Well, to paraphrase Robert Burns, ‘the best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ pilgrims, gang aft agley’… and plans for our group pilgrimage from Dittisham to Kingswear sadly did not work out as we hoped, due to health challenges experienced by both myself and our guide, local storyteller Helen Raphael Sands. The two of us had an interesting preparatory walk, which I will briefly describe below, and yet planned visits to the church of St Thomas of Canterbury at Kingswear had to be cancelled, as did the group pilgrimage on Sunday November 7th.
A few weeks earlier however, Helen and I set off from St George’s Church at Dittisham and wandered along footpaths to catch the small ferry from The Ferry Boat Inn (The FBI) over to Greenway. Tempting as it was to want to linger, first at the pub and then at what was once Agatha Christie’s lovely holiday home on the River Dart, we knew we had a couple of hours walking ahead of us to reach Kingswear and much to prepare along the Way. The walk initially follows the driveway from the Greenway jetty and then, at the car park, turns across the meadows and winds through woodland. It was a beautiful autumn afternoon, with a cloud softened blue sky above the Devon red earth of ploughed fields and with the silver ‘beards’ of travellers’ joy twining through the hedgerows.
As we walked, Helen was describing stories of saints which could be shared on our pilgrimage, which would fall not long after the festival of All Saints on November 1st. She has long been a follower in the footsteps of St Clare and St Francis (as shown above, preaching to the birds… or are they preaching to him?) who both made their own inner and outer journeys. As we paused at gateways or came to crossroads, laboured up hills or experienced views and vistas opening, we remembered turning points and transformative moments of challenge and change in their stories and thought about how these could be meaningfully shared with contemporary pilgrims on their own transformative journeys.
We also discovered that neither of us was currently as fit as usual (both recovering from covid) and that this section of the walk, as it followed the deep curves of the Dart and the shifting levels between hill tops and waterside was more challenging than we had realised. By the time we arrived at the Dartmouth Higher Ferry, we had admit that it was time to stop and take the ferry over to Dartmouth, for refreshments and travel home, rather than continue to Kingswear. I was sorry not to arrive at the Church of St Thomas of Canterbury, who was a significant saint for medieval pilgrims. It is believed that, during the Middle Ages, the church was used by pilgrims coming from the continent, who landed at Kingswear on their way to the tomb of St Thomas at Canterbury. For us, this final part of our journey would have to be re-visited another day!