If you ask me, you can’t beat a good pilgrimage for a leisurely outing offering structure and purpose. It is a bit like the Ramblers but with fewer hills.
Maybe we can agree that what’s needed for a good pilgrimage is a common destination and plenty of people to talk to along the way. Yes, alright, a decent pair of shoes, maybe an umbrella, a level of hardship and precarious access to toilets and food all help with the authenticity. Shared purpose or religious intent are sometimes valuable in holding things together.
In these days of the vox pop where, apparently, every utterance into a mike is collected, cherished as gold dust and inserted on TV at points where commentators tire of repeating themselves, it is even possible to participate as a vicarious pilgrim without leaving home. However, as any football fan will tell you, you have to be there at the match to fully soak up the atmosphere. No matter what the cost or inconvenience, being there trumps Sky Sports by a country mile.
Chaucer knew all this of course, and introduced an element of competition amongst his storytelling pilgrims. This was in the days before critical thinking had been banished (I date this as the 1980s and the introduction of the National Curriculum), and risqué stories were more difficult to circulate and attribute (although social media is now staging a less literary comeback).
And so it came to pass that I was there, in The Queue. Thing is, pilgrims are usually visiting something or someone. And, more often than not, the something is where a supernatural event happened and the someone is no longer living. So a lot depends on what the pilgrims think about the someone or something.
In The Queue there was solemnity and a sense of sacrifice as well as being part of history-in-the-making.
‘After all she sacrificed for us, standing in a queue is the very least I can do’
This pretty much covers initial conversations offering evidence of fealty and serious intent. After that, the queue-ers could get stuck in to some serious tittle tattle. And it was rich pickings.
Some were intent on telling their journey stories:
‘The coach from Glasgow was freezing and the bog didn’t work. But I had to come.’
Confidentiality prevents me from repeating some of the tales that were shared (not usually wife-of-bath standard) and tedium prevents the repetition of others, (‘I packed enough sausage rolls for two days and…’)
We pilgrims were, at one point, urged slowly through a contraption of plastic tapes designed to make people snake round as though we were at an airport check in. You could renew acquaintance with people further down The Queue.
And then we arrived at our endpoint and did what everyone said they would do. We Paid Our Respects.
Afterwards, the conversation turned to ‘how it was for me’.
‘I felt part of history’
‘It was very moving’
OK, pilgrimage accomplished, hop on the tube back home.
