...and in a sizzling, uncomfortable London...

...the annual Martyrs Walk, commemorating those who died in the grim years of the 16th and 17th centuries...and we prayed for religious freedom and a great revival of the Christian Faith in our poor country today.

The Walk takes us from Newgate to Tyburn, and we stop at the church of St Anselm and St Cecilia, thinking of Catholic martyrs who suffered at nearby Lincoln's Inn Fields...and at St-Giles-in-the-Fields (Anglican) where we commend to God all, Catholic and Protestant, who suffered in the tumultuous Reformation years...and at St Patrick's, Soho, where we completed the main part of our pilgrimage, dividing into smaller groups to make our way to Tyburn (impossible for a large group to go down Oxford Street with all the shoppers...)

At Tyburn Convent, we are always given a wonderful welcome by the nuns. We had a beautiful Benediction and then Tea.

Tyburn - at Marble Arch - is now a very Moslem part of London. The part of Hyde Park that adjoins the Bayswater Road and Edgware Road, is now packed with ladies in long dark robes, many with their faces covered, and all with children and large extended-family groups. I cannot imagine that any of them know of the history of the place: Speakers' Corner, the Tyburn Tree...

Speakers' Corner was established long years ago as a place where free speech is allowed - anyone can get up on a soapbox and say anything they like, at least in principle. The tradition goes back to the ghastly days when a man was allowed one last speech from the scaffold here at Tyburn, and could, if he wished, finally speak his mind - after all, he was about to die a grim and painful death, so he had nothing to lose...

The grim history gave way to something rather splendid. For much of the 20th century it was a rather jolly place, with lots of lively debates and some well-known speakers.  It doesn't have quite the same feel now, and I felt that its heyday has somehow passed. But I would like to think that freedom of speech is still a cherished tradition in our country. We must pray that this freedom, hard-won, is kept alive...