The best parts of Scraps are the passages I have permission to quote. The next best are the comments of my many friends and correspondents, who have chosen to share with me the books, indeed the very sentences, that inspired them to travel.
Some of us were drawn to travel by children’s fiction. Tony Wheeler chose Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons; Nick Danziger countered with Tintin in America; for me it was the almost forgotten Mary Plain’s Big Adventure by Gwynedd Rae. Just staring at maps and turning names into images was also dreamland for Judith Schalansky and Dervla Murphy. Dervla sent me twenty or more pages of typewritten (looks like the old mechanical sort) and handwritten notes on her travel writing heroes, or friends, as she prefers to call them, even though she has met them only in print. It was accompanied by an invitation to discuss them over a glass of Guinness in her village. Every one of her choices shares her own need to open doors, with no idea what may lie behind. Her list includes several of the celebrated women travellers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: Mary Kingsley, Isabella Bird, plus an anonymous writer published in the 1780s by John Murray.
Alexandra David-Néel is one of these heroes. Dervla, who knew when she was just five years old that she wanted to go places, feels a kinship with Alexandra who, when still a child, ‘craved to go beyond the garden gate, to follow the road that passed it by, and to set out for the Unknown’. Years later they communicated. ‘When I was running a Tibetan children’s refugee camp in Pokhara, Nepal, my first book was published and Mme David-Néel kindly wrote to me. It is a little tragedy that this precious document was eaten by one of the rats which shared my room in the bazaar.’
I wanted to canvas the ideas of an éminence grise of travel literature, Jan Morris. I contacted her in her Welsh fastness. She called me and expressed surprise at my request, claiming not to be a travel writer.
‘I write about cities, Bill; that’s not travel.’
‘In which case did someone else write Coronation Everest and The Sultan in Oman?’
No answer.
But then she became one of my most entertaining advisers. She told me to include Alexander Kinglake’s Eothen ‘for the humour’; I have. We discussed others and she said that she had reserved for last the book that she most admired, Charles Doughty’s 1888 Travels in Arabia Deserta, and that she wanted to show me her favourite passage. She liked it so much that she often repeated it and had also sung it to herself. She would like to sing it to me. So I sat and listened to one of my heroes singing her favourite passage of travel prose over the phone to me. She asked if I had any such passages that were important to me. I mentioned Matthew Arnold’s epic poem Sohrab and Rustum, which had thrown me into a virtual romance with the Oxus many years ago. I read her the haunting final lines and sent the whole by email. A few days later she emailed me to say: ‘Dear Bill. Thank you for entertaining me. I am now also singing Sohrab and Rustum.’
To understand a little of Doughty I consulted Andrew Taylor (God’s Fugitive; The Life of Charles Montagu Doughty) and learned just why he, Jan and T. E. Lawrence treat the book with such reverence, despite it being very difficult to read.
Tony Wheeler founded Lonely Planet with his wife Maureen. They journeyed together from London to Australia in 1972 and wrote Across Asia on the Cheap, which was the launch of the publishing business. I was jealous of Lonely Planet when I bought a competitor, Cadogan Guides, in 1989; LP seemed to have got to all the most exciting places just before we did. Tony gave me several books and passages that I would have missed. These include the Ana Briongos passage, which he uses whenever anyone asks ‘why travel?’, and Raja Shehadeh’s Palestinian Walks.
I relied on John Julius Norwich for the selection from Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Mani, partly because they were close friends. Leigh Fermor’s meandering imaginations around the coronations of the Palaeologi, enhanced by the contrast with their supposed twentieth-century descendants as simple Peleponnese fishermen, is the passage that John Julius chose to read to the Patrick Leigh Fermor Society at the Hellenic Centre in 2015. His view: ‘Paddy, alongside Freya Stark, was the finest travel writer of the twentieth century and possibly of all time’.
