Canterbury’s own Thomas Becket anniversary exhibition has opened after the long delay caused by the virus.

Has the wait been worth it? Certainly Thomas Becket: World Celebrity Healer at The Beaney is very well researched with the organisers having the advantage of access to local material.

Even the chronology at the entrance is extremely thorough and a must to read before you see the exhibits.

Casually on the floor are two pink marble capitals believed to come from Becket’s shrine. They were found forty years ago in the river near the West Gate.

There is much evidence provided of how quickly devotion to Becket spread following his murder in 1170 and of his memory being kept alive during the years following the Reformation.

The murder is described as being as great a shock as the assassination of President Kennedy or the death of Diana, Princess of Wales was in the 20th century.

Becket’s image was quickly found as far south as Sicily and east in Sweden where his statue was dressed in his own vestments.

The show suggests that the few relics we have today, despite Henry VIII’s destruction of the shrine, come from 1220 when the cathedral opened the coffin prior to the body being placed in that final upstairs shrine.

Photographs include Bill Brandt’s Pilgrims Way, Kent (1950) which is described as ‘one of his most abstract and mysterious’.

One of Elisabeth Frink’s Canterbury 1971 etchings of pilgrims depicts Arrival at Canterbury.

William Blake’s 1810 print showing Chaucer’s pilgrims leaving Southwark reminds us how the pilgrimage was being highlighted and recognised in the early 19th century.

In a brief look at the wider world of pilgrimage there are two photographs by Czech photographer and pilgrimage expert Marketa Luskacova taken in Slovakia and Ireland.

It is interesting to find that Canterbury Cathedral’s chapter house has long been a venue for Becket theatre.

There in 1897 Henry Irving gave a reading of his role as Becket in Alfred Tennyson’s play which in 1932 was fully staged in the same long room.

Just two years later it was the venue for the premiere of TS Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral.

When Robert Donat played the role of Becket in a new production of the play at The Old Vic in Coronation Year 1953 he received twenty curtain calls on the opening night.

It appears that the play was only written and premiered at the Canterbury Cathedral thanks to Margaret Babington, cathedral Friends’ treasurer, who had played Eleanor of Aquitaine in Tennyson’s play. A letter reveals how Dean Hewlitt Johnson was primed by her to agree to it.

The many items on show embrace holy water bottles old and new, pilgrim badges and even a bottle of Bishops Finger ale available today at pubs on the PW.

An hour is probably not long enough to look at everything. The museum should consider publishing a souvenir catalogue of the show which only runs until Sunday 4 July.

Thomas Becket; World Celebrity Healer at The Beaney is open Tuesday to Sunday; admission free. Booking ahead is essential whilst social distancing rules are required.

Paulo Seth’s introductory film about cycling from Winchester to Canterbury is now online.

Fifteen further films for each stage follow weekly.

The route is not exactly the same as the footpath since cyclists have to avoid kissing gates as well as other problems.

But the Pilgrims’ Way often has parallel paths even for walkers and horse riders. In the past this was sometimes the result of the main path being too muddy in winter.

The first video can be seen now here.

Paulo tackled the Pilgrims’ Way during the pandemic after much experience of other major pilgrim routes. The PW, in four days, is his shortest.

The Winchester to Canterbury journey was filmed by German television.

His blog provides added interest.

**Attractive pilgrim T-shirts and shell badges can be purchased online through an associated website.

The long-awaited Thomas Becket: Murder and the making of a saint exhibition has opened at the British Museum.

This was to have been part of the 2020 Becket anniversary programme of events until we were hit by the pandemic.

The show will now run until Sunday 22 August but tickets should be booked in advance.

It seems odd to see a window from Canterbury Cathedral in the exhibition. Should we not see this when we have walked there? But in Bloomsbury we can inspect the restored glass close up and with lots of explanation.

It was first installed in the cathedral just before the Becket shrine was completed in 1220.

It is interesting to see the immediate reach of Becket for some churches elsewhere and even abroad were ahead of Canterbury in honouring the saint.

The Tudor period brought destruction to the shrine but it also gave us another Becket in the form of St Thomas More. Rochester’s John Fisher and Thomas More are today both PW saints who we encounter on the way and they are recognised here.

As arriving pilgrims we might buy a badge or T-shirt in Canterbury cathedral’s new shop. A token on sale is a replica of one being shown in the exhibition.

If you are unable to travel at present or think £22 is too much for an exhibition ticket on top of a train fare it may be worth considering buying the catalogue.

The exhibition souvenirs, including shell keyrings, pendants and earrings along with miracle window mugs, can be bought online.

Tim Stanley, enthusing in the Daily Telegraph about the exhibition, expressed the strong view that the relic of St Thomas on display is so profoundly special and holy that it should really be seen in a church rather than a museum.

You can see a bone relic of the saint and martyr in St Thomas of Canterbury Church in Canterbury’s Burgate without payment. It is a highpoint of the pilgrimage arrival.

Pilgrimage is again possible.

Winchester, Southwark, Rochester and Canterbury Cathedrals are all open from today.

We can now attempt walking to Canterbury from Southwark in London or Winchester in Hampshire.

Pilgrim passports can be obtained at Winchester or Southwark on the day you set out.

Pubs and bed & breakfasts are allowed to reopen but not all are opening immediately.

Check and book ahead to be sure.

St Oscar Romero Day is Wednesday 24 March.

