by Tammy Hervey
Northern Leg is an all-the-year community, but there is something special about the specific group of people who walk each year from Keyworth to Walsingham. On this year’s Northern Leg, we were 21 in all, with four walkers new to Northern Leg, three of whom were new to Pilgrim Cross altogether. Our average age is 41, but our range of ages goes from 20s to nearly 70. The route we walked was more or less the same as last year, with fewer U-turns (!). We had hardly any rain, and even when it did rain, the sunshine and wind dried us out almost immediately.
Our liturgy this year was on the theme of hope, and specifically on finding hope even in unexpected places. With so much turmoil and conflict going on in the world, this was a timely focus. A liturgical highlight for me was the Maundy Thursday Tenebrae service: as each candle was extinguished, we drew closer to the crucifixion, both in remembering the Easter story, and in our own ways, seeking death of the ‘old life/self’ and rebirth of the new, hope-filled life/self.
Other liturgical highlights for me were the two liturgies on Wednesday. Both interspersed Bible readings on our theme with other readings, and made connections that I’d never thought of before. Here’s one, related to the Gospel involving the woman hemorrhaging, who touched Jesus:
And Jesus is never disgusted. He never says that anything – anyone – is too dirty to be touched. That anyone is too lost to be found. Even in situations where there seem to be no grounds for human hope, he will not agree that hope is gone beyond recall. Wreckage may be written into the logic of the world but he will not agree that it is all there is. He says, more can be mended than you fear. Far more can be mended than you know (Francis Spufford, Unapologetic Faber & Faber 2012)
The physicality of pilgrimage, and the inevitable discomfort of sleeping on church hall floors, rubbing along with each other in carrying the cross, and all the things that take place to support the walkers (meeting parishioners who provide delicious food, making and washing up our lunches and breakfasts, packing the van, and so on), are all part of its special magic. Forming anew a community of intention, with links back to the 1940s, makes me feel a quiet pride. Even our ‘in-jokes’ (‘sub-optimal’; ‘banditry’; and the ever-present pedantry) are an important link between us, present here in 2026, and to the past.
The arrival at Walsingham – sombre, yet triumphant – and the sharing of the Easter Triduum with all the other Legs – marks another successful year of Northern Leg. We return home, hopes refreshed, new friends made, into the new life of Eastertide.
Northern Pilgrim 