INSPIRATION

I have long been an eclectic reader but there is a genre of non-fiction that has inspired me. I am talking usually about authors who have organised small projects themselves, largely unsupported and travelled alone, or with another companion who are telling their story as it happened with all the ups and downs, often with humour, and above all giving the reader a powerful feeling for being there on the journey. These tales do not give the impression of being published primarily to earn money, but more from a genuine desire just to tell the story.

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1895 - Sailing Alone Around the World                  Joshua Slocombe

The first person to sail solo round the world in a boat he allegedly built, more or less himself. Socombe is not shy,  giving us many examples of his prowess, but his achievement as an unsponsored lone adventurer has given him a significant and deserving place in history, and for we readers, an all time classic read.

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1952 -Mountains of the Midnight Sun                   Showell Styles

Styles at 44 organises an amateur mountaineering cum exploration expedition to North Lyngen, an unexplored peninsula north of the Arctic Circle in Norway. Styles and his three younger companions have a series of pure amateurish adventures. This is a salutary example of how such things can be achieved without elaborate and expensive organisation.

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2005 - Race Against time                                        Ellen Macarthur

Ellen achieves the fastest solo sail around the world (71 days). The book is in coffee-table format with the benefit of superb photography and modern production, but its value comes from the fact that most of the text is taken from Ellen's own emails and video diaries produced on the spot with  total frankness and vivid description which can only come from the spontaneity of conveying events, thoughts and feelings as they happen. The voyage alone, never mind the race (against time) would have been one of the greatest ever human achievements, but remember this was also a race and despite enormous difficulties Ellen never stopped racing.

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2004 - Feet in the clouds                              Richard Askwith

An account of a year in the life of a competitor in a sport many people haven't even heard of - fell running. The book gained the Best New Writer award for 2005 from British Sports Publishing. Even if you think you would have no interest in the subject I guarantee you will just keep reading to the end.

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1980 - The Big Walks                                Ken Wilson and Richard Gilbert

Another coffee-table book and marginally included here, not particularly for any literary merit. I discovered it a few years after its publication and as an already reasonably serious fell walker it gave me further inspiration for longer walks and in particular my longest walk ever - Across Lakeland -Shap to Ravenglass - 42 miles. That took me over 17 hours. At Ravenglass I met a guy called Roger Putnam in his garden and he told me that his pal Tom Price had contributed that walk to The Big Walks book and they often wondered if it could be done in a day !

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1978 - Hamish's Mountain Walk              Hamish Brown

Discovered when I was halfway through completing the Munros. Hamish was the first person to complete all 289 Munros (mountains in Scotland over 3000ft) in a single three month non-stop backpacking walk. Hamish is, or was, a schoolmaster at a private school in Scotland where he introduced many pupils to mountains and the outdoor life. He is an accomplished writer and this account is a classic, and also a useful reference for Munro baggers.

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1913 - 15,000 Miles in a Ketch               R.R. Du Baty

My greatest ever find in a secondhand bookshop. This gem is the account of two French brothers in their early twenties who set sail with a crew of four from Boulogne in 1907 to the Kerguellen Isles in the Indian Ocean. To cover their costs they spent eighteen months on the islands killing seals for their oil which they stored in barrels. One may feel put off at the idea of killing seals, but it is well handled by Batty, and it was not a blood lust, but the source of their finances, because they sailed on to Australia and sold the oil and the boat to cover the cost of getting back home. Baty was encouraged by an English journalist to write the book and he did so, surprisingly, in English language, and even more surprisingly with an evocative and descriptive style.

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1996 - Clear Waters Rising                    Nicholas Crane

He walked from the north-west tip of Spain to Istanbul non-stop over seventeen months and 10,000kms. Again this was a personal story with no sponsorship or grand organisation, and the quality of the writing shines through.

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1999 - Two Degrees West                    Nicholas Crane

A project after my own heart. We don't have to follow long distance routes that others have devised, and here Crane opted to walk the two degree longitude line running from north to south through England allowing himself only a kilometre each side of the line. The account is full of anecdotes and ingenious means of keeping within the parameters, and there is also much humour. A good example
of making things happen.

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1987 (published 1994) Walking the Watershed                        Dave Hewitt

I reviewed this book on a post here  CLICK  which gave rise to a lot of discussion comparing it with Peter Wright's book covering a similar project in a different style. Here is a copy of my review of Dave's book which largely sums up the essence of the books I am writing about here.

 Walking the Watershed - David Hewitt (ISBN - 0 9522680 1 9)

What is it really like, to experience a serious long distance backpack?

Read Dave Hewitt’s book and you will absorb the whole atmosphere.

This is an honest and comprehensive journal of Dave’s 80 day, 850 mile walk of the Scottish watershed, which included over 100,000 metres of ascent and 45 Munros. The walk was done in 1987.

Writing a daily account without endless repetition is not easy, but my interest never wavered due to an identifiable and pleasing style, with avoidance of clichés, and frequent use of original and often amusing simile and metaphor. 

Dave fearlessly records his low points, and the doubts he had from time to time as well as giving us uplifting word pictures of the best of Scotland’s landscape.

It is interesting to learn that a long trip like this takes on a different dimension which only becomes apparent after a couple of weeks or so, as you begin to see it as a way of life, with a relevant adjustment to the mental approach.

Dave describes the rambling thoughts and motivations and uncertainties drifting through the mind as he plods along, and much of this will, I am sure, be familiar to fellow backpackers.

Although walked in 1987 the book was not published until 1994, and I do wonder about the amount of detail. Either Dave kept an unusually comprehensive journal, or he has a phenomenal memory.  

If you have climbed a good number of Munros, or completed the lot, you will have the added attraction of visiting familiar venues and comparing notes, and sparking off many memories, but its best attribute is in conveying palpably what it is like, in all respects, to trek through wild landscape for an extended period with the sometimes pressure of achieving a goal you have set for yourself.

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1958 - A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush             Eric Newby

Just  one of the best travel books ever. Don't be fooled by the modest, self deprecating style. What they did was remarkable.

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2003 - Wild Flowers of Britain and Ireland      Marjorie Blamey, Richard Fitter and Alastair Fitter

Included here because this was a labour of love and dedication in the same spirit as many of the above authors. Marjorie, at the age of 86 finished re-painting the entire British flora to a standard that puts photography to shame. Richard Fitter wrote the clear and helpful text at the age of 96, and his son Alastair produced location maps that made identification easier in a subject that is difficult in that respect. A classic for the non academic enthusiast and a great team effort.

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