Michelle Jana Chan chose Isak Dinesen and Elspeth Huxley. ‘Elspeth Huxley and Isak Dinesen’s two love songs to Kenya and East Africa have carried me from my South London childhood to dusty roads around the world, my triggers to longing for another land. I was eight or nine years old when I read The Flame Trees of Thika, about Huxley as a little girl in Kenya in the early twentieth century. I wanted to be her, of course. I still kiss the walls, as Huxley did, when I leave somewhere I love, so that I too will return’.
Wade Davis is the author of Into the Silence, one of the travel books published so far in the twenty-first century that will surely still be selling in the twenty-second century. He wrote to me about Seven Pillars of Wisdom: ‘I have a first edition, bought by the grandfather I never knew, an army surgeon whose life was shattered in that war, a man who was killed with my grandmother a decade before I was born by a drunk driver on a coastal road carved into the cliffs of Vancouver Island. My own father’s life was then ruined by Hitler’s war. Seven Pillars of Wisdom is my favourite book of travel. Please use the first seven paragraphs of chapter one.’
Moutaineer Sir Chris Bonington (author of twenty mountain and travel books including I Chose to Climb and The Next Horizon: From the Eiger to the South Face of Annapurna) chose Herzog’s Annapurna but added W. H. Murray’s Mountaineering in Scotland as the book that sent him first adventuring: ‘I was a youngster brought up in Hampstead. Although I had been evacuated to the Lake District, I had never been north of the Border. Tales of the Alps or the Himalaya seemed too distant and unattainable, but I could hitch hike up to Scotland to find a wonderful expansive wilderness which I could venture into and explore much in the way that Murray had done before the War’. Bonington’s Tibet’s Secret Mountain (with Dr Charles Clarke) almost guided me to Sepukangri in 2003.
Rory MacLean is creating a travel library of his own with Berlin: Imagine a City; Stalin’s Nose; Under the Dragon; and Another Life and Back in the USSR: Heroic Adventures in Transnistria jointly with photo-journalist and adventurer Nick Danziger (Danzigers’s Travels). Rory chose Bouvier, Leigh Fermor and several more.
Colin Thubron chose Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Mani (‘its baroque brilliance has yet to be surpassed’), the opening chapters of the two Redmond O’Hanlon works, and wanted me to use the passage from Freya Stark’s Ionia – ‘A work of the poetic economy, which is Stark’s hallmark.’
Artemis Cooper is biographer of Patrick Leigh Fermor and editor, with Colin Thubron, of The Broken Road, the last part of the Leigh Fermor trilogy. She has been a friend since we travelled across the Sahara together in 1984, a seminal adventure for me, and maybe for her too. She gave me ideas and anecdotes about several of the authors. She also gave me the title of the book during lunch one day by quoting Jona-than Raban.
Antony Cazalet was on the same 1984 Sahara expedition and has been a friend ever since. He is an informed raconteur and can force obedience from any motor vehicle with no more than a severe look. He proposed passages by his friend Wilfred Thesiger (‘He liked the slim Dinka boys, because he could see their willies swinging from side to side even when they walked away’) and also Lady Hester Stanhope, after whom he named his Staffordshire Bull Terrier.
Robin Hanbury-Tenison has far more experience than I in creating books such as Scraps. We discussed his choices as we sat on the banks of Loch Ness together on Robin’s eightieth birthday in May 2016. He was celebrating the event by running the London Marathon, climbing several mountains, and other activities usually reserved for younger men. The final challenge was walking and riding across Scotland and he had persuaded me and others to join him. I, for one, usually lagged behind but consoled myself that I am thirteen years younger, so have time to train up to his speed.
My daughter Siena supported with such enthusiasm from Boston and brought so many supporters to me at Unbound, including Chris, her husband. The Jan Morris Venice passage is dedicated to their daughters, Aya and Violet, who will discover that the first sight of Venice is far more important in anyone’s life than little matters such as puberty or early romance.
