Wednesday 23rd May
Glenthorne – Welcombe – Morwenstow
I wake on the cusp of dawn, flip myself one hundred and eighty degrees, and unzip the tent to see what’s happening outside my canvas realm. The horizon is a sort of grainy lemon, both dirty and clean, and I can just about make out the Welsh coast the other side of the Bristol Channel – well, I presume that Wales. Even if Jesus never landed on this beach, some of those Welsh saints definitely did, in their evangelical coracles or evangelical equivalents. I lie in bed scanning the horizon, wondering where and when the sun will rise, but then I wake again, and the sun’s already up and at it.
I’m out of drinking water, but a little way up the beach there’s a stream gushing from some rocks, and I decide to chance it. Water drunk straight from a stream can be quite a delight, but I’ve also got hedgerow-splatteringly sick before from drinking dodgy supplies. And the lower downstream you drink it, the greater the risk. I’m guessing the main risk is always that there’s a dead old sheep somewhere upstream, leaking its putrefying fluids into the fresh and innocent lamb-like currents. I haven’t really got much of a choice.
The sea’s a fair bit choppier today, and the air is already quite warm. I have a little splash in the waves, say my prayers, do some meditation and chi kung, have breakfast, do the washing up in the mini-waterfall, and then go exploring.
There’s an intriguing and overgrown ruin near the beach, which I just can’t work out. It’s got two very large entrances – maybe it was some sort of a boat house – and a deep stone nook, that looks a bit like a fire place but without a chimney, and with a tiny square opening at the back, like a little window. And the whole place makes me feel really sad. Sentimentally sad – all the effort that went into building this building, now wasted and ruined. I get a sense of a human community that couldn’t quite hack it here. A loneliness, too. A forgotten place and a forgotten time. Proper, unexpected melancholy descends upon me.
Back at the tent, I consider the Map of Possibilities: Hawker’s Hut or St Nectan’s Glen next? Maybe both – I’ll see how the lifts go.
On my way out I swing by Glenthorne Farm, just out of nosiness, disobey a no trespassing sign because I can’t be arsed to retrace my steps, and follow a track that snakes and climbs slowly out of the deep valley and up onto the edges of Exmoor. My pack feels like a ton and it’s a long, hard, thankless slog, with no one to cheer me on. My mate Nick says that back in the day they used to deposit criminals on this part of the coast, because there was no way they’d find their way out. I’m not too sure if my mate Nick counts as a reliable historical source.
It’s been a marvellous little hiking detour, Porlock to Glenthorne, but hiking with your home on your back – kitchen, larder, bedroom, bedding, clothing, office, bookshelf, water and all – is fucking hard work. By the time I reach the civilisation of a tarmacadam road, I’m knackered and drenched in sweat, so I sit down on my rucksack to cool and dry off. I pull out that little book I bought in Glastonbury – Ho’oponopono by Ulrich E Duprée, subtitled: The Hawaiian forgiveness ritual as the key to your life’s fulfilment.
I can’t quite work out how much of what he writes is genuine Hawaiian teaching and how much is his own interpretation and fusion with his own mix and match metaphysical system, but I find it opening up a sweet space inside me – a space that I didn’t realise needed to be opened. “Forgiveness releases us,” he writes. “It frees us from a burden that either we cannot carry or do not want to carry. Who would want to live their life with a big backpack on their shoulders, full of problems, old conflicts and fears?”
With a metaphor like that, he’s definitely got my attention. So I stay sitting on my rucksack, by the side of a very quiet A39, reading about forgiveness, whilst the sweat dries out of my shirt and underwear. “Forgiveness heals and makes life easier. Above all, forgiveness is a gift that we give to ourselves...”
I’ve always been interested in forgiveness. It seems to be one of the most remarkable activities that a human being can take part in – whether it’s forgiving or being forgiven. Have you ever asked for forgiveness, and then received it? How amazing is that? Have you ever forgiven someone, and really meant it? Isn’t the sense of liberation sweet? Conversely, harbouring bitterness is one of the worst feelings ever – whether it’s my own vindictive bitterness and inability to let go, or hanging out with someone who’s leaking their own bitter brew.
Back in my Christian days, forgiveness was about sin and about the cancellation of punishment. In fact, the Christian story that I was sold as a boy was founded on a very strange storyline indeed: that we human beings are sinners by birth and nature and deed, deserving punishment from a righteous God, but that this righteous God sent his only son to take on our punishment, thus atoning for our sins, and thus allowing us into right relationship with this punishing yet loving God – with the promise of everlasting life in heaven at the end of it all, backed up by the threat of everlasting hell. Later on, when I studied theology at university, I learned that this was just one interpretation of the mystery of Jesus’ atonement, but it had already gone quite deep inside me. It took quite a while to poultice its poison from my system. If the God of Love is threatening to punish you, that ain’t love. And if you’re loving God out of fear of punishment, that ain’t love neither. I really wish Christianity would ditch that shit – and especially not poison children with it. That’s unconditional love upon the cross, my friends – love without any conditions.
During my subsequent atheist political activist days, I was far more interested in justice than forgiveness, but once I realised I was as fucked up as the world “out there”, and in need of profound healing myself, forgiveness once again entered my vocabulary and life. Because forgiveness seems to me to be crucial to genuine healing. Some of the most powerful – and jaw-dropping – moments in my life have revolved around forgiveness. Sometimes it’s as if the Universe sings hymns when we genuinely forgive one another – it’s up there with making love, giving birth and embracing death.
