Heart and Soul: Hervé's Way, the story of a one-legged pilgrim

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 May 2024

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hervé lost a leg in a motorbike accident. On the eve of the operation, he made a deal with God: “If I walk again, I'll go to Santiago.” He did walk again, but not on pilgrimage. Instead, he got caught up in his business affairs, had a burn out, tried to kill himself and spent several months in a psychiatric hospital before he decided to keep his side of the bargain. He set out, with crutches and a prosthetic leg, for Santiago de Compostela, a journey of 1,920 kilometres from his home in Brittany in north west France to the cathedral that contains the relics of Saint James at the tip of north west Spain. John Laurenson walks with him for a couple of days to hear his story and talk about life, God, pilgrimage.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I've got so used to that sound I don't even hear it anymore.
0:07.0	Santiago de Compostela at the Western tip of northern Spain was for the best part of European history the end of the world
0:17.8	The final resting place of Santiago, St James one of the apostles says the Bible that Jesus love the most, is also the
0:26.7	Compostela, the Field of the Stars, and to reach it on foot requires hundreds
0:31.6	sometimes thousands of kilometers of pain and privation.
0:36.4	Not surprisingly therefore, many people who set out on this pilgrimage have something
0:40.8	going on.
0:41.8	They're looking for something, even if they don't know quite what. have something
0:42.8	even if they don't know quite what.
0:44.8	They're looking to make sense of their lives,
0:46.8	even if they don't know quite how.
0:48.8	Quite a few of the pilgrims you meet on the way to Santiago
0:52.3	have something dark they're grappling with and
0:54.7	the man walking beside me has been through more darkness than most of us. I'm
1:00.1	John Morrison and you're listening to the documentary on the BBC World Service on
1:04.6	this week's heart and soul exploring personal approaches to faith.
1:08.6	I've joined Frenchman Ervey de L'Antivis who after walking from his home in Brittany to Santiago de Compostela, is walking
1:16.5	the Camino again, this time from Rome, 3,200 kilometers. on one good leg, one artificial leg and crutches.
1:27.0	At the point I was military and I was part I was in the army serving in Lebanon. I had a week's leave and a group of us went to Cyprus where we
1:40.3	hide motorbikes to explore the country. A car pulled out in front of me and hit me in my left knee.
1:47.0	I went flying over the top and hit the ground. I didn't black out, but perhaps that was even worse because the pain was excruciating.
1:56.0	I was taken to a military hospital and had 12 operations over a period of two years.
	...

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