Mike Boyes, Executive Director of the Middlesbrough Diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes, writes

The Organising Committee for the Middlesbrough Annual Diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes has recently met and discussed tenders from three companies for the 2007 Pilgrimage. As a result of a full investigation of the submitted tenders and having considered all grounds especially the question of cost, the Committee has appointed Tangney Tours to be the agent for the Pilgrimage for both the 2007 and 2008 Pilgrimages. The latter Pilgrimage is, of course, the 150th anniversary of the apparitions in Lourdes to St Bernadette in 1858.

The Committee wish to record their sincere thanks to Bowen Travel Limited who have been our agents for the past three years. The Committee confirm that they have sought to obtain the best value whilst, at the same time, enabling our sick pilgrims to travel with an adequate number of helpers from Durham and Tees Valley Airport. Needless to say it is to be hoped that as many pilgrims will book for the 2007 and, indeed, the 2008 Pilgrimages and support the Diocesan Pilgrimage. The number of sick pilgrims that we can take to Lourdes is directly referable to the number of helpers who are able to join the Pilgrimage on the main flight from Durham and Tees Valley Airport.

In 2007 the City of Hull is celebrating the bi-centenary of the abolition of the UK slave trade. William Wilberforce, who was born in Hull and at 21 became the youngest person ever elected to the House of Commons, was responsible with others for the parliamentary bill that led to the abolition of slavery in the UK on 25 March 1807. The birthplace of William Wilberforce in the heart of Hull’s old town has become the first British Museum to tackle the subject of Slavery and its Abolition. There are websites about William Wilberforce and the continuing fight against slavery at www.hullcc.gov.uk/museums/wilberforce/index.php and www.wilberforce2007.co.uk

In 1980 the city twinned with Freetown, Sierra Leone, a city created especially for the return of liberated slaves. In doing this Hull was the first European city to twin with a city in a developing nation. Freetown today is still one of the world’s poorest cities. The Holy Cross parish in Cottingham is twinned with Our Lady, Star of the Sea parish in Freetown.

The Hull Lourdes Sick Fund have decided to commemorate this event by purchasing wheelchairs for use on the Diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes and other pilgrimages from the city. Each Hull parish will be asked to help in whatever way they wish and the appeal was launched formally at the Hull Lourdes reunion held at St Charles Church in the city on Saturday July 1st. Future plans include the placing of wheelchairs within the city for local use including the placement of a wheelchair in St Charles Church and one in the Holy Trinity Church with our friends from the Church of England. We are delighted that Bishop John has agreed to formally dedicate all the chairs at The Hull Lourdes reunion to be held on February 11th 2007 at the church of Our Lady of Lourdes and St Peter Chanel, Cottingham Road, Hull at 2 pm.

If you have a Hull or Lourdes connection and would like to help this appeal, please send your donations to The Hull Lourdes Sick Fund c/o G A Baker, 26 Finkle St, Cottingham, East Yorkshire, HU16 4AZ.