Hopwood!
on the joy of service stations + Ricoeurean hospitality
I have an unwavering affection for Hopwood service station, which recently served as a place of genuine refuge for my family when our Volvo broke down. After a quick lunch at the services we had driven about 200 yards down the M42 before a break-light failure occurred. An ominous message appeared on the dash telling us to ‘PULL OVER WHEN SAFE.’ Nobody was hurt, and we were fortunate that a tow-truck was nearby and happy to repatriate the us to …
—‘There’s no way I’m towing you back to Somerset’
—‘Then Hopwood would be great!’
Hopwood! Land of Waitrose, Roary the racing car and excellent baby change facilities. Hopwood! Home to the UK’s first service-station wildlife reserve; an oasis in the desert.
Hopwood has always been an important geographic marker in my life; originally serving as a liminal space that could break up monotonous car journeys between Nottinghamshire and Devon, it now provides restbite when we travel from our home in Somerset to see family in Lincolnshire. As a teenager it was where I would indulge my cravings for Starbucks and Krispy Kreme donuts, exotic delicacies that were yet to reach the shores of Worksop, the ex-mining town I grew up in.
Upon our return to the familiar, winged confines of Welcome Break, it struck me that service stations are unique in the way they create momentary shared experiences. The people who were there when we returned were not the same people we’d eaten lunch with an hour before hand. By now, a men’s sports team arrived, and players were now drifting around in twos or threes, energy drinks in hand. As we tried to come up with a plan in the picnic area, I noticed that the children playing on the slides were older, restless and less willing to placate our one year old than the boys who had been here at lunchtime.
The first tow-truck company we spoke to could get out to us within the hour, but only had room in the truck for one passenger. We decided that I would travel back with the recovery service and that my husband and daughter would visit his family as planned. Over our shoulder several people were gathering around the wildlife reserve, where a scuba diver (I kid you not!) was removing rubbish, passing it to his colleague piece by piece.
‘A good place to get rid of a gun’ my husband observed.
The second tow truck of the day arrived, and a driver emerged with a bottle of chilled water. ‘This is for you’ he said ‘I hope you haven’t been waiting too long in the heat’. I said goodbye to Etty and Owen and sat in the truck’s cabin as the deceased Volvo was hoisted onto the truck bed. ‘You’ll experience some shaking’ explained the recovery driver ‘but it’s just the hydraulics’. Five minutes later we were on the road. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked. ‘Shadow’ he replied, offering me a charging cable for my phone. ‘Well, it’s actually Saadat but nobody here ever says it right, so I just tell everyone my name is Shadow instead.’
Shadow was originally from Pakistan, but moved here with his parents as a child. His wife was also Pakistani, and joined Shadow after they got married three years ago. ‘She misses her family’ he explained, ‘when she first moved here she cried, it was so different to what she was used to, but I think she’s getting used to it now.’
We talked about our children, he had two little ones, and his wife stayed at home to look after them. ‘‘I know all the TV shows: Hey Duggee, In the Night Garden - you name it!’. How did he end up working in recovery? ‘I used to work in Sainsbury’s warehouse but wanted something more flexible so I can be at home more. This job is great - but obviously you have to be a people person...’
As we drove through Worcester we talked about Pakistan, about the floods and Imran Khan, the country’s former Prime Minister who was currently remanded in custody. ‘They need to do more for him’ he explained ‘nothing will change unless they get out on the streets.’ ‘He’d maybe taken those gifts but they don’t like him because he is respected in the West, but we need our Prime Minister to be taken seriously! Nobody knows our current guy - but Khan is an Oxford Ambassador, you know.’ I pointed out that British politics isn’t great right now either, and he agreed, arguing that politicians in the UK were also corrupt ‘they’re all in it together, ain’t no difference between those parties, they all believe the same thing.’ I weakly offered some reasons why we shouldn’t be apathetic about politics, even if it is corrupt.
‘What do you think about Muslims?’ he asked. Interjecting before I could answer: — ‘They show us all as one thing, y’know, but it’s more complicated than that. There’s some men who won’t let their wives leave the house because they’re afraid. My wife can do what she likes, she can go out if she wants to, and we go places together, as long as everything at home is sorted.’
