Rich Lion's splinter pilgrimage to Berwick

Rich Lion's splinter pilgrimage to Berwick is the decisive rupture in the latter half of Harold Fry's journey, the moment when the communal enterprise he had inadvertently inspired fractures and a faction races ahead to claim the destination he had promised to reach. It is the event that most sharply contrasts the two competing visions of the walk: Harold's patient, faith-driven commitment to Queenie Hennessy, and the pilgrims' hunger for achievement, recognition, and a triumphant ending. The splinter group's arrival in Berwick-upon-Tweed, celebrated by brass bands and councillors while Harold himself remains far behind, exposes how easily a pilgrimage of atonement can be converted into a spectacle of self-promotion.

Causes and Background

The splintering of the pilgrims did not occur suddenly but was the culmination of growing tensions that had been building for some time. As the group approached Newcastle, Harold had begun to withdraw from the communal life of the camp. He no longer sat with the others while they cooked or planned the next day's route, preferring instead to stroll through the coming night while the crickets creaked and stars pricked the sky, the only time he felt free and connected. The pilgrims' leader, Rich Lion, had been hunting rabbits and birds, which he skinned or plucked and cooked over the flames; the sight of the poor animal, stripped and skewered, made Harold tremble, and there was a hungry wildness in Rich's eye that reminded him of both Napier and his father. Rich's pilgrim T-shirt was smeared with blood, and he had taken to wearing a string of small rodent teeth round his neck, details that put Harold off his food.

While Harold was out of the way, Rich called a private meeting. He had grave concerns, he said, that were difficult to voice, but someone had to; Queenie couldn't hang on for much longer. In light of this, he suggested that a reconnaissance party, led by himself, should take an alternative, cross-country route. He acknowledged that this was hard for everyone because they loved Harold, who had been a father to him, but insisted that the guy was slowing down, that his leg was bad, that he wandered off for half the night, and that he was not the man he was. Kate objected that Harold was not fasting, that Rich made it sound religious when he was just not hungry, but Rich dismissed this, insisting that whatever Harold was doing, he was not up to the journey, and that they needed to call a spade a spade and think how they could help.

The immediate trigger for the final break came when Harold asked the group if they might make a detour via Hexham. He produced from his jacket pocket the business card of the man in the hotel where he had spent his first night, creased with time and furry at the edges, and explained that even though those first few days of his walk had almost broken him, he remembered them with envy, for they held a simplicity that he felt he was in danger of losing. Harold acknowledged that he could not make them come with him, but insisted that he would stick to his promise. A further secret meeting was called by Rich, who declared that he could not believe he was the only one man enough to say it, that the guy was falling apart, and that they could not go to Hexham because it was over twenty miles in the wrong direction. Kate defended Harold, noting that he had made a promise just as he had made one to them, and that he was too polite to renege on that, which was rather English and very endearing. Rich flared, reminding them that Queenie was dying, and proposed that they form a splinter group and push straight up to Berwick, suggesting that they could be there in a week.

What Happens

No one expressed an opinion at the meeting, but in the morning Kate discovered that a lot of campaigning had taken place in the night. Whispered conversations in tents, and over the dying embers of the fire, had confirmed Rich's opinion: they all loved Harold, but it was time to break free. They looked for the old man but he was not to be found. They packed up their sleeping bags and tents, and were gone. Apart from the smouldering embers of a fire, the field was so empty that Kate could almost doubt any of it had happened. She found Harold sitting by a river, throwing stones for the dog, his shoulders hunched as if a weight pressed down on him. It shocked her how old he suddenly looked. She told him that Rich had persuaded the gorilla man to go ahead, and that they had taken the well-wishers and what was left of the journalists. Rich had called a meeting and given some story about Harold needing a break, even squeezing out a few tears, and there was nothing she could do, though people would not be fooled for long. Harold replied that he did not mind, that to tell the truth it was getting too much.

Harold removed the pilgrim T-shirt and retrieved his shirt and tie from his rucksack. They were screwed up and very worn now, but it was like being himself again as he put them on. He wondered whether he should take the T-shirt to Queenie as a further souvenir, but it did not feel right to carry something that had caused such dispute, so he slipped it in a bin when no one was looking. It took Harold a further three days to reach Hexham, where he rang at the buzzer of the businessman's apartment and waited all afternoon, but there was no sign of his host; a woman from another flat came down and explained that the businessman was on holiday in Ibiza, adding that he was always on holiday.

Consequences and Aftermath

A week after the split, reports came of the pilgrims' arrival in Berwick-upon-Tweed. There were photographs in the newspapers of Rich Lion walking hand in hand with his two sons along the quay, and others of a man in a gorilla suit nuzzling the cheek of Miss South Devon. There was a brass band to welcome the party, with a performance by the local cheerleading troupe, and a dinner attended by local councillors and businessmen. Several Sunday papers claimed to have sole access to Rich's diaries, and there was talk of a film. The pilgrims' arrival was also covered on the television news. Courtesy of BBC Spotlight, Maureen and Rex watched footage of Rich Lion and several others delivering flowers to the hospice along with a giant basket of muffins, although Queenie was unable to receive them. The reporter added that sadly no one from the hospice was available for comment, and stood with her microphone at the edge of the drive, behind her a neatly kept garden with blue hydrangeas and a man in a boiler suit raking grass clippings.

Maureen was disgusted by the spectacle, declaring that those people did not even know Queenie, that it made her want to spit, and asking why they could not wait for Harold. She insisted that it was never a race, that it was the journey that mattered, and that Rich did not walk for Queenie but to prove he was a hero and get his children back. Rex offered a more charitable view, suggesting that in the end Rich's was a journey of a kind, just a different one. The reporter made a brief reference to Harold Fry, and an image flashed up in which he was shrinking from the camera, looking like a shadow: dirty, haggard, afraid. In an exclusive interview, Rich Lion explained from the quayside that the elderly Devon pilgrim was suffering from fatigue and complicated emotional issues, and that he had been forced to retire from the walk south of Newcastle. He declared that Queenie was alive, that that was the main thing, and that it was lucky he and the guys were there to step in. Maureen scoffed that Rich could not even speak proper English, as Rich clasped his hands together above his head in a gesture of victory and declared that he knew Harold would be moved by their support, while the jostling crowd of well-wishers cheered.

The splinter pilgrimage thus completes a bitter irony: the very media machinery that had once celebrated Harold's walk as a twenty-first-century pilgrimage, a story people wanted to hear, now celebrated its abandonment. Rich's arrival, with its brass bands, cheerleaders, and talk of a film, stood as the commodified antithesis of everything Harold's walk had meant. Where Harold had walked alone, in faith, measuring distance not in miles but with his remembering, and had shed his possessions along the way, Rich arrived with his children reclaimed, his diaries sold, and his image broadcast nationwide. The splinter group's triumph was hollow, for Queenie was unable to receive them, and the man who had actually made the promise to her was still on the road, wearier than ever, having discarded even the pilgrim T-shirt that had caused such dispute. The event ultimately reveals that the pilgrimage's true meaning could not be claimed by whoever reached Berwick first, but only by the one who had walked for love.