litro.co.uk

As the end of the year approaches, booksellers of all kinds will be looking forward to the increased sales of December as people fill that awkward present for an awkward relation with a book.  In recent years, some of the most popular Christmas purchases have been travel books, often to accompany a television series, for example Long Way Round by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman and its sequel Long Way Down.  Before that, we could usually rely on something from Michael Palin, perhaps going Pole to Pole or Full Circle.  This year, one of the biggest sellers will no doubt be Billy Connolly’s Route 66, again to accompany his TV adventures on his ridiculously large and noticeable motorbike.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I love Billy Connolly, he makes me laugh out loud and comes across as a genuine and engaging companion.  He is one of the country’s national treasures and I have enjoyed what I’ve seen of his TV travel series.  But I suppose it began to make me wonder how travel writing has had to evolve over the 20^th century.

Not that many decades ago, when long haul flights really were a long haul, a holiday of Mediterranean sun was a sufficient adventure for most British families.  Nowadays, as people want to go further afield on their holidays, many places visited by Connolly and Palin have already been seen by many of the viewers and readers.  Popular travel writing can seem to have become more of a comparison of holiday notes between celebrity writer and reader.

'The Worst Journey in the World' by Apsley Cherry-Gerrard

Contrast that with some of the classic travel writing of the early 20^th century.  Books such as The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard told of horrendous privations in Antarctica at the time of Scott’s last expedition.  The Southern Gates of Arabia, about  the land which has now become Yemen, written in 1934 by Freya Stark (she died in 1993,aged 100) is one of over two dozen book about her travels, mainly in the Middle East and often to places up until then rarely seen by Western writers, particularly women.  These books are examples of true exploration in the planet’s wildest places. Slightly different is one of my favourite books, A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor, where the path is well-travelled but one where he manages to capture a fascinating snapshot of a disappearing age. Fermor was a highly decorated soldier, fabled for his exploits in Crete during the Second World War, who only died in June 2011 at the age of 96.  A Time of Gifts, although written 45 years after his journey across Europe, tells of his travels, when, in 1933, at the age of 18, he left the Hook of Holland to travel to Constantinople (now Istanbul), meeting a variety of people, sometimes sleeping in fields, sometimes in cheap hotels or in the castles of central Europe’s fading aristocracy.  This was a time of great change across Europe and his tales of life, the people he met and descriptions of the countryside in a world soon to be swept away by war are beautifully written.  Only reaching Hungary by the end of this first book in a proposed trilogy, a sequel Between the Woods and the Watercontinued the journey to Romania.  Sadly, the long-awaited third part completing the journey to Constantinople was never published.  All these writers have given us true travel literature and these books are destined to last as long as the best novels of that age.

In recent years, books by Sir Ranulph Fiennes, such as Beyond the Limits and Mind over Matter detailing his travels in the Arctic and the Antarctic have kept up the tradition of brave adventures through inhospitable regions.  But I wonder whether these books represent travel writing that is dying out.  Not because the writing isn’t any good.  Far from it, a book such as Tim Butcher’s Blood River, for example, written in 2008 and shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize that year, was a haunting tale of 21^st century horror in a country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, beset by disease and war.  But most of the horror came from the evils of men rather than the problems associated with the natural environment.

Ranulph Fiennes

Perhaps it’s just inevitable that as the world gets “smaller” and there are fewer unspoiled wildernesses to reach, then modern travel writers have had to substitute natural hazards for man-made ones.  It’s still travel to dangerous places, and just as unpredictable, but top quality travel writing has had to evolve.  So before you buy one of those glossy TV-series accompanying travel books this Christmas, as a last-minute present for cousin Tom, perhaps have a quick look along the shelf in the travel section to see what else is there.  Alongside the 20^th century classics, you’re bound to find a more recently-written work too, where the author has suffered genuine hardship and danger to bring this book to you.  And I don’t mean room service being a little on the slow side.

Briony Wickes

Photograph taken by David Esteban

The genre of travel writing has become something of a sore spot for many travel writers. Admitting to being one or enjoying the genre itself has become as much of a threat to your reputability as to admitting you listen to Coldplay.

