I envy the hippies of Finisterre

I can’t stop thinking about Pierre. I first met him at the end of December in a Finisterre bar much favoured by the hippy types drawn to the strange energies of the western coast of Galicia. With his sunned and bearded swarthy face, solid build and tattoos, I initially thought he was a Galician fisherman. But when I dropped a napkin on the floor and he swooped to pick it up for me, I was struck by this conscientious and unexpected behaviour.

The next day I ran into him at a bar beside the small harbour. It turned out he was a Frenchman with Sicilian ancestry who had walked the Camino from Le Puy in France, covering 800 miles (plus he wasn’t stopping and next would turn south and head to Fatima in Portugal).

So he was a pilgrim, a peregrino version of Arthur Conan Doyle’s gallant Brigadier Gerard. And Pierre had truly embraced the pilgrim spirit. Before leaving France, he had the back of one hand tattooed with a scallop shell, the symbol of Saint James and the Camino. Covering the inside of his right forearm was the tattooed face of his cousin who had committed suicide and for whom he was offering up the pilgrimage. Next to one eye was tattooed a tear (for the cousin), while next to the other eye was a star – Sirius, the first star that comes out in the night sky and which shines most brightly. On top of that, he got rid of the car, the apartment and ‘smashed’ his mobile phone before departing.

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Ross Clark

Britain is living beyond its means

Later, with Sirius in the sky above us, I saw Pierre standing alone on the bar’s veranda facing the harbour. His face was upturned to the night sky and both his arms were held out from his body with his palms facing outward. He seemed to be having nothing short of a mystical experience. I envied him, then checked my mobile phone.

Ever since I first visited Finisterre after doing my first Camino, I’ve been intrigued by Finisterre’s alternative, hippy crowd (which includes pilgrims who after arriving never left). Pilgrims often continue there from Santiago de Compostela, as it marks the literal start point of the route; you can go no further with the great Atlantic blocking your path.

These hippies have managed something most people can’t seem to achieve: saying to hell with the artifice, not giving a damn what people think and just doing what truly speaks to their hearts. One Finisterre transplant from Portugal described those drawn there as the ‘black sheep’ of society. Well, they are my kind of black sheep. I’ve noticed a correlation between missing the odd tooth, having a weathered face and being open and warm-hearted versus wearing smart clothes, displaying perfect skin and a having a cold heart.

Those more weathered bodies and souls also know how to put on a good party, as I discovered New Year’s Eve back at the bar where I first saw Pierre. At midnight they had me speed eating grapes: a Spanish tradition, with one grape munched for each chime of the clock (it’s hard to keep up).

A young lady behind the bar turned out to be half English, which partly accounted for her being named after King Arthur’s older half-sister Morgane, a powerful enchantress who ultimately brings about Arthur’s ruin. By 5 a.m., hardcore techno was being played.

A day before I hadn’t known any of them, but I couldn’t have asked for better company than these black sheep who have turned their backs on the lifestyles most of us accept (career-orientated with nine-to-five in the office, mortgages and ‘stability’). It’s increasingly hard to argue against their pushback: evidence in the likes of London suggests an increasingly warped way of living that is making many people miserable.

As if to ram home the case in favour of the black-sheep approach, the bar’s big screen played an animated short film called Happiness by Steve Cutts. ‘Make sure you watch this if you haven’t seen it,’ one of the bar’s owners told me (I hadn’t). ‘It’s amazing.’ The film depicts the rat race of city life in literal terms, with endless rats commuting to the office and typing away at desks. All the while they are sniffing out happiness in its advertised forms: having a shiny car, more money, swigging alcohol and taking medication to relieve their blues.

I found myself identifying with those rodents getting their tails caught in the closing Tube doors. I’m back in an office for the first time in a while, doing some short-term editing work. As you read this, and I’ll likely be on another Underground train from Vauxhall to Victoria – and Pierre will be walking towards Fatima, gazing up at Sirius in the night sky.