Monty wants me to become a Sikh, but I wouldn’t Countdown on that..!
Quiz show star Nick Hewer on how the England cricket legend became his ‘spiritual guru’, their shared TV pilgrimage… and slipping ‘on the slopes of Glenfiddich’
WHEN NICK Hewer set out on an ancient trek for the new series of BBC Two’s Pilgrimage, he was hoping for a religious revival. Raised a Catholic, at 78 he describes himself as an agnostic, but one with a thirst for answers. “I was a soul for hire,” the star of TV shows Countdown and The Apprentice says. “Tell me who’s got the best argument and I will jump at it.”
Step forward 39-year-old England cricket legend Monty Panesar, a devout Sikh who became Nick’s “spiritual guru” – and unexpected friend.
“I’m very fond of Monty,” Nick says. “The joke was he was going to teach me how to become a Sikh. He hasn’t done it yet!”
Pilgrimage follows celebrities of all faiths and beliefs as they pull on their walking boots and backpacks and head off in search of spiritual enlightenment.
For this fourth series, the group journeyed 1,000 miles across Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland following in the footsteps of the sixth-century Irish monk, Saint Columba, who is credited with spreading Christianity through Britain.
The group included TV interior designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, a pagan, Gogglebox star Scarlett Moffatt, a Christian, comedian Shazia Mirza, a Muslim, Paralympian Will Bayley, a lapsed Christian, and Emmerdale actress Louisa Clein, who is Jewish.
So why did Nick and Monty get on so well? “There is an innocence about him,” Nick says. “He was an open character with no guile. He wasn’t trying to be something he isn’t.” The pair couldn’t be more different. Nick, famous for his quizzical eyebrows and dry wit, is a no-nonsense businessman who came to fame as Alan Sugar’s TV adviser. While big-hearted Monty believes in an invisible and unifying universal energy called “oneness”.
“We are like North and South poles but we just connect,” Monty says.
He invited Nick to his local Sikh temple in Northampton after filming finished last autumn. Nick loved it. “It was terrific,” he says. “He may just have to get a turban now, that’s the next stage,” laughs Monty.
The other celebrities were just as curious to explore their faith.
Actress Louisa, 42, wanted to grasp “what it means to be Jewish”. Her mother was a Holocaust survivor who tried to protect her children by minimising their Jewish religious education. Louisa consequently grew up a “stranger in a synagogue”.
“I wanted to represent the Jews as somebody who hasn’t spoken out as much as others about being Jewish,” she says.
Shazia was the opposite. “I definitely wasn’t here to represent all Muslims as my lot don’t want me representing them,” she jokes.
She was raised in the Islamic faith but attended a Birmingham Catholic school. She signed up for the show “to elevate [herself] to a higher level and be more compassionate, understanding and tolerant”.
Along the way, the pilgrims visited an early Christian cave, Sikh temple and contemporary mosque.
One highlight was stones in the Outer the Neolithic Calanais Hebrides of Scotland. “The nature was fantastic,” says Nick. “We didn’t find God but we found a love for the Highlands and that comes pretty near.”
THE SAME cannot be said for the dismal weather veiling the scenery. It was a stark contrast to previous pilgrimages where stars journeyed to northern Spain and Istanbul. “We genuinely felt having seen the other pilgrimages that we might need some sun protection but we didn’t at all,” groans Laurence. “We were the lucky ones to have picked the pilgrimage with the rain.”
The Changing Rooms presenter holds a “wry” attitude towards paganism. He enjoys being comforted by nature’s cycles and is awestruck by its power.
“It’s ‘Laurence-ism’ paganism,” he jokes. “A paganism I make up to enjoy the view of the Cotswolds I enjoy at home.”
The celebs spent most days trudging up and down steep hills. “The big question was ‘how far today?’” recalls Nick.
“We would be told it’s quite a short one. How short? Maybe eight miles up a mountain.” He lets out an exasperated sigh.
An ex-smoker, he prepared for the trip by pedalling a hired electric bike around the lanes of his Northamptonshire home. Still, he found the walks arduous and often trailed the main group. Not that he minded much.
