ENGLAND’S HOLY ISLAND

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 August 1935, Page 2

ENGLAND’S HOLY ISLAND

WHERE TIME STANDS STILL I have just come back from Britain’s strangest holiday island, writes a London journalist from Berwick-on-Tweed. Though it is only three miles from land and can be reached on foot at low tide, it is an island where the women still carry water from the wells in gourds; there are no cinemas, gas, or electricity; there is no doctor or policeman; the word “pig” must not be mentioned, and fishermen will not go to sea if they meet a cross-eyed man or woman. The island is Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, off the coast of Northumberland, so named because St. Aidan, the Irish monk, established a priory here in 635 A.D. It was to celebrate the 130th anniversary of this historic feat that a pilgrimage, headed by the Archbishop of York, recently visited the ruins of the ancient priory. Holy Island is a place where, in many respects, time has stood still for centuries. There are but 300 people there, and most of them belong to the Cromarty or Kyle families. Fishermen and farmers, they fight for a hardy livelihood from the sea and the soil. In recent years they have derived considerable income by catering for holiday visitors.

Getting on the island is an exciting and adventurous business, and when thty get there visitors receive many “shocks" and surprises. When the tide is low it is possible to walk over the sands barefooted. The way is marked by a long row of poles- —the Pilgrim’s Way—and dotted at intervals by 12-foot high cages, reached by a ladder, in which anyone overtaken by the tide may take refuge. Pony carts make the journey across when the tide has left the sand too wet or full of holes for the journey to be made in the old rusty cars which are the official means of crossing. When noted visitors arrive at the island by car they are given a distinguished welcome. This means that the car is dragged up the village street and a salvo of guns fired over it.

JUMPING THE ROCK If the visitors happen to be bride and bridegroom, there is no escape from the ceremony of “louping" or jumping the formidable piece of 'lock in the ancient churchyard which is known as the “petting stone" —a feat which is said to ensure happiness. The fact that there is no electricity or gas on the island does not worry the islanders, for they dance the old-time dances, the quadrille, the polka, and the Sir Roger de Coverley in the church hall under the light of oil lamps and to the music of a piano. The absence of a doctor never worries them. Coming of hardy northern stock they rarely ail, and when they want a doctor they letch one over from the mainland. Bui a policeman has yet to be called to the island to deal with any misconduct on the part of the natives.

One of the most amusing superstitions on Holy Island is that the “pig must never be mentioned by name. So that, although there are thousands on the island. they are always, referred to as “the article." Another superslition is that fishermen will not go to sea, however favourable the prospect, if they meet a cross eyed man or woman on their way to the boats. The fishermen of this island, with the traditional bravery of Brace Darling and her father ever before them (they set out from the neighbouring Long Stone lighthouse I. do not hesitate when the call is made to launch the lifeboat in the fierce storms which sweep the barren coast. One of the oldest inhabitants —and one of the most popular with young visitors because of his stories of wrecks and stormy nights is old George Cromarty, who has twice been decorated by the King for ids work as coxswain of the lifeboat.