MY HOLY place is a rock on the North Yorkshire Moors, above the tiny village of Hutton-le-Hole. As rocks go, it is unremarkable: no sculpted Ice Age relic, but a landmark that stands as square and dependable as a wayside cross in this solitary setting.
If we are talking holy places in the conventional sense, there are many round here that fit the frame, not least the awesome Norman crypt in the church at Lastingham, where St Cedd founded a monastery in 664. These moors are suffused with the legacy of the northern saints. They are in every breath of wind. Their footsteps are on every beaten track, and I feel their presence every time I come up here.
I FIRST discovered my rock in 2012, several months after the shockingly sudden death of my husband. I was still fragile. I wanted to be with people, but not to be with people. My camper van offered escape, a means of being on my own and not being on my own. I found a haven of a campsite, and it was like putting balm on a bruise.
There was no mobile-phone signal on the site or in the village. I had developed a kind of separation anxiety since the bottom had fallen out of my world, and it made me edgy to know that I couldn’t just check in with the family as and when I needed to. But, on a daily walk up on to the moors, where the sky is big, and sheep startle out of the heather, I discovered a spot on the rise where the phone in my pocket would suddenly ping as it detected some faint signal from somewhere across the dale. It had the potential to connect me — albeit as fleetingly as a rainbow — with the outside world.
The bleeps came intermittently as the track rose more steeply. I could see in the distance a rock that looked as though it might be the crest of the hill. And I sat down on the grassy surround, and leaned against it, and took out my flask, and picked up my phone. The signal was full strength, and I heard the familiarity of my daughter’s voice.
HOLY places were not always holy places. They can start out as perfectly ordinary, and become hallowed with use. As the years have gone by, I have kept returning to what became my place of inspiration. It was there that I wrote my best play, Not Just Fish and Ships, about the Synod of Whitby: it was there that I began to come to terms with my loss.
The rock was my communications centre. But it was also the place where I poured out my soul. Over time, it absorbed my grief, my anger, and later my thanksgiving. It became sanctified with my prayers. A holy place is holy because it is there that you meet with God.
Pat Ashworth is a journalist and playwright.
