Angels in the North

I nearly missed it. Trying to follow an approved cycle track beside a main road should be straightforward. But the convolutions it performs at junctions, and the need to look out for sudden crossovers, means I can only look up briefly and riskily.

And then suddenly here I am, almost at the foot of Anthony Gormley’s Angel of the North. It’s an awesome presence. The clouds scooting past give the fleeting impression the Angel is falling over – we are all going to be crushed, in a dramatic last judgement.

But no; there’s no danger of that. The angel is unmoved. Its arms stretch out in a wide benediction, and it glows with a rust-coloured gentleness.

I’m on my way to Durham, after an early afternoon performance in St. Nicholas’s Cathedral in Newcastle. In Newcastle I met other angels, in various guises. This part of the North, it seems, is full of them.

Jane, robed and welcoming, helps me down the steps into the building, and tries to send me straight to the refectory for lunch. Freda, the verger, quickly brings chair and table, and attends to every logistical need for the performance. She has recently undertaken her own walking pilgrimage from her home in Aberdeen, the beginning of a long journey into the Benedictine order.

I put the bike on its stand conspicuously at the head of the nave, set up the music stand, and arrange Gillian Lever’s paintings while the organist practises at full volume for his lunchtime recital.

I felt very slightly churlish that I skipped his recital in order to have the lunch Jane had offered. In the refectory I was recognised by Aidan, another cyclist. It took me a moment to remember that he had written to me, out of the blue, and offered me accommodation en route.

He told me the story. He and a friend had been haring down Hartside, and wondered why someone would be struggling up that hill on a heavy cargo bike. So they did some investigative digging, and tracked the strange fellow down. And now here he was in front of me, sharing stories over soup and cheese scones, with his tricycle parked outside, having biked from Durham that morning.

Even that wasn’t my full tally of angels. Marina asked where I planned to stay in Oxford, and promised to sort that out for me. Later she sent me pictures of the Meditation performance.

And afterwards Lesley, at the little cathedral shop, tallied everything up, bought a book herself, and asked me to sign it “from Kenneth and Libre”.

And now here I am in Durham, in the shadow of that city’s great cathedral, sitting at a big kitchen table, after salmon and asparagus, with Margaret and Robert. I want to tell you the extraordinary story of how I was introduced to them, via yet more northern angels, but it’s late, and sometimes one just needs to call it a day.