Walking from the beach at St Bees, in Cumbria, we stare to the west hoping to see the Isle of Man. We’ve each picked a pebble to carry to Robin Hood’s Bay where we’ll toss it to the water of the North Sea. An ancient Celtic tradition, we’ve heard. Apparently when we choose and hold a pebble with our own particular intentions we anchor our thoughts, good wishes, prayers and happy hopes. Some also dip their toes in the Irish Sea, again in the North Sea. It’s uphill along a single track beside a cliff face of red Triassic sandstone or three. We’re on our way, the Alfred Wainwright way actually. I might think that this trail was set hundreds of years ago but I’d be wrong. Fifty years ago, in 1973, Wainwright blazed bridle paths, established walking footpaths and minor roads into the Coast to Coast trail and we soon learn that there’s not just one path.
I love stories of old told in leadlight. Church Priory windows and a statue symbolise the memory of St Bega. As a twelve-year-old girl or princess in Ireland, her parents tried to marry her off to a horrible old man. So her nanny, the girl and two helpers sailed away landing or shipwrecked at St Bees where she then lived as a hermit or nun. One story is that she asked Lord Egremont if he would give land where a convent could be built. He granted ‘as much land as is covered by snow tomorrow’ in midsummer. Of course, snow fell widely through the night.
Here’s another crazy fact: Rowan Atkinson is a proud alumni of St Bees school.