Instanbul it isn’t. While previous series of BBC2’s Pilgrimage have seen celebrity pilgrims of various faiths (or none) trek to Santiago de Compostela, Rome and, indeed, Istanbul, Covid restrictions saw the latest rucksacktoting group stay closer to home to retrace the journey of St Columba, the sixth-century Irish monk who spread Christianity from Ireland to pagan Scotland. Their 15-day quest took them from Donegal to the tiny island of Iona – where St Columba established a monastic community in AD 563 – via the Giant’s Causeway, the Mull of Kintyre, Glencoe and the Outer Hebrides. So can a journey like that be a holiday? We asked three of the show’s pilgrims: former Countdown presenter and lapsed Catholic Nick Hewer, comedian and Muslim Shazia Mirza, and interior designer and “non-conforming pagan” Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen…
LAURENCE LLEWELYN-BOWEN
“Keep it quiet: I quite like walking, though it doesn’t really go with my image. Normally I have a flotilla of incredibly photogenic spaniels when I’m going for a walk, or a gaggle of grandchildren. So it felt rather weird sharing the experience with fellow celebrity show ponies. I was quite surprised that at 57 I could cope with the walking, but I really enjoyed it. Being quite so wet was less pleasant. “The most illuminating thing was learning that there is such a thing as less-than one-star accommodation: this was my first time in a hostel – and my last. “We also clambered down a nearly sheer cliff face to stay in a bothy, on Northern Ireland’s Causeway Coast. The coast is absolutely beautiful, but by the time we reached the bothy, we were slightly hysterical. We opened the wine and whisky, threw kippers on the fire and it ended up being quite bacchic. I got irritatingly mother hen-like and kept trying to get everyone to drink water and take a couple of aspirin before they went to bed. There were some very ungodly hangovers the next day. “The power of the experience had much to do with the humanity of it – us being together, all doing the same thing but on different terms – and the extraordinary nature that surrounded us. I’m actually relieved that I came through it not having discovered God. And I think God feels the same way: I think She’s very relieved.”
SHAZIA MIRZA
“I wanted to be with people of different faiths 24 hours a day in order to become more compassionate and tolerant. And I knew nothing could ever be as bad as The Island with Bear Grylls, which was the worst experience of my life: starving and being bitten by mosquitoes on an island off Panama for a month. During the pilgrimage, we never stopped eating and all came back fatter. “There were a lot of intense moments on this journey. We all took part in a mass in St Columba’s Cave in Argyll: a priest in his white cloak and all of us of different faiths standing in a very damp cave. I liked it, but it felt strange because it’s not my faith. We also spent a night in a monastery and I got up at 5am and went to mass alone. Those are the moments when you learn something and evolve. “The scenery was breathtaking – especially the vivid colours of the Highlands and Iona – but the rain was relentless. We were damp all the time. To make matters worse, the production team told us we were originally going to go to Sri Lanka, but had ended up in Ireland and Scotland due to Covid. So when we were lying in a ditch, getting soaked, we kept thinking, ‘This wouldn’t be happening in Sri Lanka…’”
NICK HEWER
“I wanted a serious discussion about religion because I just can’t do it. From the age of 11, I was shuttled off to a Jesuit boarding school in the Republic of Ireland and immersed in Catholicism – and it didn’t stick. Before that, I was at a Protestant prep school in England and hated Sunday School so much that I once asked my brother to hit me on the head with a hammer so I didn’t have to go. “As an ex-smoker, I was very worried about whether I’d be able to do the walk. I fell behind slightly sometimes because the others went off at a trot, but I appreciated the contemplative time I spent with myself, adoring nature and happily not finding God. I think that nature is next to God and, frankly, the Highlands win over Ireland every day – the landscape was spectacular when it appeared through the mist. “Sleeping on the floor was a bore, and the camera crew always want to film you waking up. I think a 77-year-old deserves a little more dignity! One night – as I was standing on my air mattress in the dark, half-cut – my foot got caught in my sleeping bag and I fell and hit the floor. Let’s just say I slipped on the slopes of Glenfiddich.”
