-- Doctor Franklin, Babylon 5
I’ve recently been enjoying two different kinds of journey on “Book of the Week” on BBC Radio 4. But there are commonalities. Both writers are determined to set out on a journey of discovery, and it is as much an interior journey and an exterior one. The Socratic injunction - "know thyself" - is never far away.
I remember Bishop John Tayor back in the 1980s saying how wonderful travel was, even if a long flight left you jet-lagged, but the disadvantage of our speedy world was that we brought so much of ourselves with us. By way of contrast, he cites Captain Cook who on his year long journey on the Endeavour, would have acclimatised more to the changing world so that he could see it through fresh eyes. How much more true this is today, when we hardly go anywhere without the technology to keep us connected to our virtual world.
And yet we are also poorer because of it. When I go for a walk, albeit not a massively long one, I don’t glance at my phone, I don’t listen to music on my earphones. If I did, what would be the point of the walk? I might as well be at the gym on a treadmill. A walk, or any journey where there is time taken to pause, to breath, is to open our eyes to the world around us in new and unexpected ways.
These are narratives of two journeys where the writers did just that.
The Stopping Places by Damian Le Bas
Summary
Damian Le Bas inhabits an awkward middle ground between the non-gypsy world and his own traveller / gypsy heritage. He grew up in West Sussex in a house built by his grandfather on land the family owned, surrounded by a field that was half car-breaking business, half farmyard. Scattered bits of engines lay alongside bales of hay, brand new trucks were surrounded by geese and terriers. But twice a week they drove an hour each way to their family pitch in the market square of Petersfield where they sold flowers.
Along the way, his elders would nod towards lay-bys and verges, naming them as they passed. These were the 'atchin tans' or stopping places. His great grandmother, Nan, explained to him that they were the places where she and her family used to live in the days of wagons and bender tents. Sometimes they would stop for a few days, other times for a few years.
Damian's parents both had faith in education and, when they saw that he was bright, he applied for for a full scholarship at the nearby boarding school - Christ's Hospital - which led to ten grade A O-Levels, A Levels and theology at Oxford.
Damian was now firmly an outsider in both worlds. But having plundered the Bodleian Library for histories of gypsies, he felt the need to get out into the world and discover the topography of his ancestors. So he with his Nan's blessing he set out to visit the stopping places, sometimes alone and sometimes accompanied by his wife Candis. As we follow his journey, we also learn about the history of the gypsies and their marginalised place in society today.
Commentary
This book is all about finding roots, in this case, by going along well-travelled routes! But the world as described by Le Bas’ nan is not quite the world of today, or even of his own memory or imagination, and sometimes what was bathed in a summer sun of a golden past turns out more mundane and not quite as how he expected. It is an interesting book, exploring both Gypsy heritage (as handed down to him) and the journey that they would have taken in the old days, on the open road. The two strands weave together like a tapestry.
This book is one of the few to explore Romany culture from the insider’s perspective, from the point of view of someone of Gypsy stock, but that is not to denigrate some of the better studies from the past. “Gypsies of Britain: An Introduction to Their History” by Brian Vesey Fitzgerald is still, in my view, an excellent study of Romany culture, taboo, customs etc in Britain particularly around the 1920s and 1930s and in the revised edition up to the 1950s and early 1960s.
This is a mental journey as much as a physical journey, but on the way, the past is brought vividly to life. We are physical human beings, and sometimes to search for roots needs to follow footsteps of our ancestors, so that we can see things as they are now, and overlay what they saw then.
Summary
Damian Le Bas inhabits an awkward middle ground between the non-gypsy world and his own traveller / gypsy heritage. He grew up in West Sussex in a house built by his grandfather on land the family owned, surrounded by a field that was half car-breaking business, half farmyard. Scattered bits of engines lay alongside bales of hay, brand new trucks were surrounded by geese and terriers. But twice a week they drove an hour each way to their family pitch in the market square of Petersfield where they sold flowers.
Along the way, his elders would nod towards lay-bys and verges, naming them as they passed. These were the 'atchin tans' or stopping places. His great grandmother, Nan, explained to him that they were the places where she and her family used to live in the days of wagons and bender tents. Sometimes they would stop for a few days, other times for a few years.
Damian's parents both had faith in education and, when they saw that he was bright, he applied for for a full scholarship at the nearby boarding school - Christ's Hospital - which led to ten grade A O-Levels, A Levels and theology at Oxford.
Damian was now firmly an outsider in both worlds. But having plundered the Bodleian Library for histories of gypsies, he felt the need to get out into the world and discover the topography of his ancestors. So he with his Nan's blessing he set out to visit the stopping places, sometimes alone and sometimes accompanied by his wife Candis. As we follow his journey, we also learn about the history of the gypsies and their marginalised place in society today.