Duprée introduces a simple Ho’oponopono prayer, which I realise I’ve heard before in song, but with the lines possibly in a different order:
I’m out of drinking water, but a little way up the beach there’s a stream gushing from some rocks, and I decide to chance it. Water drunk straight from a stream can be quite a delight, but I’ve also got hedgerow-splatteringly sick before from drinking dodgy supplies. And the lower downstream you drink it, the greater the risk. I’m guessing the main risk is always that there’s a dead old sheep somewhere upstream, leaking its putrefying fluids into the fresh and innocent lamb-like currents. I haven’t really got much of a choice.
The sea’s a fair bit choppier today, and the air is already quite warm. I have a little splash in the waves, say my prayers, do some meditation and chi kung, have breakfast, do the washing up in the mini-waterfall, and then go exploring.
There’s an intriguing and overgrown ruin near the beach, which I just can’t work out. It’s got two very large entrances – maybe it was some sort of a boat house – and a deep stone nook, that looks a bit like a fire place but without a chimney, and with a tiny square opening at the back, like a little window. And the whole place makes me feel really sad. Sentimentally sad – all the effort that went into building this building, now wasted and ruined. I get a sense of a human community that couldn’t quite hack it here. A loneliness, too. A forgotten place and a forgotten time. Proper, unexpected melancholy descends upon me.
Back at the tent, I consider the Map of Possibilities: Hawker’s Hut or St Nectan’s Glen next? Maybe both – I’ll see how the lifts go.
On my way out I swing by Glenthorne Farm, just out of nosiness, disobey a no trespassing sign because I can’t be arsed to retrace my steps, and follow a track that snakes and climbs slowly out of the deep valley and up onto the edges of Exmoor. My pack feels like a ton and it’s a long, hard, thankless slog, with no one to cheer me on. My mate Nick says that back in the day they used to deposit criminals on this part of the coast, because there was no way they’d find their way out. I’m not too sure if my mate Nick counts as a reliable historical source.
It’s been a marvellous little hiking detour, Porlock to Glenthorne, but hiking with your home on your back – kitchen, larder, bedroom, bedding, clothing, office, bookshelf, water and all – is fucking hard work. By the time I reach the civilisation of a tarmacadam road, I’m knackered and drenched in sweat, so I sit down on my rucksack to cool and dry off. I pull out that little book I bought in Glastonbury – Ho’oponopono by Ulrich E Duprée, subtitled: The Hawaiian forgiveness ritual as the key to your life’s fulfilment.
I can’t quite work out how much of what he writes is genuine Hawaiian teaching and how much is his own interpretation and fusion with his own mix and match metaphysical system, but I find it opening up a sweet space inside me – a space that I didn’t realise needed to be opened. “Forgiveness releases us,” he writes. “It frees us from a burden that either we cannot carry or do not want to carry. Who would want to live their life with a big backpack on their shoulders, full of problems, old conflicts and fears?”
With a metaphor like that, he’s definitely got my attention. So I stay sitting on my rucksack, by the side of a very quiet A39, reading about forgiveness, whilst the sweat dries out of my shirt and underwear. “Forgiveness heals and makes life easier. Above all, forgiveness is a gift that we give to ourselves...”
I’ve always been interested in forgiveness. It seems to be one of the most remarkable activities that a human being can take part in – whether it’s forgiving or being forgiven. Have you ever asked for forgiveness, and then received it? How amazing is that? Have you ever forgiven someone, and really meant it? Isn’t the sense of liberation sweet? Conversely, harbouring bitterness is one of the worst feelings ever – whether it’s my own vindictive bitterness and inability to let go, or hanging out with someone who’s leaking their own bitter brew.
Back in my Christian days, forgiveness was about sin and about the cancellation of punishment. In fact, the Christian story that I was sold as a boy was founded on a very strange storyline indeed: that we human beings are sinners by birth and nature and deed, deserving punishment from a righteous God, but that this righteous God sent his only son to take on our punishment, thus atoning for our sins, and thus allowing us into right relationship with this punishing yet loving God – with the promise of everlasting life in heaven at the end of it all, backed up by the threat of everlasting hell. Later on, when I studied theology at university, I learned that this was just one interpretation of the mystery of Jesus’ atonement, but it had already gone quite deep inside me. It took quite a while to poultice its poison from my system. If the God of Love is threatening to punish you, that ain’t love. And if you’re loving God out of fear of punishment, that ain’t love neither. I really wish Christianity would ditch that shit – and especially not poison children with it. That’s unconditional love upon the cross, my friends – love without any conditions.
During my subsequent atheist political activist days, I was far more interested in justice than forgiveness, but once I realised I was as fucked up as the world “out there”, and in need of profound healing myself, forgiveness once again entered my vocabulary and life. Because forgiveness seems to me to be crucial to genuine healing. Some of the most powerful – and jaw-dropping – moments in my life have revolved around forgiveness. Sometimes it’s as if the Universe sings hymns when we genuinely forgive one another – it’s up there with making love, giving birth and embracing death.
Duprée introduces a simple Ho’oponopono prayer, which I realise I’ve heard before in song, but with the lines possibly in a different order:
I am sorry
Please forgive me
I love you
Thank you
Please forgive me
I love you
Thank you
Wow. That’s a strong prayer. Each line is a corker.