“I liked it because it was a contemplative solo journey in a way and you could ruminate on this or that,” he says. “Sometimes Monty was with me but often I would be on my own with the cameraman. It was partially the physicality but also because the discussion was above my head when they were talking about non-spiritual matters.
“I’m not being grand about it, but I don’t watch Love Island!”
The precious items he took with him were his headphones and phone containing 4,800 classical songs. “I played a lot of requiems, I thought that was appropriate,” he quips.
Nick found Catholicism “didn’t stick” with him at Clongowes Wood College, the Jesuit boarding school in County Kildare, Ireland, where he was educated.
“Even at the age of eight, I didn’t under
stand or have any interest in it,” he says. “I thought, ‘why am I doing all this?’ There was a rejection of being told what to do.”
ON ONE occasion, he tried to get out of Sunday school by asking his brother to hit him on the head with a hammer, but they decided against it in the end, His theological debates occasionally put him at odds with Scarlett, 31.
Laurence recalls: “Having not appreciated the Jesuit tradition, Nick was quick to find fault with Christianity – a bit of a flashpoint for Scarlett.
“I don’t think she realised he had a voice of experience. He was criticising his Christianity but not hers.We had to talk a couple of times about her needing to be stronger with her sense of Christianity.”
In the first episode, Scarlett breaks down in tears after the group laughs and jokes about religion at a sacred spot. The group were surprised by her strong faith.
This is understandable when you learn Scarlett was mercilessly bullied at school. Teachers put her into isolation so she could escape her tormentors. There she found her faith through reading. When she did make friends, they ridiculed her beliefs.
“There’s almost a stigma attached to being religious,” she says. “Whenever I would tell my friends, they’d laugh and I’d be like, ‘why is that funny?’” Laurence picks up on this. “It was strange how we discovered how concerned Scarlett was at being outed as a Christian [on social media] and that she would lose followers. Surely that doesn’t matter.You’ve got to be you.”
But Monty understands Scarlett’s fears. “We sports people are the same – we want to look cool,” he says. “Suddenly you talk about faith and it’s uncool. You don’t feel like a hero.” He became the first Sikh cricketer to play for England in 2006.
“Monty mania” soon swept the country and he drifted from his faith. “The ego starts kicking in because everyone is applauding you,” he explains.
“One minute no one knows you then after two minutes at Lords, 13,000 people recognised me. I’m walking down Oxford Street and everyone wants autographs. You start to think, I’m someone special here.”
After his form faltered and his marriage broke down, his mental health declined. It was at this point, he says, that he returned to his faith.
“The man upstairs thinks, you’ve forgotten me and I’m going to remind you’,” Monty adds. “He takes everything away from you and says, ‘okay come back to me now’.”
NICK’S closest encounter with God happened after he whacked his head on the floor of a bothy, a basic shelter in remote areas open to passing travellers. It happened as he tried to get into his sleeping bag, which rested on an airbed, after one too many drinks. “I slid on the slopes of Glenfiddich!” he laughs. “The whole thing was like trying to balance yourself on a log in the river and was destined for disaster.”
Shazia remembers the sickening smack of Nick’s head hitting the hard floor.
“I thought he’d died,” she says. “I thought oh my God, I’m the witness! Please, I didn’t murder him!”
A huge egg-shaped lump graced Nick’s forehead for a week afterwards. “It was bad,” he says. “It bruised and looked like I had been in a fight.”
The group ended their pilgrimage on the tiny island of Iona in the Inner Hebrides, where Saint Columba built his revered abbey.
Monty believes the experience changed him. “Pilgrimage pulled the faith out of me,” he says. “Now I can openly discuss it with people. I wouldn’t see it as an uncool thing because the whole world has seen it. We can have a proper conversation about it.”
Nick didn’t have a religious conversion but doesn’t mind.
“It’s a gift, and I wasn’t given it,” he says. “As long as we’ve got humanity, don’t behave like terrible people and treat others as we wish to be treated, then that’s good enough.”
Even so, Monty intends to persuade Nick to return to Northampton for temple prayers on his birthday in April.
Nick might go, but don’t expect to see him in a turban. “I didn’t go previously with any serious intention of becoming a Sikh – don’t tell Monty,” he laughs.
Pilgrimage: The Road to the Scottish Isles airs on Friday, April 8 at 9pm on BBC Two.