Nigel Winser chose The Ascent of Everest and its summit moment. Nigel and his wife Shane, on behalf of the Royal Geographical Society and independently, have advised and encouraged many of the actual and would-be explorers and travel writers of the current generation, including me with Scraps and my own minor wanderings, mainly in Central Asia.
Tim Butcher (Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart and Chasing the Devil: A Journey through Sub-Saharan Africa in the Footsteps of Graham Greene) decided to propose not a book but something maybe even more enduring. He describes walking north of Cape Town into the Cederberg mountains and finding caves by the River Brandy, excavated by its flow; here travellers from more than five thousand years ago have left stories of themselves and a simple right handprint on the ceiling. ‘I reached up and placed my own right hand right next to it. And in that muscle memory reaction I felt the power of the best travel writing: to amuse, to entertain, to connect with other travelers, to make one think about those that went before, to make you wonder how you would have tamed the same landscape’.
Alexander Frater (Chasing the Monsoon, Beyond the Blue Horizon; On the Track of Imperial Airways) inadvertently but memorably gave me the name and the theme for chapter seven.
Rob Kinder and 153 others recommended The Ascent of Rum Doodle with the hope that its republication might inspire a new attempt on this little known mountain.
Georgiana Campbell was a lone advocate for Norman Douglas, but that led me to the happy congruity of chapter eighteen, ‘A Supper in Capri’. Her father, the Marquess of Salisbury, shared with me his know-ledge of the literature of the exploration of Central Asia by Europeans and Russians. Only Robert Middleton (Tajikistan and the High Pamirs) and John Keay (When Men and Mountains Meet, The Gilgit Game, Eccentric Travellers, and most recently The Tartan Turban, a biography of Alexander Gardner) have the same depth of knowledge of this, my own favourite region for adventure. Add Bijan Omrani, editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Asian Affairs and author of Afghanistan: A Companion and Guide with Matthew Leeming, and we would soon fill another Scraps devoted to Central Asia alone.
Sir Christopher Ondaatje extolled Hemingway and Richard Burton:‘True at First Light and Fawn Brodie’s The Devil Drives: A Life of Richard Burton …’ These books changed my life. I read them, then sold my Canadian finance business, moved to England and then for the next eight years followed Burton, first in India and then Africa’. Christopher subsequently became a benefactor to, and eventually president of, the Royal Geographical Society. That is travel writing as inspiration …
Hemingway was also chosen by Liesbeth Hop, whilst we climbed Kilimanjaro together in 2004. She was telling me how she had been beguiled by Hemingway’s The Green Hills of Africa when she was attacked by a black-necked spitting cobra. I saw it and she did not. Ernest would have approved her bravado when she continued the discussion in the air ambulance to Nairobi.
Eland is the independent travel publisher that has done more than any, including the giants of publishing, to promote and preserve the best of the genre and to resurrect many forgotten titles. It was nurtured by first John Hatt and now by Barnaby Rogerson and Rose Baring. Many of their authors are quoted here including Sybille Bedford, Nicolas Bouvier, Martha Gellhorn, Norman Lewis and Dervla Murphy.
Sir Peter Job guided me through a tour of Chinese and Japanese travellers (among then the ninth-century Monk Ennin) and wrote for me an essay-length recommendation for Isabella Bird.
My twin sister, Sukie, years ago titillated an interest in Central Asia by giving me a copy of Galen Rowell’s Mountains of the Middle Kingdom (possibly the travel book that I return to most often in my whole library).
My son Benjiamino’s tales of Argentina reignited my enthusiasm for Chatwin’s In Patagonia and with his wife, Marce, introduced me to her native Colombia. The South American passages are dedicated to their son, Arturo, who is already travelling (around his cot).
Adrian Lower directed me to Paul Heiney’s One Wild Song. Paul Heiney in turn reminded me not to disregard Joshua Slocum, as did James Hanly, the latter whilst we looked over the sea from the Musgrave oasis on the southern tip of Syros. The Greek passages are for Syros, Christopher and the extended Musgrave family. That includes Robert Wilson Wright, who sent me many ideas including choices from Nicolas Bouvier, Jason Elliot, Robert Byron and the Gertrude Bell passage from Persian Pictures. Some of these were also promoted from the saddle during a 150 kilometre bicycle ride around Sheep’s Head in Kerry; the occasional advance warning ‘this bit may be lumpy’ gained new meaning for me.