I think about all those judgments I made of those homeless men back in Glastonbury. I’m not proud of my judgmental self – and I’m sure it once served a purpose – but it’s part of me. A sort of subconscious part – but still part of me. I’ve got to own it and deal with it. So, I turn to face roughly in the direction of Glastonbury, and say the prayer out loud, with as much heart as I can muster. I feel truly sorry for being such a judgmental git. That’s the last thing a homeless person needs: judgment. And as I say the prayer out loud, earnestly, several times, I feel a slight release – or pulse – in both my belly and my heart, as if some invisible cords have been cut. And I somehow know that forgiveness has been enacted between me and those men – and, quite delightfully, a quiet pulse of love follows in the wake of the pulse of release.
Wow, that’s a powerful prayer. Strong medicine.
And maybe that’s what forgiveness is? Not the wiping out of some sinful debt, but the releasing of invisible cords that somehow bind us. Maybe it’s as simple as that?
I think of Jesus upon the cross, saying out loud, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” That’s quite a thing to be able to say whilst you’re being vilified and crucified. Maybe that’s part of forgiveness too – the recognition that we wrong one another fundamentally out of ignorance. Not knowing what we do. Ignorant of the effects of our actions and attitudes on others. Ignorant of our connection to others. Ignorant of who we truly are.
Hmmm. I’m really grateful that this theme of forgiveness has been opened up so early on in the journey. Its presence feels rich.
I now have two simple travelling prayers in my travelling prayer bag: Thây’s mindful breathing prayer and this little Ho’oponopono forgiveness prayer.
Breath. Presence. Forgiveness.
Breath. Presence. Forgiveness.
Breath, Presence and Forgiveness are now three of my travelling companions. Like characters from my very own Pilgrim’s Progress!
My sweaty clothes have just about dried out, and it’s time to get hitching. There’s a pull-in place just behind me, but a blind bend in front of me too. It might work, but probably won’t. I decide to give it a go with a simple PLEASE. The first vehicle to appear from around the bend is a van going way too fast to stop, and I realise that this is actually a crap place to hitch, but then he slams on his anchors, screeches and scrunches to a halt, and invites me to hop in. He’s a quiet old Devon boy, happy chat, and equally happy not to chat.
My default position when hitching is to chat – it almost feels like an obligation, like your ticket to ride – but I feel strangely comfortable with this man, travelling in and out of silence. He reminds me of some of the old men in Lincolnshire that you sometimes meet whilst out walking, or even at a bar, and how they’re happy to let silence to settle between you, especially if there’s nothing to be said. We go down, through, up and out of Lynton and Lynmouth – this part of the world is all new to me – and he drops me off at the Old Station House Inn at Blackmoor Gate. Where I make the mistake of ordering a pint of Exmoor Ale and a veggie burger and chips.
I’ve had Exmoor Ale before, and it wasn’t as lifeless as this, and the veggie burger looks like – forgive the description – a bread-crumbed patty of vomit, replete with undigested sweet corn pieces. I smother it all with English mustard, and hope for the least worst. Well, the pub garden sure has a magnificent view, and the chef is supremely jolly, but even a double espresso and a thorough tooth brushing can’t erase the rancid taste of the burger and the staleness of the beer from my palate. If I was carrying a paraffin stove, I’d be sorely tempted to gargle on a slug of paraffin right now.
I feel slightly sick. Time to press on. I suspect A39 PLEASE will suffice. The second car pulls over. Both ex-hitchers – hitched around Ireland several times back in their younger days – they’ve just been out to sea to see the guillemots and razorbills, and are now returning home to Westward Ho!, which I put on my list of places to visit another time, because the way the describe it, it sounds like quite a whacky and architecturally entertaining place – as well as being the only place name in Britain with an official exclamation mark!
My next lift only takes me a couple of miles down the road to Horns Cross, but she introduces me to the word grockle – south-western for tourist – and says I really must go to Clovelly to see the Angel Wing bench. I’m half-tempted, but decide to press on to Morwenstow. A young man drops me off at the Old Smithy Inn at Derracot, where I down two pints of water in a row, followed by a half of a very tasty local beer called Litehouse, from the Forge Brewery near Bude. A father and daughter, fresh from surfing, then take me half a mile towards Welcombe, but from here the only way to get to Morwenstow is by foot, along a road “unfit for motors”.
I pack up my hitching sign, tighten my straps, and set off down a narrow, sun-speckled and hedgerow-cooled lane which eventually leads down and past a beautiful and lonely farmhouse, outside of which a woman is sitting in the golden evening sun, like a scene from the book that she’s reading. At the bottom of the lane there’s a bay through which a stream that could be a river snakes into the sea, and over the stream that could be a river is a troll bridge, on the other side of which a wooden sign announces CORNWALL KERNOW. I pay the troll the princely sum of a groat and a silver darning needle – I usually find it pays to be generous to trolls – and am just about to cross the county border, when I get chatting to a passing walker. When she learns of my quest for Hawker’s Hut, she points back north – “Well, if you’re into seaside huts, you should definitely visit Ronald Duncan’s hut first.” And there, on the top of the hilly cliff behind me is perched a little stone hut, its large sea-facing windows glinting back at the burning sun. “He was a poet, and a conscientious objector during the war, and had some sort of commune down here in the valley.” As if reading my mind, she adds, “It’s well worth the climb.”
I ditch my rucksack in the valley and enjoy the steep climb – it’s almost worth carrying a heavy load for hours just to get that ten-minute sprightly mountain goat hit.