Commentary
This book is all about finding roots, in this case, by going along well-travelled routes! But the world as described by Le Bas’ nan is not quite the world of today, or even of his own memory or imagination, and sometimes what was bathed in a summer sun of a golden past turns out more mundane and not quite as how he expected. It is an interesting book, exploring both Gypsy heritage (as handed down to him) and the journey that they would have taken in the old days, on the open road. The two strands weave together like a tapestry.
This book is one of the few to explore Romany culture from the insider’s perspective, from the point of view of someone of Gypsy stock, but that is not to denigrate some of the better studies from the past. “Gypsies of Britain: An Introduction to Their History” by Brian Vesey Fitzgerald is still, in my view, an excellent study of Romany culture, taboo, customs etc in Britain particularly around the 1920s and 1930s and in the revised edition up to the 1950s and early 1960s.
This is a mental journey as much as a physical journey, but on the way, the past is brought vividly to life. We are physical human beings, and sometimes to search for roots needs to follow footsteps of our ancestors, so that we can see things as they are now, and overlay what they saw then.
The Crossway by Guy Stagg
Summary
An epic journey, but also an intimate one. After several years of mental illness, Guy Stagg set off one morning, from London, to walk to Canterbury. Ill-prepared and not entirely clear why he was doing this, he nevertheless got there. Exhausted, he lay beneath the Cathedral walls and then decided to continue. A few months later, on New Year's Day, 2013, he set out from Canterbury to follow the paths of the medieval pilgrims to Jerusalem.
Ten months and 5,500 kilometres later, he arrived.
This is the story of his walk. Danger and physical hardship lay in his path but he was also haunted by the memories that he sought to flee and ambushed by echoes of his breakdown.
In five extracts from his account, this reading follows some of his experiences through snow and storm across the Alps, among other pilgrims in Italy, despairing and alone in Greece, and finally to the incessant rounds of competing worship in Jerusalem.
It's a journey through the pathways of faith and recovery towards healing and understanding.
Commentary
This is another kind of journey, a search in part for healing and meaning, and at times, with almost a reckless attitude to safety and his own life, especially when crossing the alps during the onset of a snow storm.
On the way, we meet his fellow travellers, also on pilgrimage, but what pilgrimage means depends on the pilgrim. Some do it to keep fit, some to make a political protest, and some to seek some kind of penance to absolve them. Guy Stagg has no belief, and he clearly hopes for some kind of resolution to his mental illness and depression, and the feeling that he is an outsider beset by his own personal demons.
One remarkable fact which he keeps coming back to is the kindness of strangers. All sorts of people give him food and water and a bed for the night, without any agenda except to help those on a pilgrim way, and just be kind. Simple generosity like this is found all along his path, until he reaches Jerusalem, and for the first time, comes across bolted doors and religious exclusion.
In the end, he leaves Jerusalem, with its busy streets, its churches and mosques segregated into a multitude of territorial religious groups, and its tourist traps to go out into the hills, into the wilderness.
Much like the old aboriginal ritual of walkabout, he said: “I walked to mend myself.”
Summary
An epic journey, but also an intimate one. After several years of mental illness, Guy Stagg set off one morning, from London, to walk to Canterbury. Ill-prepared and not entirely clear why he was doing this, he nevertheless got there. Exhausted, he lay beneath the Cathedral walls and then decided to continue. A few months later, on New Year's Day, 2013, he set out from Canterbury to follow the paths of the medieval pilgrims to Jerusalem.
Ten months and 5,500 kilometres later, he arrived.
This is the story of his walk. Danger and physical hardship lay in his path but he was also haunted by the memories that he sought to flee and ambushed by echoes of his breakdown.
In five extracts from his account, this reading follows some of his experiences through snow and storm across the Alps, among other pilgrims in Italy, despairing and alone in Greece, and finally to the incessant rounds of competing worship in Jerusalem.
It's a journey through the pathways of faith and recovery towards healing and understanding.
Commentary
This is another kind of journey, a search in part for healing and meaning, and at times, with almost a reckless attitude to safety and his own life, especially when crossing the alps during the onset of a snow storm.
On the way, we meet his fellow travellers, also on pilgrimage, but what pilgrimage means depends on the pilgrim. Some do it to keep fit, some to make a political protest, and some to seek some kind of penance to absolve them. Guy Stagg has no belief, and he clearly hopes for some kind of resolution to his mental illness and depression, and the feeling that he is an outsider beset by his own personal demons.
One remarkable fact which he keeps coming back to is the kindness of strangers. All sorts of people give him food and water and a bed for the night, without any agenda except to help those on a pilgrim way, and just be kind. Simple generosity like this is found all along his path, until he reaches Jerusalem, and for the first time, comes across bolted doors and religious exclusion.
In the end, he leaves Jerusalem, with its busy streets, its churches and mosques segregated into a multitude of territorial religious groups, and its tourist traps to go out into the hills, into the wilderness.
Much like the old aboriginal ritual of walkabout, he said: “I walked to mend myself.”
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