My daughter Kara, with Rich Austwick in support, spent two years surrounded by the library from which Scraps has been created, and lived alongside me the editorial process and the journey that was the pre-selling and funding via Unbound; she helped make it fun with her infectious enthusiasm. Everything related to Italy here is dedicated to her. Her views follow Robert Byron’s when arriving in Italy for the first time: ‘I might have been a dentist or a public man, but for that first sight of the larger world.’
Cindy Blake housed the other half of the library and, having more experience than I, encouraged me through the editorial process.
My friend and fellow traveller Christian Larsson chose Elias Canetti, Paul Bowles and those who wrote of Morocco whilst we sat in his brother, John’s, Marrakech garden, surely the loveliest in the whole Maghreb. All the mountain passages are for them and their families together with our friends Inki Reksten and Arne Naess, who loved the mountains and died in them, and Bjorn Knudsen, who showed us how to survive.
Sara Wheeler (Chile: Travels in a Thin Country, Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica) sent a persuasively impassioned advocacy of Apsley Cherry-Garrard, whose biography she wrote. Jason Webster (Or the Bull Kills You, Duende, Andalus, Sacred Sierra) chose The Colossus of Maroussi. Simon Talbot Williams also chose the Henry Miller and others. Alexander Turner found the John Masters passage. Pico Iyer (The Global Soul, The Lady and the Monk) sent many suggestions, including the Peter Matthiessen passage. Duncan Smith shared with me access to his collection of the Penguin Pink editions, their original travel collection.
Michael Pauls and Dana Facaros, together the backbone of the Cadogan Guide series in its heyday, introduced the Kipling passage. Michael Pauls also proposed passages from Mark Twain, with whom he shares an iconoclastic bent.
Kapka Kassabova (Street Without a Name, Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe), Bulgarian-born and now resident in Scotland, asked for O’Hanlon setting off for the Orinoco and chose the John Gimlette passage from Tomb of the Inflatable Pig.
Sarah Anderson (founder owner of the Notting Hill Travel Bookshop in London) gave me the run of her fine library. Laurence Millman (Last Places, Lost in the Arctic, Hiking to Siberia) chose Peter Fleming. Dick Russell selected several Norman Lewis passages.
My sister Lee Sturgeon Day (now a children’s book writer) introduced me to many books, including Michael Crichton’s Travels, a book that Denise Goulimis told me ‘changed my life, and for the better’.
Tim Mackintosh-Smith (Yemen, Travels in Dictionaryland, the Ibn Battuta Trilogy including Travels with a Tangerine) mailed from San’a, Yemen to say: ‘Sorry, Bill, will call when I can – we’re in a war, missiles flying overhead’. He didn’t call; that’s a good excuse for going there to seek him out sometime.
Michael Kerr (the Daily Telegraph and Deskbound Traveller) introduced me to books which I would not otherwise have found. Isabella Tree (Sliced Iguana, The Living Goddess) and Sarah Lutyens promoted Sybille Bedford. Richard Robinson found the Paul Fussell comment that provides the title to chapter ten. Nicholas Best (Tennis and the Masai, Happy Valley: The Story of the English in Kenya) found the Joseph Thomson passage.
Justin Marozzi (Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood, The Man Who Invented History) gave me his review of Herodotus and many more ideas, as did John Gimlette (At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig: Travels in Paraguay, Wild Coast: Travels on South America’s Untamed Edge).
Anthony Sattin (The Gates of Africa, Pharaoh’s Child, Winter on the Nile) gave me advice particularly on travellers in Egypt, about which few know more than he.
Adam Day and Wendy MacClinchy gave me ideas, hospitality in Beirut and the company of Kaia and Satya.