It is a gorgeous hut. Solid stone, with a million dollar view – west towards the sun-dazzled sea, which is currently creased with remarkably regular wave fronts, and south back to the green valley and its rocky beach. A vase of fresh flowers sits upon a simple writing table. Photos and poems decorate the walls, including a haiku by a passing Simon Armitage, and this one by John Moat:
Turned back at Gull Rock
by the sea’s silent drift
warned away by the bones of ghosts, the croak
and cruel warning eye of the mother bird
white-wheeling under the cliff –
there overhead
caught the cloud’s eye, the window of a shack
where still and cold as death
the poet takes stock.
There’s one of Duncan’s poems on the wall, too – The Horse. But it’s a bit naff. A vague memory of a much better poem by him knocks on my brain’s door – a poem from the vantage point of Jesus upon the cross, and part of his agony stemming from seeing what will be done in his name. But I may be making this up. A laminated A4 on the wall begins, “Poet, playwright, journalist, farmer, lover – Ronald Duncan was all of these.” And, yes, during the war he founded a community of pacifists, who farmed the Marsland valley. I wonder what it was like being a conscientious objector during the war – I can’t imagine that the locals would have been too pleased to have a proto-type hippie commune in their midst whilst their own children were off fighting. I used to be a pacifist, and say I wouldn’t have fought in the Second World War, but I’m not so sure now. Both decisions involved a particular courage.
Turns out Duncan was mates with Ezra Pound, T.S.Eliot and Benjamin Britten – for whom he wrote the libretto for “The Rape of Lucretia.” He sounds like one of those writers who, whilst known in his time, didn’t quite make the literary canon. I make a note to look up his work when this journey’s done.
As I descend back down into the valley, I find myself wondering if that farmhouse I passed was once the pacifist commune, and whether that woman I saw reading is his Duncan’s daughter. I don’t know why I wonder this – just wondering. And another wave of melancholy rolls through me. What’s this human lifespan all about, hey? Who was Ronald Duncan and what was his life about? And will my life one day be reduced to a laminated A4? I don’t know if any of my writing will survive my death, but I’d be happy to leave a handsome hut like that behind as my memorial, for sure.
And who cuts the flowers every morning, and climbs with them to this outpost, and places them in the vase upon the table, and fills the vase with clean water from their water bottle? So that passing strangers can feel welcome...
Melancholy feels like it might be connected to forgiveness, but I can’t quite fathom why.
Breath. Presence. Forgiveness.
At the bottom of the valley, the troll insists that I pay him again to cross over his bridge, pretending that we’ve never met before, and just as I’m beginning to wonder how wise it is to argue with a troll, he gives me a playful punch on the chest – “Don’t be such a gullible grockle,” he chuckles. “I never forget the face of a groat-giver, and I never forget a good darning needle neither.” And with a theatrical flourish of his stocky arm, he welcomes me into Kernow.
Sometimes I like to think that I know Britain quite well. But then I realise that to know Britain quite well is to know that it would actually take several lifetimes to know Britain quite well. And I hardly know Cornwall at all. And I can see and feel why, of all the counties of England, it’s the one with a long-standing independence movement. Even its indigenous name – Kernow – reminds you that you’re entering quite a different land. As if to emphasise the transition, I am soon surrounded by dozens of tiny orange-and-black butterflies, the likes of which I’ve never seen before.
The butterfly was mum’s favourite symbol – well, second favourite, after the cross. It’s an obvious symbol for Christianity – the transformation into a new being in Christ. I guess it’s used across the religions. Who doesn’t want to be a butterfly?
But are you prepared to die to all that you once knew in order to get your wings?
I remember once, in a session with a therapist, we explored the chrysalis stage in some detail. Apparently, when a caterpillar fashions its chrysalis – or a moth spins its cocoon – only a few of its original structures remain, whilst the bulk of its old body is broken down into protein. It’s a seemingly brutal process of self-disintegration. But then imaginal discs of imaginal cells begin to use this caterpillar protein broth in order to grow and multiply, dozens of cells becoming scores becoming thousands, becoming the eyes and legs and mouth parts and genitals and wings of the new emerging creation.
As a symbol of profound transformation, it sure takes the lepidopterous biscuit. But should a wannabe butterfly or moth resist this necessary dissolution – well, ask me about it. It ain’t a pretty sight. There are still parts of caterpillar-me kicking and screaming against the inevitability of his death, and hungering for plates stacked with caterpillar nosh.
A passing walker informs me that these tiny butterflies are called pearl-bordered fritillaries, and that their larvae feed on violets. She also tells me that the inland path to Morwenstow is far easier and quicker than the coastal one, and will also lead me to a good pub. It’s often good to get the local perspective. I think she just saved me about half a litre of sweat.
I eventually join a narrow lane, a deep tunnel of finest back-lit green, which slowly becomes wider and wider, and near to a road junction four young women in an L-plated car stop to banter, and offer to squeeze me in, but, fortunately, they’re not going in my direction. Besides, I’m sure I smell like the sweaty, smelly pilgrim that I am.
Out of the blue, I suddenly find myself walking alongside the garish satellites and giant golf balls of GCHQ Bude, chubby little secret service lambs frolicking in the foreground, and finally I make it to a large square of grass – “No overnight camping on village green by order of Morwenstow Parish Council” – on the other side of which lies the Bush Inn.
