SATURDAY 9 NOVEMBER 1985.

  The cantor seemed very far away at 4.20am. It was with great effort that I put my very tired feet to the ground as the bells of St Saviour's Church rang out at 5.00am. I celebrated Mass there at 5.30am. The psalm of the Mass was, 'I rejoiced when I heard the say, let us go up to Jerusalem'.

  Sitting in the choir stalls, I saw the lone figure of the Head of the Franciscan Order, in the Holy Land. The Franciscans are the custodians of the Holy Places. What a tremendous responsibility he has, I thought, working for the Lord and for each person who goes to the Holy Land, and even for those who never get the opportunity of travelling there. Everyone feels an affinity with the Holy Land, if not by foot, at least in the scriptures, the Sacraments and in prayer. The familiar sight of a Franciscan priest is a welcoming sight everywhere. If the Franciscans had never done anything else but look after the Holy Places, they would have fulfilled a mighty work. We owe them a great debt of gratitude.

  At 8.00am I set out on a new adventure to a place I had never visited by me before - Masada. Two young Brussels girls, Micael and Veronica, an English girl, Liz, a Scot, Archie and myself shared a taxi at £17.50 which was organised by the Church of England Christchurch Hospice and Information Centre.

  On the journey through the desert to the East, the elderly driver pointed out the valleys, the hills, the streams, the villages - places we could see, places over the next hill, the desert, and linked them with kings, prophets, armies, Jesus, Apostles, and nearly everybody you could care to mention in the Bible, quoting chapter and verse - which was much more than I could do!

  This delayed us and it took us two half hours to cover the 80 mile journey. We stopped at Qumran to gaze at the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls had been found by the Bedouin shepherds in 1947. When we returned to the taxi I said 'We found no scrolls'. He replied, 'No! five million have looked before you.'

  At Masada, we queued for a cable car - £3.50 return trip. I was tempted to walk up the rocky path that snaked up the massive rock that juts out from the top. It is totally separated from the surrounding hills - a gigantic square- shaped monument. However I had been advised that the climb up the 400 metre hill would leave me tired and too short of time, and so I joined the two dozen people in the car.

  In three minutes we were on the top, gazing in wonder at this historic place which had seen such dramatic events. Herod had built on the top, an ingenious water system, fortress, palace and, what we might call, nowadays, a five star hotel for important guests. There were storerooms, bathrooms, and a huge watch tower in the middle where I ate my packed lunch.

  On the Eastern side, we could still see most of the ramp which the Romans had built after the Jews had captured the fortress. For five years, the Jewish partisans resisted the might of 15,000 Roman soldiers. Rather than give in, they agreed on a suicide pact and most of those who weren't killed by the soldiers, killed themselves. Part of an Israeli soldier's training, is to got Masada and echo the motto 'Masada shall not fall again. This story has been brought to our TV screens by the film 'Masada' - filmed on location. It is one of those tourist attractions which certainly lives up to its advance publicity.

  After an hour, which was really too short, we had to descend. The other four went down by cable-car but I went down on my own by foot. It is a rocky, rough, well-marked route and I arrived at the bottom in 21 minutes, some 15 minutes before my four travelling companions, who had had to queue again!

  We journeyed to the next exciting adventure of our trip - a swim in the Dead Sea. Well really, it is almost impossible to swim and we floated about for an hour in its remarkable waters. Be warned, the salty water goes straight to every scrape and bruise. One group had a floating tray with beer and glasses much to the laughter of all around.

  We journeyed to Jericho, or three Jerichos to be correct - the Old Testament city, where the walls came tumbling down, the Jericho that Jesus knew, and the modern town. On the skyline is the remarkable sight of a Greek Monastery, astonishingly carved out of the face of the Mountain of Temptation.

  The driver also drove us around the ruins of a palace. It was a winter holiday resort for the powerful men of the past. Jericho has no winter and was, and still is, an attractive place for those who like a place that is warmer than the rest of the Israel.

  We journeyed uphill, past the Inn of the Good Samaritan, and arrived in Jerusalem at 5.00pm. It had been a most interesting enjoyable day. But after sitting for a total of five hours in the car, I had felt that some of my free spirit had been limited and was now glad to wander for an hour or so round the shops and stalls of the Old City.

  I said a brief few prayers in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and looked in at a lovely Folk Mass at 'Ecce Home'. Dinner followed. I presented and signed a copy of my 1980 diary to Jane and then retired to my room, to write for you, dear reader, the exploits of this day.