I spent most of today working on an article featuring volunteers who are part of Northern Cross. basically they set out from Carlisle this morning and are hoping to reach the holy island of Lindisfarne by Good Friday.

It is an annual event and always makes for some good shots such as the one above. It was good to catch up with the participants before they set off. I even had a chat with a New York-based documentary photographer who will be travelling with them throughout the whole trip. Having said that I am hoping to catch up with them at the end of their mammoth trek.

Anyway this is the article I filed today which is set to go online on Monday (unless my news editors rule something different):

A GROUP of hardy pilgrims put their best feet forward in Carlisle this weekend at the start of a journey of around 115 miles to Lindisfarne which is also known as Holy Island.

They set off from St Luke’s Church in the Morton area around 8.30am on Saturday (April 12), following an overnight stay, a short safety briefing, prayers and a rousing rendition of the hymn He Who Would Valiant Bewhich features the lines “His first avowed intent, To be a pilgrim”.

They are due to arrive on the island on the morning of Good Friday and they will take turns to carry a heavy large crucifix in an annual tradition that has taken place for more than 40 years during the week leading up to Easter.

It was one of two separate legs, the other set off from Lanark in southern Scotland, and the Carlisle group was due to spend Saturday’s overnight stop in Lanercost.

One of the organisers, John Wallace who is 75 and lives in Twickenham in London, was this year taking part in the Carlisle leg and did his first pilgrimage in 2004. He said there used to be more routes but it had gradually shrunk over the years to just two.

He said: “Quite a lot of the people who come are a bit older. I’m 75 now, I’m perfectly happy with the distances.

“The Carlisle leg is the longest leg and there are four days when we cover nearly 20 miles each day. So that is quite tough. The third day, which is Monday, we do Haltwhistle to Wark.”

He said it started as a break away from a pilgrimage walk that Catholics do to Walsingham in East Anglia and the Northern Cross event includes all shades of Christianity and is described by organisers as being “truly ecumenical”.

The Carlisle leg is being covered by New York-based documentary photographer Edward Cheng and Mr Wallace said he thought he had covered similar events in the past. He added: “I’ve spoken to him a couple of times on the phone, but I haven’t met him yet.”

He said they would carry the large heavy cross over the whole distance of the pilgrimage and added: “It’s one cross and we share carrying it. There’s usually one person on the front of the cross and one on the back.

“The front person is just behind the crosspiece at the top of it and the person at the back usually holds it a bit lower down, so it’s pointing up a little bit.

“We alternate who’s doing it as much as possible, so everybody gets a turn at carrying it, otherwise it can become a bit of an overload for one person.”

Mr Cheng said that, since around 2003, he had been working on a long-term project photographing Christian Holy Week and Easter around the world. He added: “So I’ve been to lots of places and this year I’m here.”

He said he was expecting to get blisters as well as a sore back during the trek but, on the whole, he hoped it would be a “great experience” as well as getting a few decent pictures.

He added: “Then one day, if I’m very lucky, I’ll try to self-publish a book and have these images included in it and it becomes the big comparative oneness of Christianity.”

Mr Cheng he was hoping to compare different cultures and that it was somewhere between: sociology, anthropology and theology and comparative global things. He said: “We have this opportunity to do now what we’ve never really had like a single person never really had an opportunity to do.”

According to the Northern Cross website participants “bear witness to the passion, death and resurrection of Christ” and that carrying a cross is a very symbolic act at this time of year.

Hosts of the participants during the event include Anglican, Catholic, Church of Scotland, Methodist and Baptist members.It states: “On the other side Northern Cross gives us a chance to get away from the world – a retreat – in beautiful countryside, in the open air away from the daily grind, television and newspapers; a chance to think and reflect; a chance to share in a small Christian community for a week.”