Rick Grand Jean in New York, Michael Cahan in Chicago, Peter Schwartz in Ontario, and Kevin Butler in Santa Fe all joined the editorial group, as did Rupert McCowan, director of the Royal Geographical Society in Hong Kong.
Ben Holden (Bedtime Stories for Grown-Ups) gave me his ideas by the pool in Cartagena, Colombia and advised on the pitfalls of the permissions process.
David Mills recommended Deeper Than Indigo, as did Gillie Green, and Rory Stewart’s The Places in Between. Patrick Arning promoted Alexander Kinglake. Other valuable ideas came from: Timothy Ogene; James Robinson; Sophie Ibbotson; Alasdair MacLeod at the RGS; Richard Taylor; Alan Eisner; Jasper Winn; Lady Mary Stewart; Max Lovell-Hoare; Isabelle Duncan, whilst we wandered around the High Atlas; Alan Palmer (another Morocco expert in both literature and travel); John Drake; Jeremy Quarrie; Rustom Irani; Sara McWatters; Nina Martyn; Mark Whelan; Archie Drake; Jamie Bebb; Mercedes Lopez-Tomlinson; Ted Monroe; Robert Penn; Heidi Kingstone (Dispatches from a Kabul Cafe); Antony Kitchin and Dillon Coleman, who also travelled Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor with me in 2007; Jenny Balfour Paul; Jason Webster (Guerra, Duende); Sir Terence Clark; Sara Nunan; Henry Thompson; Lizzie Sellwood; Hugh Monk; Clemmie Macmillan Scott; Judith Thurman (biographer of Isak Dinesen); Nick Laing (founder of Steppes East); Ivor Lucas; Jonathan Stedall; Brigid Keenan (Diplomatic Baggage, Packing Up); Daniel Klein; Gavin Graham; Arabella Dorman; Christopher Burness.
Clare Maxwell Dickens has been the most valuable of all because she took on the convoluted adventure of obtaining the necessary permissions with dedication and enthusiasm, somehow not dulled even to the end. She was also my most prolific contributor of ideas and editorial support. Many passages are included because of her advocacy: John Masters, William Least Heat-Moon and Pico Iyer.
The passage from One Wild Song by Paul Heiney is dedicated to Clare and to the memory of her very talented son Titus.
The Unbound team have guided me with enthusiasm and savoir faire: Isobel Kieran, Phil Connor, Xander Cansell, who encouraged me to use thematic rather than chronological chapters, Caitlin Harvey, Jimmy Leach, Dan Kieran, John Mitchinson, the bearded guru, and Anna Simpson, my admirably encouraging editor.
There seems to have been much marrying and baby-making amongst the executives and editorial team, which must be a sign of good office relations. It is a vibrant office and I sense that a model for some part of the future of publishing is being created there.
Richard Collins, my literary editor, deleted all my best bits; that was because he must be a humourless pedant, despite his obvious talents and experience in travel literature. However, he is at least a member of the book reading public. So I tried to reconsider some of his comments as if I were an objective third party. I found an item that had been annotated ‘maybe this does not quite do the trick’. I read it again a couple of times and then wrote in the margin: ‘You are right, RC. This is sententious rubbish. I must be more careful.’ I began to reassess his notes. Eventually I understood that without his cool hand and scissor work Scraps might have been little more than a messy indulgence for its creator’s whims.
Miranda Ward then attacked what was left after Richard’s work. She clearly has all the talents that I lack (that is most of the necessary ones) and more, in particular a fine eye for accuracy and consistency of presentation.
I am indebted to both of them for their care, their skill and for leaving a couple of paragraphs intact.
Everything that I have been given has been useful. Some have sent essays or annotated photocopies of favourite pages. Some have just remembered the passage or the idea but not even the name of the book; I have a few such of my own. Please continue to send them to me at scrapsofwool@gmail.com or bill@billcolegave.com. Together we could create a Scraps II.