I asked what he meant by that. He explained that that’s what wives do in his culture. Life was about family and God. ‘We were born to worship Allah and that’s it; that’s why we pray so much, why would you want to work more than you have to?’
I’d never thought of it like that. Perhaps work does get in the way of devotion. I suppose it’s a notion that runs counter to the protestant work ethic that I had been raised within, whereby labour serves as a means to salvation. Then again, maybe his wife would like to get away from the kids by going to work (I know I do).
I explained that I worked as an editor and that I enjoyed it because it was how I learned about the world; it was the reason I had learned a little about Islam and Pakistani politics, for example. How would he feel if his daughter wanted to work in the future? ‘I wouldn’t like it, but I guess if it was the right job…’ he trailed off, before qualifying his answer: ‘I wouldn’t want her to work in a place where men would stare at her’ he explained, ‘and anyway, lots of jobs don’t work for us anyway because of prayer’. He told me the story of how their Prophet (PBUH) was taken into heaven to negotiate with Allah, reducing their prayer quota from fifty times a day to five when it became clear that mortals might struggle to pray so frequently.
‘I’ve always been amazed by how much Muslims pray’ I commented ‘you must think us Christian’s are a soft touch’.
Shadow laughed. ‘I think we’re all worshipping the same God’, he said. ‘We believe in Jesus, Mary and Abraham were prophets. Who am I to say that your God isn’t the ‘right’ God?’
At the end of the twentieth century the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur developed a theory of religious communication centred around the idea of ‘hospitality’, writing that:
we are called to make our language out on the stranger’s clothes at the same time as we invite the stranger to step into the fabric of our own speech
Prior to Ricoeur, religious scholars were rather more sceptical about the possibility for interreligious dialogue, with some arguing that genuine exchanges between religions were impossible because of the ‘incommunicable nature of the faith experiences particular to each community’ (Soloveitchik).
John Hick described such conversations as ‘confessional dialogue’ in which ‘each partner witnesses to his own faith, convinced that he has absolute truth while his partner’s had only relative truth’.
As I sat talking to Shadow, I was thinking about the arguments made by Soloveitchik and Hick. I wondered if the academics who espoused such cynical arguments had ever actually had a reason to speak to a person from a radically different culture to their own, if they’d ever spent quality time with them, talking about their families and loved ones. There was no doubt in my mind that Shadow adored his family and wanted the best for them. Are our experiences really that incommunicable? Or do we lack the right spaces to share what our lives are like, to share the reasons we think the way we do?
Ricoeur understood hospitality to be ‘where the pleasure of dwelling in the others language is balanced by the pleasure of receiving the foreign world at home’. Being hospitable isn’t about relinquishing our identities, but about finding those spaces where people can comfortably acknowledge the tensions that exist between their cultures.
Throughout our journey back to the West Country Shadow was curious to know why I moved to Somerset from London—he thought it was a bit odd. ‘I like being outdoors’ I replied.
He dropped the car off at our local garage, and double checked with me which route he should take home. ‘I want to watch the sun setting in the fields’ he explained ‘no point doing a job like this if you don’t get to stop every once in a while and enjoy it’.
Just before he got back in the car he looked anxious. ‘If I said anything I shouldn’t have, I’m sorry.’
I assured him there was no need to apologise. Shadow got back in his truck and took the scenic route home.
RECCOMENDATION CORNER: Cultural Exchange Edition!
WATCH: LIMBO
A bittersweet comedy about the experiences of Omar, a Syrian refugee, waiting for his claim to be processed on a remote Scottish island. Available to watch on Mubi.
FOLLOW: Miriam Ezagui
Miriam is an Orthodox Jew who makes TikTok content about her life, faith and work as a delivery midwife.
READ: An essay on friendship by Hanif Kureishi
‘I'd rather talk to one friend in a quiet cafe than fifty acquaintances at a party. Not only is it more of a cosy pleasure, it also works because there is a boundary with the friend; you know where you are.’
If you enjoyed reading this essay then do consider becoming a paid supporter of The Murmuration and receive two extra newsletters from me each month. Thank you!
If money is tight but you still want to support my work, then perhaps forward today’s newsletter to a friend who would find it interesting.