Wild Skies and Celtic Paths Book

Wild Skies and Celtic Paths must surely be unique among travel books: it's the diary of a Welsh journalist with a gammy knee spending a wet, windy summer in 1984 travelling along medieval pilgrim routes in the British Isles. The result is an illuminating, at times hysterically funny, account of what it means to be a pilgrim several hundred years on in time. In fact, Tom Davies states the purpose of his pilgrimages as being not only a quest to seek out the purpose and meaning of holiness, but to find out what it means today and if it still exists in the UK and Ireland. Happily for the reader, Davies undertakes a comprehensive study of the subject, mixing evocative descriptions of shrines, churches and cathedrals with insights on the pilgrims he meets along the way. His pilgrimage to the Basilica of St Patrick's Purgatory of Lough Derg is both intriguing and highly entertaining. "Three days and two nights in the toughest and most penitential pilgrimage in the world" without shoes and socks, and with strict rules on food. Forbidden to rest or even sit during the day, Davies confesses to some serious sinning: "Taking one look at my bed I climbed on it and was fast asleep in seconds. But the nun with mirthless features caught me and threw me out ... I sinned again soon after that. I found a can of Coca-Cola in my bag so I sat in the lavatory, my underpants wrapped around the tin to keep down the noise of its fizzing." The book is hugely enjoyable and easy on the consciences of any guilty sinners and lapsed believers. --Susannah SteelRead More