Book review: Wayfarer by Phoebe Smith

Bethan Gwyn

This multi-faceted book is a gem. Wayfarer has several layers, it can be read as a path guidebook for pilgrims and also as a soul-searching guide for those in need of redemption and coming to terms with past experiences and relationships.

This particular wayfarer is a seasoned traveller and adventurer who has authored ten books including Wilderness Weekends, Wild Camping and Britain’s Best Small Hills. She is also an award-winning travel writer, broadcaster, photographer, presenter and speaker, but hasn’t fared so well in some close relationships.

As the subtitle ‘Love, loss and life on Britain’s ancient paths’ suggests this book takes us on a roller-coaster of emotions as we follow her footsteps along the trails, overcoming past and current emotional obstacles in her way. From losses, betrayals, lies, deceit and pain to love, laughter, joy and acceptance she describes everything in breathtakingly raw honesty. Her internal journey runs in parallel with her external physical journey as she tries to come to terms with old wounds.

Each chapter is based on ten different pilgrim paths including the oldest pilgrim route known to have been walked in Britain renamed ‘The Old Way’ from Southampton  to Canterbury. St Columba’s Way from St Andrews on the Fife coast to the island of Iona, the North Wales Pilgrim Way from Holywell to Ynys Enlli, that is Bardsey Island and St Hilda’s Way following the footsteps of a female holy figure from Hinderwell to Whitby who was said to have purged the land of all snakes.

Emotional

Each chapter is interspersed with harrowing details of her troubled emotional life including when she was diagnosed with depression and how a phone call from a friend saved her from a suicide attempt. We learn of her sense of abandonment when as a teenager she was forced to choose between a boyfriend and her family and left home when she was only seventeen.  Although her grief on the later loss of her mother, her eating disorder and her accounts of suffering at the hands of men in abusive and controlling relationships are described in painful detail, her quest for her personal path in life on a journey of self-discovery and realisation is a shining and heartwarming thread throughout.

Cleverly interweaved with the narrative are rich layers of history, legends and saints and the numerous travellers associated with each path making it an informative book on several levels. We learn how the tiny town of Chipping Ongar, where St Peter’s Way starts, is home to a church whose priest died on the Titanic, refusing to leave so that he could pray with those having to stay behind. It’s also near a wooden church called St Andrew’s thought to be the oldest of its kind in the world. And that a cave on the slopes of Y Gop near Trelawnydd excavated back in 1886 was found to contain sediment from the last Ice Age with remains of hyenas, bison and reindeer.

Lyrical

There are also lyrical and devotional descriptions of nature en route, peaks ‘appear as a blurred wave in pewter grey against a faint blue sky’ and a flight of cormorants, ‘their wings outstretched like darkened holy robes, reptilian necks extended as they regard their surrounds with condescending glances.’ Piping calls of meadow pipits, the eerie croak of a craven and ‘scorch of the wind’ are a surround sound to her wanderings with a rich tapestry of ‘purple blooms of sea thrifts’ and ‘silvery trunks of birch trees’ forming a beautiful backdrop.

She also shows an appreciation of the significance of languages and place names throughout the British Isles. In Truro “passing through its saintly triumvirate of Austell, Erth and Ives, before ending at the historic shores of Penzance – Cornish for ‘Holy Head’” and how “Yr Wyddfa, as  Snowdon is now known, means ‘grave’ or ‘burial mound’.”

Illustrative

An ancient looking map with artwork at the beginning of the book is a useful illustrative guide to each of the ten trails she follows on her quest and I found myself referring to it at the beginning of each chapter to locate each one geographically. Wayfarer would be an ideal guide for prospective pilgrims as all the various twists and turns on the trails, crossing fields and fords, are described in vivid detail.

In her quest she quits her job and returns home to North Wales where she follows the pilgrim path to Ynys Enlli and reestablishes her relationship with her father as he supports her on sections of the journey. She realises, “It seems that no matter where I go on my pilgrimages, all roads end up leading back to another. Pathways and people link unexpectedly.”

A turning point in her quest is finding St Hilda’s Way “hoping that her famous guiding light would show me the way forward.” It seems quite apt that she wishes to follow in the footsteps of a woman determined to rid lives of sneaky and deceitful serpents! An image of birds in flight separating sections within the chapters seems to reflect the legend referred to in the book that when sea birds fly over Whitby abbey they dip their wings in honour of St Hilda.

Empowered

Enrichened and empowered by her pilgrimages she discovers that she is not defined by negative experiences but how she embraces life, being kind to herself and cutting her own path at her own pace. This is the beginning of the rest of her life with the realisation that ‘all along my altar has been nature and I a devoted disciple’. Drinking holy water at Ffynnon Fair across the sound from Ynys Enlli is her communion with nature.

Phoebe used to sing in a band as a teenager but the trials and tribulations of life led to her losing her voice both figuratively and literally and she lost the desire to sing. A defining moment in Wayfarer is when she joins in song in Chichester cathedral ironically at the end of a silent pilgrimage on a section of the Thames Pilgrim Way.

Wayfarer is an inspirational, honest and powerful book with thoughtful maxims and observations reflecting on emotions and relationships. At a time when there has been a resurgence of pilgrim paths around the world with the need for a search for meaning, it shines a brilliant guiding light for others.

Wayfarer is published by HarperNorth. It is available from all good bookshops.