Friends on the Pilgrimage. Photo: Caroline Stow.
The Barrow Pilgrimage
Andy Weller discusses challenges to Quaker testimonies
On Maundy Thursday, to the accompanying sound of hooting cars and motorbikes, with colourful umbrellas and banner unfurled, more than forty people walked triumphantly down the main street into Barrow-in-Furness. It was the culmination of four days of walking over fifty miles. At the steps of the town hall we stood together, young and old, one person in a wheelchair, facing outwards as a silent witness to the failings of the welfare state.
As the icy wind whistled around us I read out the eulogy for Daniel Blake. This is from the film I, Daniel Blake written by Paul Laverty and directed by Ken Loach. Daniel Blake may be a fictional character, but for many he has come to speak for citizens denied respect by a society to which they have contributed but that no longer seems to care about them. For a moment, in the stillness of the square, the words seemed to echo and reverberate around me, and a lump rose in my throat. Gradually the sound of the traffic seemed to return and it was time to leave.
The idea of pilgrimage
The idea of a ‘Pilgrimage to Barrow’ in support of the welfare state came out of a Turning the Tide workshop organised by Kendal and Sedbergh Area Meeting (KSAM). This was called in response to concerns from Brigflatts Meeting about changes to the benefits system, that have left many people unable to cope. The tragic and unnecessary suffering these changes have caused are arguably contrary to any notion of a decent society. They certainly appear to be in conflict with Quaker testimonies to peace and equality.
For a long time before this workshop KSAM had struggled to find an adequate response to the enormity of the situation and the anger felt about the brutality shown to so many vulnerable people. The pilgrimage offered at least some hope of changing the narrative that vulnerable people are themselves somehow to blame.
The concept of pilgrimage may seem a surprising idea for Quakers to embrace. For example, the pilgrimage to Lourdes is generally linked with a desire for healing and forgiveness, concepts not normally associated with support for the welfare state. However, pilgrimage is also about humility and trust in something greater than us, and a desire to listen and to build a real sense of community. Many early Quakers travelled as pilgrims, relying on the hospitality of those they met on their journey. Based on their interpretation of the gospels, they spread a message of hope about the possibility of a new kind of egalitarian society that cared for all.
The Barrow Pilgrimage is also a reference to the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536. This was a mass uprising in the north of England against Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries and use of their assets for the benefit of himself and his friends. Comparisons might be made today. However, unlike the leaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace, we didn’t risk being hung, drawn and quartered, or hung out to die in cages suspended from castle battlements. Nor did we risk the imprisonment endured by early Quakers.
Walking our talk
The route of the Barrow Pilgrimage took us through important historic places associated with the lives of early Quakers, such as Brigflatts, Firbank Fell and Swarthmoor Hall, as well as places of wider historic interest, such as Furness Abbey and the Victorian gothic town hall in Barrow. This focus on significant places helped us to understand our Quaker heritage.
The ruins of Furness Abbey seemed a fitting metaphor for the systematic destruction of the welfare state. We walked to show our willingness to pay a fair proportion of tax to the welfare state. Our original idea was to walk to the tax office in Barrow. Unfortunately, many local tax offices, including the one in Barrow, have closed. Thus the link in people’s minds between paying tax and receiving benefits or services when needed may be severed.
The right to walk along public footpaths should be an inalienable one, like the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of worship. Yet there was a certain irony about our walk to Barrow. Unlike many of those we were on the pilgrimage to support, including terminally ill and disabled people who face cuts in their welfare payments, many of us were able to walk. However, one member of our party cycled the distance each day. Her disability meant that she could not manage to walk. Others were too elderly or frail to walk with us, but instead met us along the route to give encouragement and provide food or hospitality.
Walking gave us an all too brief pause from the normal chatter of everyday life and a return to life lived at a slower pace. We began and finished each day with a period of stillness and quiet reflection. There was time to listen to one’s thoughts, to join conversations, to hear birdsong and smell the rain on the leaves. As the pilgrimage progressed we came to reflect a community for the common good – a true society of friends, where everyone contributes what they can and receives according to their needs. All we needed to be happy was clean water to drink, good food to eat and a safe place to sleep, as well as company to talk to. Whilst on the pilgrimage these simple needs were met and we lacked nothing. Hospitality, transport and food were freely given. Thanks to donations of food and money the pilgrimage finished with a small surplus of funds.
Many people made this pilgrimage work, such as those who prepared meals, baked cakes and welcomed strangers into their homes. Some people organised transport or accommodation; local Friends came out to meet us. We were joined for a day by a band of young Friends from Cheshire who sang songs and raised our spirits. Other Friends joined us from all over the country. Journalists from two local papers and BBC Cumbria helped to tell our story.
On the last day a representative from Churches Together appeared and presented everyone with a hot cross bun. We also had support from Tim Farron, the local MP; members of the Labour and Green parties, ‘and the Graythwaite Estate allowed us to walk over their extensive lands. The greatest gift of the pilgrimage was how it united the many different people who were able to be a part of it.
What next?
Margaret Fell, an inspiring figure for the Barrow Pilgrimage, rode from Swarthmoor Hall to deliver a declaration to Charles II to highlight the suffering that the Quakers were facing.
There are plans to deliver a similar declaration to the queen to highlight the importance of the welfare state now in alleviating people’s suffering. This could take the form of a mass bike ride to pass the declaration between all the Area Meetings in the country, finishing at Buckingham Palace on Maundy Thursday 2018. A group called ‘For the Common Good’, on behalf of KSAM, hopes to have a presence at Britain Yearly Meeting to share our story.
Further information: andylizweller@yahoo.com
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