This year is the 41st anniversary of St Oscar Romero’s martyrdom. He died in church at the hands of the state like another archbishop, Thomas Becket.

‘The name Romero means pilgrim,’ said Dr Gemma Simmonds CJ earlier this month. ‘If we need a companion to help us on our way, then, in the saint of El Salvador, we could not find a better one.’

The Oscar Romero UK shrine is at St George’s Roman Catholic Cathedral in Southwark near the start of the Pilgrims’ Way.

His relics can be found at Canterbury, alongside those of Thomas Becket, in St Thomas of Canterbury Church next to the cathedral.

Next Saturday 27 March, on the eve of Holy Week, there will be a Romero Mass at 12.30pm in Southwark’s St George’s Cathedral (opposite the Imperial War Museum).

Archbishop of Southwark John Wilson will preside and preach. He
will also commission four Guardians of the Romero Shrine: Mgr John O’Toole, Canon Alan McLean, Kathleen O’Brien and Julian Filochowski who will have the responsibility to foster devotion to St Oscar Romero and to assist the Dean Richard Hearne in the oversight of the Shrine.

The Mass will be live streamed on www.romerotrust.org.uk

This Sunday comes at the end of the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity when the online Eucharist from Southwark Cathedral will include Lutheran and Roman Catholic participation from Bergen and Rouen cathedrals.

Southwark’s link with Rouen has several resonances.

Rouen Cathedral is where in 1014 St Olaf was baptised after pulling down London Bridge to defeat a Viking invasion.

Olaf became King of Norway and friends from Bergen and Southwark have travelled together to Rouen.

Having just observed the 850th anniversary of Thomas Becket’s murder, which took place just after his visit to Southwark, it is maybe the moment to recall that Becket’s father was from Rouen.

Also, it was in Rouen during the last year of his life that Thomas Becket was given money to enable him to return from exile to England. The vital assistance came from the Archbishop of Rouen after Henry II broke his promise to meet the Becket in Rouen.

In 2018 a party from Southwark visited Rouen Cathedral during the Week of Prayer and joined in local unity events.

But for the virus, friends from Rouen would been in Southwark last month when Thomas Becket’s 1170 visit was recalled with a choral evensong. 850 years later the preacher was Archbishop Justin Welby.

Southwark’s St George’s Cathedral brought its Becket relic to the anniversary service and their congregation will also be represented at the Eucharist.

The Eucharist this Sunday can be followed on the Southwark Cathedral website at 11am.

Canterbury is both a destination for those who have travelled the Pilgrim’s Way from Winchester, Rochester or Southwark and the starting point for those en route to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Today, after several years of restoration, Santiago Cathedral reopens for the feast of the Translation of St James.

Tomorrow during Vespers, the Holy Door will be opened for Holy Year pilgrims. In 2021 St James’s Day 25 July falls on a Sunday making next year a Holy Year.

Vespers can be seen live from 3.30pm GMT on New Year’s Eve.

From January there is to be a daily pilgrim Mass at 12 noon.

Although some pilgrims have been arriving during recent months there is a plan being considered to extend the Holy Year into 2022 so as to enable many more to undertake the pilgrimage if the virus can be suppressed across France, Portugal and Northern Spain.

*** The Pilgrims’ Way being also the beginning of paths for Santiago and Rome is explained by former Confraternity of St James secretary Marion Marples at the start of the film To Be a Pilgrim (Southwark to Canterbury) available for free rental online until tomorrow.

Today Tuesday 29 December is the 850th anniversary of St Thomas Becket being murdered in Canterbury Cathedral.

This December was to have been the culmination of the Becket 2020 year in which the 800th anniversary of his Translation would have been marked as well as the 850th of his death.

This afternoon all who had intended to be at Canterbury, indeed to have walked there during Christmas week like Hilaire Belloc in 1899, can watch Evensong online from Canterbury Cathedral.

St Thomas died during Vespers. Tonight Evensong will include passages from TS Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral premiered at Canterbury in 1935.

February 2023 will be the 850th anniversary of the canonisation of Thomas Becket. Get ready for a chilly walk along the PW that year.

Today Monday 21 December is the birthday of St Thomas of Canterbury: Thomas Becket.

His parents were Matilda and Gilbert Becket from Rouen where their son as archbishop was to visit sixty years later as his exile ended.

The baby was baptised Thomas having been born on St Thomas the Apostle Day -now observed in July but then in the Advent calendar.

Today could be the 900th anniversary of Thomas Becket’s birth since many claim he was born in 1120 rather than 1118 as recorded by some other sources.

His birthplace is found opposite Tesco in the City of London’s Cheapside. The site became the Hospital of St Thomas and until the 1530s had a statue of the saint facing the street.

The successor church is the Mercers’ Chapel within Mercers’ Hall which is reached by way of Ironmonger Lane to the west.

Through the window of Becket House in Old Jewry, on the east side, can be seen a scaled up linocut of Cyril Power’s depiction of the violent murder of St Thomas Becket.

Thomas Becket: murder and the making of a saint is the major Becket 2020 exhibition which will open at the British Museum on Wednesday 22 April.

The exhibition was scheduled for earlier this year but as with most St Thomas Becket anniversary events was postponed.

The array of objects associated with Becket will include jewellery, sculptures and reliquaries.

In addition to artefacts from the Museum’s own collection there are loans from Europe and the United States.

The British Museum exhibition will run for four months until Sunday 22 August.