I’ve definitely earned my pint of Whakatu New Zealand Hopped Amber Maize Beer – and the only trouble with a beer this tasty is that it slips down way too easily. I order a second pint and some bread and hommous and olives to soak it all up, and one of the locals comes over to my table and asks if he can join me, and we have a great time chatting about hitching and travelling and the closing of old chapters. “I can see on your face some of what you’ve been through,” he says, “because I’ve been through something similar myself.” But we both leave it at that, and don’t go into the vulnerable details. I think I’d cry if I went into the details.
When one of the resident barflies hears of my mission, his eyes light up. Turns out that the pub was once an old monastic hostel, serving pilgrims on their way from Wales and down to Spain to do the Camino de Compastela. “Look there,” he says, pointing at a shallow sort of basin set into the wall at the end of the bar. “That’s the piscina, where the monks prepared the sacraments. And over there,” he points to a narrow window in one of the corners of the pub, “is a leper’s squint.” I go historically dizzy again. These aren’t just stories.
“Do you reckon that monastic hostels were the original pubs, then?” I ask.
“Oh, for sure. Those monks didn’t just serve communion wine. Why do you think they were always so plump and so jolly?”
He and a fellow barfly then get talking about Morwenstow’s most famous character – the Reverend Robert S Hawker – of whom they’re inordinately fond and proud. “Kept a friendly pig he did, and penned a good ditty. Rescued shipwrecked sailors, buried the drowned ones for free. And built himself a hut in the cliff out of shipwrecked timber.”
“And that’s where he’d go to scan the seas during storms, or to prepare his sermons on Saturday evenings,” adds barfly number two. “With a little bit of divine assistance, it must be said, from his pipe of finest Victorian opium.”
“He definitely put the high back into high church,” quips number one.
“And when he died,” continues number two, “all the villagers wore purple instead of the usual black, and a pink and purple flag was flown from the church tower.”
“I reckon if the Anglican Church wants to win back the countryside for Christ,” suggests number one, “it’s going to have to come up with a few more characters like him.”
“Although preferably not clerical smack heads,” says number one.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there are already a few in place,” adds number two. “It’s a remarkably broad church, after all.”
I propose a toast to the Reverend Hawker, and we all raise our glasses. For a village priest to be so fondly remembered, a hundred and forty years after his death, in his local pub, by two local barflies, is accolade indeed.
When I tell them I’m wild camping, one suggests I spend the night in Hawker’s Hut itself. “As long as you’re out by eight, I’m sure the National Trust will never know and never mind.” That’s been my plan all along, but it’s good to have a local blessing on my imminent misdemeanour.
By the time I leave the pub, night has settled in for the night. I follow their instructions, past the dark silhouette of the village church, and soon find the hut, cut into a bank on top of the cliff, lined with hefty timbers, and flagged with stone. It’s a tiny but extraordinarily satisfying and stocky hut, not a proper right angle in sight, but demonstrably built to last. Nice work, Reverend Hawker.
There are the faintest smidgeons of dying sunlight upon the maritime horizon. Venus is already setting, and a pursuant half moon is descending from above. From below comes the rhythmic wash of the sea, and I can just about make out the visual play of shadowy rocks and incoming white horses. All that’s missing is my ball of opium and my faithful opium pipe.
Alarm set for six. Dodgy veggie burger aside, what a full and great day it’s been. I roll out my mat and sleeping bag on the flagstone floor, and settle down for sleep with my feet sticking out of the open door. Forgive me my trespasses, oh National Trust, as I forgive thee thine.
Ah, every poet and every priest needs a little hut by the sea...
I think about all those judgments I made of those homeless men back in Glastonbury. I’m not proud of my judgmental self – and I’m sure it once served a purpose – but it’s part of me. A sort of subconscious part – but still part of me. I’ve got to own it and deal with it. So, I turn to face roughly in the direction of Glastonbury, and say the prayer out loud, with as much heart as I can muster. I feel truly sorry for being such a judgmental git. That’s the last thing a homeless person needs: judgment. And as I say the prayer out loud, earnestly, several times, I feel a slight release – or pulse – in both my belly and my heart, as if some invisible cords have been cut. And I somehow know that forgiveness has been enacted between me and those men – and, quite delightfully, a quiet pulse of love follows in the wake of the pulse of release.
Wow, that’s a powerful prayer. Strong medicine.
And maybe that’s what forgiveness is? Not the wiping out of some sinful debt, but the releasing of invisible cords that somehow bind us. Maybe it’s as simple as that?
I think of Jesus upon the cross, saying out loud, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” That’s quite a thing to be able to say whilst you’re being vilified and crucified. Maybe that’s part of forgiveness too – the recognition that we wrong one another fundamentally out of ignorance. Not knowing what we do. Ignorant of the effects of our actions and attitudes on others. Ignorant of our connection to others. Ignorant of who we truly are.
Hmmm. I’m really grateful that this theme of forgiveness has been opened up so early on in the journey. Its presence feels rich.
I now have two simple travelling prayers in my travelling prayer bag: Thây’s mindful breathing prayer and this little Ho’oponopono forgiveness prayer.
Breath. Presence. Forgiveness.
Breath. Presence. Forgiveness.
Breath, Presence and Forgiveness are now three of my travelling companions. Like characters from my very own Pilgrim’s Progress!
