Cross-carrying pilgrims head back to Holy Island

Nadia Coppola first walked a Northern Cross pilgrimage aged four

For more than 40 years Pete Coppola, 65, from Rochester in Kent, has spent the week before Easter walking up to 100 miles while carrying a wooden cross.

During most of the last 20 years, his daughter Nadia has joined him on the long journey from towns across the north of England and Scotland to Holy Island, off the Northumberland coast.

Numbers taking part in the Northern Cross pilgrimages are dwindling, but this year the Coppolas will be in a group of about 20 walking from Carlisle.

Easter away from Holy Island is "unthinkable", Mr Coppola said.

Each walk ends with a weekend of Easter celebrations on Holy Island

Northern Cross began in 1975 when a group of Christians decided they would like to make a pilgrimage during the week before Easter.

Holy Island was chosen as the destination, both for its Christian history and as a location where English and Scottish groups could meet.

Each group carries a large wooden cross with them and accommodation is basic; usually the floors of village halls.

Mr Coppola joined for the first time in 1979.

"We walked from Edinburgh and every step was on roads," he said.

"Now we walk on disused railways, on footpaths, over the hills which is much nicer."

On Good Friday the pilgrims walk barefoot across the sand to Holy Island

At its peak over 100 people would take part, with legs from Carlisle, Bellingham, Melrose and Dunbar.

Many, like Mr Coppola, walked with their children.

"My mum even walked when she was pregnant with me," Nadia Coppola explains.

"You see such kindness on the way, people take you in. It really restores your faith in humanity.

"The scenery is just so beautiful as well."

This year, for the first time there is just one group walking.

"People have got older and then there was Covid," Mr Coppola explained.

"But in two years time it's our 50th anniversary and we'll get lots of people coming back for that.

"From that, we'll hopefully build it back to what it was."

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