VWPilgrim

First published 22nd May 2023

There is a brilliant book called “How to keep your VW alive” which is essential reading for any classic VW owner.  It was written and beautifully illustrated in the 70’s by a hippy,  John Muir.  John disapproves of you just jumping in your VW and driving straight off.  He has a little ‘warmitup’ ritual, turning the ignition, on, off, clutch in, check lights then start her up.  Then allow your van to gently warm up.  Only then can you drive, and of course, you have to “drive with love”. The length of time to warm her up, he suggests, is the time it takes you to roll a cigarette.  My days of roll ups are long gone, and to be honest by the time it would take me to roll one I’d have run out of petrol – let alone warmed up.  So the modern equivalent for my ‘warmitup’ ritual is to turn on the bluetooth speaker, open the playlist on my phone, hit shuffle and press play.

4:22am on Friday 19th May 2023 I pressed play. ‘Don’t stop me now” by Queen was randomly picked by Spotify and we were off.  Then Molly promptly cut out. After a few choice words and a prayer we were off again as if nothing happened. “I feel alive” blasted through the speaker, we do too, Freddie, we do too – thankfully!

Driving into London at that time of the morning was no problem at all. The roads were pretty empty and it seems that the speeds in the city centre are very campervan friendly at 20mph. I arrived just before 6am, plenty of time,  I got out and took a photo and set about looking for Amen Court where I had been instructed to park.

Eventually, ‘round Amen corner I found Amen court only to discover my way was blocked by a yellow barrier, chained shut. I drove around the block to see if there was another way in, but no, and ended up back in front of the barrier.  I surprised a passing Londoner by cheerfully saying “good morning” and asking if he knew how to get in, he didn’t. It was 6:15am. I checked the emails again, no instructions and it was too early to ring anyone. So I climbed over the barrier. I wanted to see if there was anyone around and if this was the right road to park in. After a quick look around I went back to the barrier and noticed it was chained but there was no lock!  I loosened the chain (insert your own biblical ref/hymn in here) and the barrier swung up.  Molly and I crept in, I say crept, as quietly as you can creep in a 40 year air cooled vehicle in first gear, down a narrow road and parked up.  Grabbed my robes and went in search of coffee before I could be told ‘you can’t park that there’!

Coffee secured the next challenge was to see if I could get into the cathedral,  It’s 6:45am by now, lights were on but no door seemed to be open.  I circled the building and began to think that maybe this was some sort of initiative test to see if I was worthy to preside.  Eventually I spotted one of the cathedral staff cleaning the steps. Mario, from Portugal, nice chap, pointed me in the direction of some unlikely looking steps leading down to a basement, not at the side of the cathedral but in the buildings opposite. 

7:05am I went down the steps to be met by a couple of cheerful security guards behind a glass screen.  I had a sneaking suspicion that they had been watching all my antics on CCTV.  Anyway, they knew Molly’s reg but not my name but as I had a collar and a small blue suitcase of robes, I seemed legit so they let me in.

I was given a pass and one of the guards, a very happy scottish chap, led me to the vestry.  As we walked through the amazing crypt at St Paul’s, final resting place to kings, admirals, scientists, artists, and Lords, he very cheerfully told me that he too used to have a VW campervan.  He had once driven it all the way to Hamburg for a beer festival with a bunch of lads where they’d enjoyed themselves so much they forgot where they parked it! His was blue, but he always wanted an orange and white one, “they’re the best colour” he grinned.

I was introduced to the verger, Joe, and put my robes in the vestry.  It was about 7:25am Joe took me over to St Dunstan’s (remember him?) chapel, where the service I was taking was going to be and where morning prayer was about to start.  He assured me that everything was set up, ready to go, and we would have time to look through things before I started.  All seemed to be in hand so I decided to stay for morning prayer.  Moments before the service, Neil, who was an area dean I worked with when I was bishops chaplain, came in.  He’s now the ‘Canon Steward’ at the cathedral.  He gave me the best smile and hug and said how great it was to see me welcoming me to the cathedral.  I could now relax, I felt at home.  7:30am.

Only, the relaxed felling didn’t last long. As morning prayer went on it began to dawn on me that I wasn’t robed or briefed on what was going to happen next. What? We are going to pray the whole litany?  Whilst, given the adventure I am embarking on, I was grateful to pray to be delivered from “violence, murder and dying unprepared” (Daily prayer page 400), time was ticking on. 7:52am

To my relief, my friend Kylie had slipped into morning prayer, and as the service ended I gave her a hug, as much to calm me as anything and I went in search of the verger.  Joe very quickly showed me what was where, said he would serve and it will be all alright.  I did one of those quick clergy walks where we are trying not to look like we are in a hurry but have somewhere to be. On the way I bumped into Tricia, another old friend who had just come for the service, quick hug and finally got to the vestry at the other end of the cathedral.  Put my robes on, pray (Lord help!) and swiftly headed back to the chapel.  As the cathedral’s bell, ‘Great Tom’, struck for the 8th time, I arrived, breathless, at St Dunstan chapel, ready to go…8am.

Part two to follow…