A Long Walk South

In 1950 he cycled from Dieppe to Rome and back in the poverty of postwar Europe. Half a century later, still powered by the lure of adventure, he fulfils another dream. This is an enthralling account of a 2300km walk from the North Sea to the Mediterranean. The odyssey becomes a journey through space and time as the author, sketchbook in hand a la Corbusier, savours landscape, history and culture. In Flanders he remembers Joseph Gaffney, his uncle, in the demoralising retreat from Mons. In Diest he wonders if the Orange Order knows King Billy’s ancestors came from this most Catholic place. By day 74 walking is a way of life. Heat, cold and storms interweave with woodland and meadow. Ghosts of the past are revisited most poignantly in the Alps where his friends Fred and Andre died in climbing accidents. He relives the action and the drama of his own accident in 1967. As well there is a sense of youth lost forever. But then he is elated by the intense blue Mediterranean in contrast to a grey North Sea left behind four months earlier.