Maddie 2003

I am a pilgrim, a normal pilgrim; I have travelled very far to achieve what I set out to do. My name is Catherine. I have a husband he is the man sitting next to me. We set out on the pilgrimage together. I’ll show you something let me just have a rummage in my scrip and find something I bought back. Here look, It’s one of those badges as proof where we’ve been…

We started off not far from here, a night a way to be exact. This is our last time to have the honour of being a pilgrim. It was about five months we’d been travelling on foot stopping when necessary and leaving when necessary. It was hard and a struggle but we got through it. It all started when my husband and I caught the measles, terrible things we thought we were going to die untill we heard talk of this new saint named Thomas Becket. He was the one who saved us from the dreadful measles. We came back from the church and slept and the next day we were cured. It was a miracle!

We had to decide where we were going to go we had to walk a long way to get to our destination Thomas Becket we had heard he could cure the unbelievable. He had cured our neighbours so we thought we’d give it a go. We decided we would go me and my husband paid all our unpaid debts and apologise to our dreadful neighbour who had started a fight with my husband all because he said we needed to go on a pilgrimage so the saints could cure him of us. He is such a rude man. Then we had to put on the blessed pilgrim uniform when we put it on I thought they stank a bit. I like my clothes to smell of me not the church…

The journey was the worst thing even though it was worth it as we got cured. We had to walk such a long way, we got lost and had to turn around because we had missed the turning to get to the church. Everywhere you went there was a problem. When we were walking through forests and woods there was wolves or human attackers we were so unlucky. I think that god must have meant this to happen. The devil was possessed in our bodies it played around with our souls. We were lost in the devils world. Hell. We weren’t actually there, it felt like it though.

We fought off all the attackers luckily my husband is good at fighting after what he did to our neighbour I wouldn’t be surprised. He fought them all off but fortunately he couldn’t stop all of the innkeepers pulling us in to there inns they promised all sorts of things like a room to ourselves, proper breakfast and tea. Obviously we turned down most of them as we didn’t have enough money. The one we stayed in had flea infested beds, we didn’t get a room to are self we didn’t even get a bed to ourselves we had to share with five other people. It was terrible, one of them snored so loudly most of us couldn’t sleep and there was another one who talked in his sleep. Soon woke up the snoring man. We got no sleep.

When we’d paid that sneaky innkeeper all of our money had almost gone. We got to the cathedral and prayed for Thomas Becket to cure us we touched relics and admired the beautiful reliquaries they really caught your eye. We did this three times like a ritual and it all paid off. We walked along the streets and got lost trying to find a hospice. We eventually found one and spent the night there all crowded and very hot. At last we got to sleep. My husband and I woke up in the morning to find ourselves ridden of the measles. We felt our faces looked at one another and raced off to the church and made a wax model of Saint Thomas Becket and left some money in his honour. The monks accepted our gifts. He had one of those grins on his face. He must have been glad of earning some money. Everyone knows the church cheats you out of your money. Everyone pays though out of respect for the saints.

We got back  even though we didn’t have any breaks. We decided that was best as we could be back home quicker. We encountered more attacks no one seems to realise that you could be in a lot of trouble if you attacked a pilgrim. Well anyway we got back and that’s my story. I can’t wait to have some decent food and see everybody. We’d better be off. “Come on Daniel” “Lets go!”

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