Episode 15

A one-off episode based around audio spontaneously recorded in Canterbury last summer, a conversation with folk singer and pilgrimage enthusiast Will Parsons in which we discuss the history of the city, the origins of pilgrimage and his work in establishing the British Pilgrimage Trust.

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Some relevant links:

• A Walk Around Britain (Will and pilgrim friends' website)
• Canterbury, Kent
• Elham, Kent
• Simon Langton School
• Hilaire Belloc
• North Downs Way
• British Pilgrimage Trust
• Thomas Becket
• Camino de Santiago
• Hajj to Mecca
• Kumbh Mela
• Shepherdswell, Kent
• Bigbury hill fort
• Roman Canterbury
• Dea Nutrix (mother goddess figures)
• King Ethelbert
• St. Augustine of Canterbury
• St. Dunstan
• St. Swithun
• Cornish places, many named after local saints
• Rupert Sheldrake
• symbolism of scallop shell
• St. James
• The Ridgeway
• genus: Polymita

The conclusion of Hillaire Belloc's The Old Road (describing his 1899 walk from Winchester to Canterbury, published some years later):

"In the inn, in the main room of it, I found my companions. A gramophone fitted with a monstrous trumpet roared out American songs, and to this sound the servants of the inn were holding a ball. Chief among them a woman of a dark and vigorous kind danced with an amazing vivacity, to the applause of her peers. With all this happiness we mingled."