My sweaty clothes have just about dried out, and it’s time to get hitching. There’s a pull-in place just behind me, but a blind bend in front of me too. It might work, but probably won’t. I decide to give it a go with a simple PLEASE. The first vehicle to appear from around the bend is a van going way too fast to stop, and I realise that this is actually a crap place to hitch, but then he slams on his anchors, screeches and scrunches to a halt, and invites me to hop in. He’s a quiet old Devon boy, happy chat, and equally happy not to chat.
My default position when hitching is to chat – it almost feels like an obligation, like your ticket to ride – but I feel strangely comfortable with this man, travelling in and out of silence. He reminds me of some of the old men in Lincolnshire that you sometimes meet whilst out walking, or even at a bar, and how they’re happy to let silence to settle between you, especially if there’s nothing to be said. We go down, through, up and out of Lynton and Lynmouth – this part of the world is all new to me – and he drops me off at the Old Station House Inn at Blackmoor Gate. Where I make the mistake of ordering a pint of Exmoor Ale and a veggie burger and chips.
I’ve had Exmoor Ale before, and it wasn’t as lifeless as this, and the veggie burger looks like – forgive the description – a bread-crumbed patty of vomit, replete with undigested sweet corn pieces. I smother it all with English mustard, and hope for the least worst. Well, the pub garden sure has a magnificent view, and the chef is supremely jolly, but even a double espresso and a thorough tooth brushing can’t erase the rancid taste of the burger and the staleness of the beer from my palate. If I was carrying a paraffin stove, I’d be sorely tempted to gargle on a slug of paraffin right now.
I feel slightly sick. Time to press on. I suspect A39 PLEASE will suffice. The second car pulls over. Both ex-hitchers – hitched around Ireland several times back in their younger days – they’ve just been out to sea to see the guillemots and razorbills, and are now returning home to Westward Ho!, which I put on my list of places to visit another time, because the way the describe it, it sounds like quite a whacky and architecturally entertaining place – as well as being the only place name in Britain with an official exclamation mark!
My next lift only takes me a couple of miles down the road to Horns Cross, but she introduces me to the word grockle – south-western for tourist – and says I really must go to Clovelly to see the Angel Wing bench. I’m half-tempted, but decide to press on to Morwenstow. A young man drops me off at the Old Smithy Inn at Derracot, where I down two pints of water in a row, followed by a half of a very tasty local beer called Litehouse, from the Forge Brewery near Bude. A father and daughter, fresh from surfing, then take me half a mile towards Welcombe, but from here the only way to get to Morwenstow is by foot, along a road “unfit for motors”.
I pack up my hitching sign, tighten my straps, and set off down a narrow, sun-speckled and hedgerow-cooled lane which eventually leads down and past a beautiful and lonely farmhouse, outside of which a woman is sitting in the golden evening sun, like a scene from the book that she’s reading. At the bottom of the lane there’s a bay through which a stream that could be a river snakes into the sea, and over the stream that could be a river is a troll bridge, on the other side of which a wooden sign announces CORNWALL KERNOW. I pay the troll the princely sum of a groat and a silver darning needle – I usually find it pays to be generous to trolls – and am just about to cross the county border, when I get chatting to a passing walker. When she learns of my quest for Hawker’s Hut, she points back north – “Well, if you’re into seaside huts, you should definitely visit Ronald Duncan’s hut first.” And there, on the top of the hilly cliff behind me is perched a little stone hut, its large sea-facing windows glinting back at the burning sun. “He was a poet, and a conscientious objector during the war, and had some sort of commune down here in the valley.” As if reading my mind, she adds, “It’s well worth the climb.”
I ditch my rucksack in the valley and enjoy the steep climb – it’s almost worth carrying a heavy load for hours just to get that ten-minute sprightly mountain goat hit.
It is a gorgeous hut. Solid stone, with a million dollar view – west towards the sun-dazzled sea, which is currently creased with remarkably regular wave fronts, and south back to the green valley and its rocky beach. A vase of fresh flowers sits upon a simple writing table. Photos and poems decorate the walls, including a haiku by a passing Simon Armitage, and this one by John Moat:
Turned back at Gull Rock
by the sea’s silent drift
warned away by the bones of ghosts, the croak
and cruel warning eye of the mother bird
white-wheeling under the cliff –
there overhead
caught the cloud’s eye, the window of a shack
where still and cold as death
the poet takes stock.
There’s one of Duncan’s poems on the wall, too – The Horse. But it’s a bit naff. A vague memory of a much better poem by him knocks on my brain’s door – a poem from the vantage point of Jesus upon the cross, and part of his agony stemming from seeing what will be done in his name. But I may be making this up. A laminated A4 on the wall begins, “Poet, playwright, journalist, farmer, lover – Ronald Duncan was all of these.” And, yes, during the war he founded a community of pacifists, who farmed the Marsland valley. I wonder what it was like being a conscientious objector during the war – I can’t imagine that the locals would have been too pleased to have a proto-type hippie commune in their midst whilst their own children were off fighting. I used to be a pacifist, and say I wouldn’t have fought in the Second World War, but I’m not so sure now. Both decisions involved a particular courage.
Turns out Duncan was mates with Ezra Pound, T.S.Eliot and Benjamin Britten – for whom he wrote the libretto for “The Rape of Lucretia.” He sounds like one of those writers who, whilst known in his time, didn’t quite make the literary canon. I make a note to look up his work when this journey’s done.
