Pilgrim's Road

experience I knew there could be a thorn or a piece of sharp metal embedded in the tread of the tyre, so small as to be virtually invisible, and when the tyre is pumped up again, this hidden point will produce further punctures. A single thorn once caused me five separate punctures before I finally found it with the help of a strong magnifying glass. On this occasion, however, there was no further trouble, in fact it was to be the only puncture of the entire journey.
    In spite of the generally inclement conditions, each day brought its crop of excitement and pleasure. There are always some good moments on a bicycle — moments when the spirits lift at the sight of a kestrel riding the wind, or when the clouds part and a shaft of wintry sunshine floods through to give a fleeting glimpse of forgotten glory; or when a rabbit or a hare, unaware of the bicycle’s silent approach, is sitting up on its hind legs, twitching its whiskers and surveying the world. But most of the time if I thought about pilgrimage at all at this stage of my journey it was of the struggles of John Bunyan’s Christian, rather than Chaucer’s merry band.
     
‘There’s no discouragement
Shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent
To be a pilgrim... ’
     
    Usually what kept me going was the anticipation of creature comforts — a good meal, a glass of wine, open fires, a hot bath, shelter from the unrelenting wind and rain, and the cessation of the daily struggle over the hard-won miles. And when I did reach the end of the day’s ride I enjoyed these luxuries with all the relish that comes from having seemed to have won them by hard effort.
    Camping in such weather was not an inviting prospect, and in any case, none of the official sites was as yet open; nor was it the sort of terrain for pitching the tent au sauvage. So for the first few nights I found economical accommodation like the Café de Paris, a pull-in for truckies at Charité sur Loire, where for 150 francs Roberts had a snug lock-up shed, and I was given a scrupulously clean linoleum-floored room furnished with three little white cots all in a row like a school dormitory, an ample dinner and my morning roll and coffee. Women were a great rarity in her establishment, the Madame told me, but it seemed I made a welcome change for she kept offering me extra little dishes to try, like her fromageblanc laced with shallots and black pepper, which was a speciality of the place.
    Of Charité itself, once an important stopping place on the Road to Compostela where in 1059 the monks of Cluny built a famous monastery, I saw little beyond the venerable streets wet and gleaming and overwhelmed by modern traffic, and the swollen River Loire pounding through the stone arches of a sixteenth-century bridge. Tourism, the modern equivalent of pilgrimage, confines itself to more clement seasons, and so I found none of the churches or historic sites open, and could not even pay my respects to the famous statue of St James in the church of Sainte Croix.
    What saved my journey in these early stages from becoming just any long bicycle ride through France at the wrong time of year was the need to get my pilgrim record stamped. I had obtained this document in London, from the Confraternity of St James, a society which had been founded a few years earlier for the purpose of promoting the pilgrim routes to Compostela. Several European countries have created similar non-denominational societies in the last decade in response to the sudden renewed interest in the Santiago pilgrimage. There had been an abundance of confraternities concerned with the cult of St James in the later medieval period, particularly in France, with membership usually being confined to those who had successfully made the pilgrimage. Members met regularly to worship together, to perform good works and to advise and help those wishing to make the pilgrimage to Compostela.
    For me, membership of the Confraternity of St James was a purely practical need at the outset of my journey, giving me access to a small but useful library where I could find out about the route and read up on the historical background to the pilgrimage. I was also able to obtain various guide books, including a translation of the part of the twelfth-century Codex Calixtinus known as the ‘Pilgrim’s Guide’, a work written in about 1140 and usually attributed to a French cleric named Aimery Picaud who came from Pathenay-le-Vieux in Poitou. It was not a work