Instanbul it isn’t. While previous series of BBC2’s Pilgrimage have seen celebrity pilgrims of various faiths (or none) trek to Santiago de Compostela, Rome and, indeed, Istanbul, Covid restrictions saw the latest rucksacktoting group stay closer to home to retrace the journey of St Columba, the sixth-century Irish monk who spread Christianity from Ireland to pagan Scotland. Their 15-day quest took them from Donegal to the tiny island of Iona – where St Columba established a monastic community in AD 563 – via the Giant’s Causeway, the Mull of Kintyre, Glencoe and the Outer Hebrides. So can a journey like that be a holiday? We asked three of the show’s pilgrims: former Countdown presenter and lapsed Catholic Nick Hewer, comedian and Muslim Shazia Mirza, and interior designer and “non-conforming pagan” Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen…
LAURENCE LLEWELYN-BOWEN
“Keep it quiet: I quite like walking, though it doesn’t really go with my image. Normally I have a flotilla of incredibly photogenic spaniels when I’m going for a walk, or a gaggle of grandchildren. So it felt rather weird sharing the experience with fellow celebrity show ponies. I was quite surprised that at 57 I could cope with the walking, but I really enjoyed it. Being quite so wet was less pleasant. “The most illuminating thing was learning that there is such a thing as less-than one-star accommodation: this was my first time in a hostel – and my last. “We also clambered down a nearly sheer cliff face to stay in a bothy, on Northern Ireland’s Causeway Coast. The coast is absolutely beautiful, but by the time we reached the bothy, we were slightly hysterical. We opened the wine and whisky, threw kippers on the fire and it ended up being quite bacchic. I got irritatingly mother hen-like and kept trying to get everyone to drink water and take a couple of aspirin before they went to bed. There were some very ungodly hangovers the next day. “The power of the experience had much to do with the humanity of it – us being together, all doing the same thing but on different terms – and the extraordinary nature that surrounded us. I’m actually relieved that I came through it not having discovered God. And I think God feels the same way: I think She’s very relieved.”
SHAZIA MIRZA
“I wanted to be with people of different faiths 24 hours a day in order to become more compassionate and tolerant. And I knew nothing could ever be as bad as The Island with Bear Grylls, which was the worst experience of my life: starving and being bitten by mosquitoes on an island off Panama for a month. During the pilgrimage, we never stopped eating and all came back fatter. “There were a lot of intense moments on this journey. We all took part in a mass in St Columba’s Cave in Argyll: a priest in his white cloak and all of us of different faiths standing in a very damp cave. I liked it, but it felt strange because it’s not my faith. We also spent a night in a monastery and I got up at 5am and went to mass alone. Those are the moments when you learn something and evolve. “The scenery was breathtaking – especially the vivid colours of the Highlands and Iona – but the rain was relentless. We were damp all the time. To make matters worse, the production team told us we were originally going to go to Sri Lanka, but had ended up in Ireland and Scotland due to Covid. So when we were lying in a ditch, getting soaked, we kept thinking, ‘This wouldn’t be happening in Sri Lanka…’”
NICK HEWER
“I wanted a serious discussion about religion because I just can’t do it. From the age of 11, I was shuttled off to a Jesuit boarding school in the Republic of Ireland and immersed in Catholicism – and it didn’t stick. Before that, I was at a Protestant prep school in England and hated Sunday School so much that I once asked my brother to hit me on the head with a hammer so I didn’t have to go. “As an ex-smoker, I was very worried about whether I’d be able to do the walk. I fell behind slightly sometimes because the others went off at a trot, but I appreciated the contemplative time I spent with myself, adoring nature and happily not finding God. I think that nature is next to God and, frankly, the Highlands win over Ireland every day – the landscape was spectacular when it appeared through the mist. “Sleeping on the floor was a bore, and the camera crew always want to film you waking up. I think a 77-year-old deserves a little more dignity! One night – as I was standing on my air mattress in the dark, half-cut – my foot got caught in my sleeping bag and I fell and hit the floor. Let’s just say I slipped on the slopes of Glenfiddich.”
CLAIRE WEBB