Three Men (Not) in a Boat

Timothy Finn’s Three Men (Not) in a Boat is a stylish update of a humorous classic. With echoes of Jerome K. Jerome’s masterpiece ‘Three Men in a Boat’ Timothy has introduced new characters, a new plot, new paths to be trodden by fearless men in search of a holiday. But still the hazards that face our modern trio - Fraser and Henry and T - in their exploration of Offa’s Dyke are every bit as baffling as those which perplexed the original Three Men over a century ago.

There are the detours in conversation as well as travel plans; T’s recollection of how Sir Hector, ad agency guru, was inspired with the promotional concept for a new brand of port by sampling the samples – too well. And observations on how nobody will ever admit to having a bad holiday. And Fraser’s interminable rendering of the Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens.

There is the problem of where and when to go. And how to tackle a multi-storey carpark. And the Lurking Druid as well as razors with a life of their own, how not to put up a tent, and the amateur ornithologist’s enthusiastic identification of a medium sized brown bird.

And the places which the intrepid three pass through. ‘The good thing about Midland towns like Market Harborough is that people don’t know they exist – they aren’t dramatic enough’ claims T. There’s a poetry reading of the first six books of Paradise Lost above a tea-shop in Gloucester, encounters with an officious official in Lichfield Cathedral, and a code of conduct for strangers when entering a village pub.

Let’s not forget the bane of all serious hikers, the Waymark Path Trick. “The government takes a perfectly ordinary path which people may want to walk along like Offa’s Dyke, and it thinks to itself how it can preserve that path for people of culture and distinction like you and me, while sending all the weekend-hikers and the dreadful vanilla-flavoured-crisp-packet crew off on some quite different excursion without feeling they’ve been hard done by. The answer they’ve come up with goes as follows: along the general direction of the proper Dyke, but running a mile or two off to one side they create a new and quite spurious track which they call the Waymark Path. They call it this because when they’ve worked out where it’s going to go they send lots of men with brushes and pots who mark the way for everybody with attractive green acorns which are stuck onto fences and tree-trunks. Then they ring up the printers and rush out a whole series of booklets telling people how much better it is than the real thing, and finally just for good measure they install a resting area or a forest toilet, something to aim for. Of course these Waymark Paths are no easy thing to plan, and from time to time they do have to run them where the real Dyke actually goes. Here’s where the trouble begins ....”

Culture, for the three walkers, is round every corner. An aside on archaeological digs led by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Sir Patrick Spens who’s been mentioned before, and Clyro’s own man of letters, the Reverend Francis Kilvert – though he gets short shrift from T. “Kilvert, a noted jogger also wrote a diary full of stuff like ‘...the torch trees of Paradise light up the dingle in the setting sunlight, nature at its loveliest – what more can be said?’ Several acres more, unfortunately. His widow did her best poor dear and burned as much of the stuff as she could, but a couple of wardrobes-full managed to slip her notice. The upshot is that the whole valley is dotted with Kilvert buffs gasping and wondering and generally holding up the flow of traffic.”

For intrepid travellers there is the ever present threat of Welsh bards under canvas.