As I descend back down into the valley, I find myself wondering if that farmhouse I passed was once the pacifist commune, and whether that woman I saw reading is his Duncan’s daughter. I don’t know why I wonder this – just wondering. And another wave of melancholy rolls through me. What’s this human lifespan all about, hey? Who was Ronald Duncan and what was his life about? And will my life one day be reduced to a laminated A4? I don’t know if any of my writing will survive my death, but I’d be happy to leave a handsome hut like that behind as my memorial, for sure.
And who cuts the flowers every morning, and climbs with them to this outpost, and places them in the vase upon the table, and fills the vase with clean water from their water bottle? So that passing strangers can feel welcome...
Melancholy feels like it might be connected to forgiveness, but I can’t quite fathom why.
Breath. Presence. Forgiveness.
At the bottom of the valley, the troll insists that I pay him again to cross over his bridge, pretending that we’ve never met before, and just as I’m beginning to wonder how wise it is to argue with a troll, he gives me a playful punch on the chest – “Don’t be such a gullible grockle,” he chuckles. “I never forget the face of a groat-giver, and I never forget a good darning needle neither.” And with a theatrical flourish of his stocky arm, he welcomes me into Kernow.
Sometimes I like to think that I know Britain quite well. But then I realise that to know Britain quite well is to know that it would actually take several lifetimes to know Britain quite well. And I hardly know Cornwall at all. And I can see and feel why, of all the counties of England, it’s the one with a long-standing independence movement. Even its indigenous name – Kernow – reminds you that you’re entering quite a different land. As if to emphasise the transition, I am soon surrounded by dozens of tiny orange-and-black butterflies, the likes of which I’ve never seen before.
The butterfly was mum’s favourite symbol – well, second favourite, after the cross. It’s an obvious symbol for Christianity – the transformation into a new being in Christ. I guess it’s used across the religions. Who doesn’t want to be a butterfly?
But are you prepared to die to all that you once knew in order to get your wings?
I remember once, in a session with a therapist, we explored the chrysalis stage in some detail. Apparently, when a caterpillar fashions its chrysalis – or a moth spins its cocoon – only a few of its original structures remain, whilst the bulk of its old body is broken down into protein. It’s a seemingly brutal process of self-disintegration. But then imaginal discs of imaginal cells begin to use this caterpillar protein broth in order to grow and multiply, dozens of cells becoming scores becoming thousands, becoming the eyes and legs and mouth parts and genitals and wings of the new emerging creation.
As a symbol of profound transformation, it sure takes the lepidopterous biscuit. But should a wannabe butterfly or moth resist this necessary dissolution – well, ask me about it. It ain’t a pretty sight. There are still parts of caterpillar-me kicking and screaming against the inevitability of his death, and hungering for plates stacked with caterpillar nosh.
A passing walker informs me that these tiny butterflies are called pearl-bordered fritillaries, and that their larvae feed on violets. She also tells me that the inland path to Morwenstow is far easier and quicker than the coastal one, and will also lead me to a good pub. It’s often good to get the local perspective. I think she just saved me about half a litre of sweat.
I eventually join a narrow lane, a deep tunnel of finest back-lit green, which slowly becomes wider and wider, and near to a road junction four young women in an L-plated car stop to banter, and offer to squeeze me in, but, fortunately, they’re not going in my direction. Besides, I’m sure I smell like the sweaty, smelly pilgrim that I am.
Out of the blue, I suddenly find myself walking alongside the garish satellites and giant golf balls of GCHQ Bude, chubby little secret service lambs frolicking in the foreground, and finally I make it to a large square of grass – “No overnight camping on village green by order of Morwenstow Parish Council” – on the other side of which lies the Bush Inn.
I’ve definitely earned my pint of Whakatu New Zealand Hopped Amber Maize Beer – and the only trouble with a beer this tasty is that it slips down way too easily. I order a second pint and some bread and hommous and olives to soak it all up, and one of the locals comes over to my table and asks if he can join me, and we have a great time chatting about hitching and travelling and the closing of old chapters. “I can see on your face some of what you’ve been through,” he says, “because I’ve been through something similar myself.” But we both leave it at that, and don’t go into the vulnerable details. I think I’d cry if I went into the details.
When one of the resident barflies hears of my mission, his eyes light up. Turns out that the pub was once an old monastic hostel, serving pilgrims on their way from Wales and down to Spain to do the Camino de Compastela. “Look there,” he says, pointing at a shallow sort of basin set into the wall at the end of the bar. “That’s the piscina, where the monks prepared the sacraments. And over there,” he points to a narrow window in one of the corners of the pub, “is a leper’s squint.” I go historically dizzy again. These aren’t just stories.
“Do you reckon that monastic hostels were the original pubs, then?” I ask.
“Oh, for sure. Those monks didn’t just serve communion wine. Why do you think they were always so plump and so jolly?”
He and a fellow barfly then get talking about Morwenstow’s most famous character – the Reverend Robert S Hawker – of whom they’re inordinately fond and proud. “Kept a friendly pig he did, and penned a good ditty. Rescued shipwrecked sailors, buried the drowned ones for free. And built himself a hut in the cliff out of shipwrecked timber.”
“And that’s where he’d go to scan the seas during storms, or to prepare his sermons on Saturday evenings,” adds barfly number two. “With a little bit of divine assistance, it must be said, from his pipe of finest Victorian opium.”
“He definitely put the high back into high church,” quips number one.
“And when he died,” continues number two, “all the villagers wore purple instead of the usual black, and a pink and purple flag was flown from the church tower.”
