Doctor Who: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Daleks (The Peter Jones-y Edit)

Why I’m a Druid.

My first introduction to Duridry was as a child. My family and I were driving down from London, to Cornwall for our summer holiday. As we past Stone Henge I was spying at it out of the window of the camper. I asked my Farther my favourite question, “What’s it for?”
Dad replied, “I don’t know, no one really knows.”
“Who built it?”
“It was built by the Druids.”
“Who are they?”
“That’s Merlin’s lot he was a Druid”
“What like King Arthur?”
“Yep like King Arthur.”
So there I was in the back of my Dad’s old camper van face pressed against the glass and my Dad’s words echoing inside my head. I was about 7 summers old and I knew what I was going to be when I grew up.
I was going to be a druid like Merlin.
So the years roll on and unlike many things that get left by the wayside my interest in Druidry never wavered. I took to finding all I could about the path at first my only contact would be in early summer were I would wait for the TV & radio news broadcast on the protest at the Henge on midsummer, it was the only way I felt I could get close to “my people,” and believe it or not those news bulletins helped, but on the flip side I used to get incensed by them. There I was this little boy not even in long trousers getting angry at the T.V because the Government felt a need to control everything from the miners to the hippy’s and if you didn’t like it that was tough. Maggie was in charge and she did not take well to discoursed at all.
At about 14 I found God. He, his son and their ghost lived at my secondary school, along with their “mate” Farther Richard. And between the four of them they had me convinced that I to could put on the dog collar and become God’s mate too.
God himself was in my head (and so I was told) everybody else. His aim, it appeared at the time was to make me feel guilty for pretty much everything, and as if to prove his point, his son, who never had done anything wrong, was nailed up by his hands and feet in the main hall. And to top it of it was MY sin that had put him there.
For a time I truly did believe or rather I felt I had to believe to fit in at school (I came from a good home my Parents never stopped me from doing anything and have always supported me) however when I’d tried to get external validation the only thing near me in a spiritual sense was the Roman Chaotic Church. Whenever I tried to disgust my calling for Druidry I was put down or worse dismissed. But of some inexplicable reason I never gave in, nor did go through with the “Holy communion.” Somehow the thought of eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood always made me feel ill. But in the end it did not matter a jot. We got sky and I found out about the atrocities committed through the ages, which had been done in the name of Jesus Christ.
At 15 (despite my best efforts and my dutiful pray), I still failed
My G.C.S.E’s, and one of my best friends died. With his death any hold the church had on me died as well, I started see it as an organisation that controlled what everyone was supposed to think/do.

So there I was 16 summers old, lost, alone and not a bloody clue. That was when I started calling myself a Druid proper when asked what my religion was. It was the only a word and I’m still learning the meaning of to this day, but it has a resonance that is timeless and still stokes the fires of my soul in ways that nothing else can. My conviction to the Druid path has been tested over the years, be of no doubt. The amount of charlatans I’ve come across is staggering. How these amoral git’s feed off of the inexperience and the gullibility of others still angers me. But still I’ve trudged on searching for people to shear my views, experiences with, and at the most perfect time I found the person I have needed since always. My partner, she is following a path so similar to mine it feels at times unreal.
It’s taken a long time for me to get to this point on the path. Next year I’ll be 30 summers and if I’m honest I feel I’ve only just stated. That said I’m still very much enjoying this most particular stroll, down this most particular path. The path they call Druidry.

By Clinton Martin 07/11/2005.

Republished 29/01/2008.