Good Friday

I again joined in a Good Friday Silent Procession of Witness. This is always a moving experience as a large heavy wooden cross is carried through the town and up on to a hill where it is erected to stand sentinal over a town for a week. (providing vandals don`t again chop it down). Each year the crowd following the cross seems to get bigger and bigger, and to be of all ages. Even people with walking frames and aids took part in the procession.

I`ve been up there in all kinds of weather on Good Fridays, from warm sunshine, rain and wind, to the most atmospheric year when black storm clouds hovered and thunder could be heard not far away. Today there was a mist blowing in off the sea partially hiding the town from the hill, again giving a different atmosphere. (this photo is from a previous year, it was too misty today for one)

The most moving part of it this year though, was after we`d sung 'There is a green hill far away' and said a prayer, instead of people chattering and departing, Everyone just stood there in a big circle and crowd round the Cross, looking up at the cross and there was just something about that silence that seemed unique. It was several minutes before anyone moved and it the silence was broken.