After three years of being a Costalero in the foreigner’s Cofradia in Torrevieja I thought it would be great to take part in the parades in my own town of Pilar de la Horadada so in the summer of 2008 I had a meeting with the local Padre and the head of the Junta Mayor who organise the parades.
At the meeting both were very welcoming and said they would contact me nearer to the following Easter. I heard nothing until one afternoon in the following February when I was asked to attend a meeting of the heads of all the Cofradias at 22:30 that night, again at the meeting I was accepted and made very welcome.
I explained that I had a total of six potential Costaleros and was told that they would be in touch.
Two days later I was asked to bring my volunteers to see which Cofradias they could join. What a surprise we had, when we arrived we were presented with a nearly finished wooden Paso and told that it would be ours to carry at Easter and by the way you will need thirteen people, twelve to carry and me as the leader.
Leading up to Easter I managed to find enough volunteers and we had a practice the week before the parades but when we arrived for our second practice we discovered that the Paso was away being painted and should I come back on Friday to have a look at it, at this point I was quite happy as we had the following week to practice keeping in step and developing the swaying as we marched before taking part in the Good Friday parade.
On Friday I was in for quite a shock, I was informed that we would be carrying the Paso in the Parade of Mantilla’s on Sunday evening, this was in two days time, and oh by the way you will be leading both the Sunday and the Good Friday parades and also could I get two more to carry the legs of our new Paso and three more to carry the Standard of the Junta of the Parades, now I was really breaking out in a heavy sweat.
Two of our wives volunteered to carry the Paso legs and I found three more to carry the Standard, but we had less than one hours practice before leading the most important event of the year.
Happily, all went well and as we turned into C Mayor, the main road through Pilar, we were greeted with a huge round of applause.
In 2016 I was asked by members of the Church in Campoverde if we could parade our Paso through the village, I asked them to get me a letter from the Church and I would take it to the head of the parades. The idea was warmly welcomed by the Heads of the Cofradias and in 2017 we carried the Paso through our village led by the Pilar Band and followed by numerous dignitaries.
In 2018 we were presented with a specially constructed and more elaborate new Paso.
For the past fourteen years we have had the great honour and privilege of leading the Good Friday Parade, the members of the Semana Santa parades and the people of Pilar could not have made us more welcome and really appreciate the fact that we want to be part of the culture and traditions of our town.
Ray Marsh