“I reckon if the Anglican Church wants to win back the countryside for Christ,” suggests number one, “it’s going to have to come up with a few more characters like him.”
“Although preferably not clerical smack heads,” says number one.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there are already a few in place,” adds number two. “It’s a remarkably broad church, after all.”
I propose a toast to the Reverend Hawker, and we all raise our glasses. For a village priest to be so fondly remembered, a hundred and forty years after his death, in his local pub, by two local barflies, is accolade indeed.
When I tell them I’m wild camping, one suggests I spend the night in Hawker’s Hut itself. “As long as you’re out by eight, I’m sure the National Trust will never know and never mind.” That’s been my plan all along, but it’s good to have a local blessing on my imminent misdemeanour.
By the time I leave the pub, night has settled in for the night. I follow their instructions, past the dark silhouette of the village church, and soon find the hut, cut into a bank on top of the cliff, lined with hefty timbers, and flagged with stone. It’s a tiny but extraordinarily satisfying and stocky hut, not a proper right angle in sight, but demonstrably built to last. Nice work, Reverend Hawker.
There are the faintest smidgeons of dying sunlight upon the maritime horizon. Venus is already setting, and a pursuant half moon is descending from above. From below comes the rhythmic wash of the sea, and I can just about make out the visual play of shadowy rocks and incoming white horses. All that’s missing is my ball of opium and my faithful opium pipe.
Alarm set for six. Dodgy veggie burger aside, what a full and great day it’s been. I roll out my mat and sleeping bag on the flagstone floor, and settle down for sleep with my feet sticking out of the open door. Forgive me my trespasses, oh National Trust, as I forgive thee thine.
Ah, every poet and every priest needs a little hut by the sea...
Welcombe Mouth
by Tim Richardson
I was on a number 38 bus
going down the South West Coast Path
towards Morwenstow
via Welcombe Mouth
with the stiles causing some difficulty
when I dinged the bell
and stopped off
at Ronald Duncan’s little hut
by the nutty sea
where he wrote quite good poetry
and plays and stories
and even a film
and it occurred to me
while sitting inside
that its dimensions
were exactly the same
as those of the upstairs front
of a London omnibus
its big windows absorbing
not the lights, posters,
hidden rats and so forth
of Shaftesbury Avenue
but the black cliffs
white surf
and moiling grey waters
of a barbarous stretch
of Devon coastline
where not long ago
they hung lights on the cliffs
to lure ships to their doom
to lie there eviscerated
their treasures spilled
for all to purloin
and even now there are men
in the chip shops and pubs
who recall a wreck in the ‘80s
when they all went down
to Welcombe Mouth
and they all got something
a few miles on
the bus having negotiated
some tricky rocky passages
I discovered another hut
made by another poet
about 100 years earlier
the parson who smoked opium
and wore a pink hat
and kept a pig as a pet
I fell for his wooden shack
because it was so cosy and rude
like staring at the sea
from the portside cabin
and then I realised
its dimensions were the same
as the Vostok spaceship
which orbited the Earth
with Yuri Gagarin inside
out at sea a band was gathering
not of open-mouthed angels
but rain coming in low
bringing hailstones
some lightning
I could feel the deaths in the sea
the poets perched above
Gagarin even higher
and down there on the rocks
were all the riches laid out
for all to see and all to take
the leaky oil drums, split crates
jewelboxes, best brandy
everything and everyone
that someone might fall in love with
or want to take with them
before they go
and I thought about
getting down there quick
but knew the bus
would end up
just another wreck
caught on the rocks
and all its treasures flown
by Tim Richardson
I was on a number 38 bus
going down the South West Coast Path
towards Morwenstow
via Welcombe Mouth
with the stiles causing some difficulty
when I dinged the bell
and stopped off
at Ronald Duncan’s little hut
by the nutty sea
where he wrote quite good poetry
and plays and stories
and even a film
and it occurred to me
while sitting inside
that its dimensions
were exactly the same
as those of the upstairs front
of a London omnibus
its big windows absorbing
not the lights, posters,
hidden rats and so forth
of Shaftesbury Avenue
but the black cliffs
white surf
and moiling grey waters
of a barbarous stretch
of Devon coastline
where not long ago
they hung lights on the cliffs
to lure ships to their doom
to lie there eviscerated
their treasures spilled
for all to purloin
and even now there are men
in the chip shops and pubs
who recall a wreck in the ‘80s
when they all went down
to Welcombe Mouth
and they all got something
a few miles on
the bus having negotiated
some tricky rocky passages
I discovered another hut
made by another poet
about 100 years earlier
the parson who smoked opium
and wore a pink hat
and kept a pig as a pet
I fell for his wooden shack
because it was so cosy and rude
like staring at the sea
from the portside cabin
and then I realised
its dimensions were the same
as the Vostok spaceship
which orbited the Earth
with Yuri Gagarin inside
out at sea a band was gathering
not of open-mouthed angels
but rain coming in low
bringing hailstones
some lightning
I could feel the deaths in the sea
the poets perched above
Gagarin even higher
and down there on the rocks
were all the riches laid out
for all to see and all to take
the leaky oil drums, split crates
jewelboxes, best brandy
everything and everyone
that someone might fall in love with
or want to take with them
before they go
and I thought about
getting down there quick
but knew the bus
would end up
just another wreck
caught on the rocks
and all its treasures flown