COP26 Flag - Dr Anne E Bailey's Story

I joined three legs of the Young Christian Climate Network (YCCN) pilgrimage. They were walking in relays from Cornwall to the Conference of the Parties (COP)26 climate conference in Glasgow to bring attention to the need for climate justice.

I competed two consecutive days on the Wiltshire leg, and one day from Oxford to Kidlington. The photograph shows the Trowbridge to Shrewton (Wiltshire) section, 21-21 July 2021.

As a pilgrimage researcher, I am keen to experience many different kinds of pilgrimage. I'm particularly interested in pilgrimage as a means as raising awareness of social issues or as political activism.

One of my aims was to walk and talk with people from different Christian denominations. I was actually surprised to see such a wide variety of walkers. My fellow pilgrims included Anglicans, Baptists, Unitarians and Quakers.

We were hosted by different church communities along the way. They provided meals, refreshments, and a celebratory welcome at the end of each day. The kindness and generosity of these volunteers stands out in my memory.

The YCCN's COP26 flag represents my journey.

The flag-holder is Rachel, one of the organisers.

The flag accompanied the walkers along the whole route, from Cornwall to Glasgow, and is probably the one object familiar to every participant. It symbolises the journey in its entirety, and acts as a baton passed from one group to the next. Like most of the walkers, I took my turn in carrying it.

The COP26 pilgrimage was interesting in that it was truly ecumenical and the participants included Baptists and Quakers who don't have a tradition of pilgrimage. It seems to represent the changing, more inclusive, nature of modern pilgrimage.

I regularly go on pilgrimages! One of the last pilgrimages I joined was the final stretch of the Dominican pilgrimage from Ramsgate to Oxford to mark the Jubilee of the arrival of the first Dominicans in England in 1221.

My next planned pilgrimage is the Frideswide Pilgrimage from Abingdon to Oxford, organised by Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, to celebrate St Frideswide's day in October this year.

With thanks to Dr Anne E Bailey