On 22 July 1973 the Observer joined 2,000 English pilgrims on a trip to Lourdes in France. The shrine marking Bernadette Soubirous’s 1858 vision was transformed into a heady blend of powerful spiritual meeting place and gaudy tourist hotspot, with Virgin-shaped bottles of holy water, ‘plaques, medals, cufflinks, rosaries or shrines surrounded by fairy lights’.
Among those taking the waters were Jimmy Dooley, in a coma for four years after a savage mugging, and his mother and full-time carer Mary; Gladys Sunnuck, ‘a jolly 76-year-old’ suffering from elephantiasis in her legs was on her 26th visit; former soldier Bernard Power, 19, paralysed after a friendly fire incident, his first.
