The 9th in a unique series of twelve. This is Coops, who was a Morley jeweller at the time. He was also the Round Table Treasurer back in early 2003. Coops was a late edition to the line-up and this shot was taken in my lounge with him sat on one of our Ikea dining room chairs (and David looking on bemusedly). He provided the barometer but a collectable spoon might have sufficed…

After having spent 12 months in Saudi Arabia, I had a number of positive perceptions about the Hajj, the Muslim Pilgrimage to Makkah (or as we call it, Mecca). Going on the Hajj pilgrimage at least once in a lifetime is one of the five pillars of Islam and every Muslim (except one) who I have talked to about it has described it as a deeply spiritual experience.

As an agnostic, I am wary of some deeply religious experiences as they often involve the handing over of money, particularly on the American envangelism channel. Going on the Hajj is much simpler than that though- it involves visiting a number of religious sites in the Mecca/Medina area and performing a number of rituals, such as throwing stones, running between hills and circling structures. If that makes you think of boy scouts, however, remember it is on a massive scale, some two million or so going on the pilgrimage each year during Hajj month.

The Mosque at Mecca is absolutely enormous and has a vast open air courtyard with the Kabba in the centre. The Kabba is a cube-like building which is hollow inside, the doorway several feet in the air (they have a special stairs for it) and with a small staircase inside onto the roof. It has a black rock outside on one corner held in a silver frame (thought to be a meteorite by many) and pilgrims traditionally used to kiss it as they circled. (Now it is considered enough just to point to it in passing, as the practicalities of massive numbers of people trying to get close are difficult, if not downright dangerous). The Kabba is the terms of reference for prayer- all Muslims face it five times a day as they supplicate. The Kabba is covered in a large black drape, with ornate golden banding.

If you are thinking of adding it to your tourist trip round the Middle East, however, you will be disappointed, as the City of Mecca is not open to infidels. You have to be a Muslim to be able to enter the place, let alone visit the Hajj. Very few ever get to see inside the Kaaba, although there is a dusting ceremony that Muslim State dignitaries can get to participate in.

The closest I have ever been is to nearby Jeddah, where the airport has huge canopied areas either side of the terminal feeder road for pilgrims to shelter from the fierce summer heat. (As the Muslim Calendar is lunar month based rather than solar year based, the pilgrimage month slowly creeps forwards through the Western calendar year over time. It is on as I write so comparatively temperate out there weather-wise).

Back to religious experiences. There are several well known ones to choose from depending upon your upbringing and creed like Lourdes, Jerusalem, the Wailing Wall, even visiting St. Peters Square to see the Pope play to the crowd. What makes them so deeply moving?
I imagine that it is because they are carried out in the company of many like minded others, reinforcing beliefs, purging doubts and getting respect from your peers. However, going to a Wembley Cup Final can have the same endorphin releasing effect if your cherished team happens to win. Reading Crushed By Ingsoc’s praises of dance culture, there are echoes of deep joy in the juxtaposition of hypnotic rhythm, mind altering substances and a bit of rumpy-pumpy. Has hedonism filled the comfort gap that religion used to provide for the sanctimonious in these more secular times?

When my Dad (Neil) died in 1996, my Mum (Pat) and I decided to have a Humanist cremation. We did this because he knew all too well that religion was a man-made artificial construct, a source of comfort to many for the fears of the unknown but ultimately manipulated by Men and manipulative of its adherents. Neil had his own value system that was inevitably Christian in intent but free of Dogma. He was happy to believe that there was a God of some sort, but wise enough to realise that it was a conceit of mankind to think that He was interested in us at the macro level or that we needed to worship Him in any way. A Humanist funeral service is simple, but well executed in a dignified way (or at least, Neil’s was). The officiator wears a simple black gown in order to add gravitas to the service and also, presumably, to give implied credibility to those in the congregation expecting a man of the cloth. He had visited us a few days earlier and talked about Neil’s life at length, or more accurately, gave us open questions and let us do the talking. His oratory was a skillful paraphrasing of our comments, making the point that he lived on in a very real sense through myself as his Son.

I remember much vividly about the funeral but there are also strange gaps, presumably due to the emotional aspects. My first real wave of dread started when I actually saw the hearse with the coffin inside. Due to the nature of the traffic in Ealing, we were collected by limo from Pat’s Flat and then joined the procession down at their Showrooms near the Broadway. Whilst my logical side was in control, my emotional side was worrying away at my hind brain, reminding me that my dead Dad was in that laminated plywood box in the car ahead. I imagine I wasn’t the only one as the conversations petered out as we made progress to the Crematorium. Two of the ushers briefly walked in front of the hearse carrying something (but I don’t remember what) in a throwback to olden day services where the bier was horse drawn. I don’t remember what music we chose for the ceremony and whilst there were lots of people there, I can only remember with certainty a smattering of faces of who actually attended. I don’t recall the actual mechanics of the committal, having visited many crematoria on business as well as for services but it probably involved a curtain closing rather than any platforms sinking out of view or conveyer belts trundling the coffin away. I can vaguely remember that it wasn’t too noisy though, I’ve been to places where the mechanics of the committal are intrusively noisy or even comical in their squeakiness. As the coffin disappeared from view, however, both Pat and I lost control for a minute and both shuddered with grief, clutching each other for confort. We had both been strong for each other during the preceding few days but now we had to let go. The visit to the garden of remembrance is now an indistinct memory, as was the Wake afterwards.

Death takes us all, but there is much that we can do on life’s journey to live enjoyable times, with or without religious convictions. I read a book a year or two ago about the spiritual aspects of Freemasonry, written by a Yorkshire Mason, Robert Lomas. In the opening chapter, he explained about how he had experienced close to a religious revelation when he had been out in a thunderstorm and lightning had struck all around him close to his car. He felt a spine tingling sensation, a creeping crawling wave over his skin as all his body hairs stood erect, then waves of joy as the lightning discharged around him along with a sort of out of body experience. It seemed that he achieved a tiny but similar joy in the performance of ritual and the contemplation of its meaning, which had inspired him to write the book. I have to say, however, that I am extremely sceptical of all this. Our bodies are electro-chemical systems which can be disoriented by chemical or electrical inbalances altering our state of conscience. A few weeks ago on the telly, Richard (Hamster) Hammond from Top Gear sat in a car whilst it had huge voltages discharged into it at an electrical testing station in Germany. It impressed him enormously, but not enough to go and write a book about it. (But there again, he has already had a near death experience of his own).

Back to the Hajj. I mentioned earlier in the posting that one Muslim I met didn’t regard it as a moving experience. He was from Libya and I shared a meal with him at a conference a few years ago. When I asked if he had been on the Hajj he pulled a face and, noticing my surprise, commented that it was one big Arab money spinner designed to rip off the visitors with silly prices for everything from souvenirs to basic needs like food & water. When he mentioned this I said it sounded like Niagara- stunning natural beauty in the National Park, tacky grockle consumerism in the town. I never thought that bits of Mecca might be like Blackpool…