live… and maybe, just maybe in doing that we can help to create a better… a kinder world.