Travel writer Sorrel Wilby states: “We all dare to dream, but few of us dare to act. We spend our lives hesitating in the wings, not dancing on the stage of life.” Surely travel writers live on this stage of life. Nomadic travel authors, as opposed to armchair travel authors, have an incredible list of achievements; Robyn Davidson with her emotionally crippling tale of her travels across the desert of Australia in Tracks, Peter Matthiessen’s brutal trek through awe-inspiring scenery in Nepal in The Snow Leopard, Colin Thubron’s grand excursion through the desolate ranges of Asia in Shadow of the Silk Road… Through all of this strenuous adventure, why is there such a stigma surrounding the genre of travel writing? Surely it is not all clichés and bad accents.

However, with all of this ‘shame’ associated with the genre, travel writing is no exception to belittling others. In turn, the genre actively stigmatises those awkward individuals: ‘the tourist’. In Tracks Davidson flinches: “Neither of us liked being on the road after our time in the wild country, because we had to deal once again with that strange breed of animal, the tourist.” Simon Calder wrote to the unfortunate breed: “If you are serious about being sensitive, you should go to Benidorm or some other place where you cannot make much difference to the existing mess.” That’s right, there is a hopeful petition to give the tourist specific boundaries around the world. It’s a superficial apartheid!

Of course, the tourist may come across as a guidebook clinging, excessive museum, church, sign post or sandwich photo-snapper, but why not let them be? Isn’t this turning into a game of pass the parcel of shame? Accusations of refutability by literary snobs and the outing of these literary snobs through the supposed ‘refutables’ has become world war twenty-four. Let’s quit the superficiality, let’s allow the tourists to snap their red double-deckers, allow the adventurers to tell their tale of exploration, and allow the tasteless to listen to Coldplay!

Lauren Smith

Do you remember that picnic we attempted? It was a Saturday in late May and we took the car thinking at some convenient spot we would be able to pull off the road, unfurl our blanket, and have leisurely salmon sandwiches and white wine in a dappled glade awash with bluebells. But it wasn’t like that. The country lanes were too narrow to park, the fields were strictly off-limits, and every village in England is trimmed with double yellow lines. Where was it we got to? Was it north Essex, or Hertfordshire? I don’t know, somewhere out in the environment for sure. After scootling around for an hour getting tense we fetched up at a pub. The kind of pub which is full of townies, and if not real townies, ex-townies, people who had moved out of town and were still having a go chasing the rural idyll. Or real townies like us who just thought it would be nice to spend a day in the country.

Most of the pub’s food had gone so we lunched on crisps and alcohol. Probably too much alcohol. I downed a couple of pints quickly, just to relax after the chasing around in circles. And with our feelings running a bit freer some home truths started to escape, like steam from a badly clad pipe. And then I came back from the loo and you said you wanted to leave me. And I said ‘Oh.’ For a while I didn’t say anything else because it suddenly became clear that what you had said was right, you should leave me. A lot of unstated resentments suddenly crystallised; a host of little antagonisms had found their form. Yes, you should leave me. So I said, eventually, as you were fixedly looking at the other customers, ‘Yes, I think you’re right, it would be better.’ And I managed a smile of sincerity.

We drove back slowly towards London. The afternoon was lovely: hot and clear. By chance I spotted a turning into some woods with a track which would take the car: exactly what we had been looking for earlier. I swung off the road, went a hundred yards over crunchy twigs and said, ‘Would you like a walk?’ It was so nice to act civilised. The wood seemed to recede in different planes of sunlit foliage with a floor interspersed with happy colourful flowers. ‘Yes,’ you said.

We strolled slowly. It wouldn’t have been right to hold hands. You stopped to stare at the bark of a tree. I asked, ‘What’ll you do?’ You didn’t reply. It was one of those moments when you were totally absorbed in something else. Moments which could be rather charming, but which had become intensely irritating. There had been times when whatever I said provoked no response in you, when even ‘Excuse me, can I say something’ had been met by nothingness, silence. ‘OK,’ I thought, ‘OK.’

‘Oh, I’ve forgot my ciggies,’ I said, and went back towards the car. I looked back. You were still staring minutely at the tree, as if it was about to divulge a great philosophical truth. I opened the boot instead of the door. The spade I had put in for winter snows was still there amongst the other debris. I came back towards you. You were still in rapt communion with what? Mother nature? I don’t think so. Your own elevated sense of self-importance, more like. It was so easy. I merely raised the spade, put a bit of effort into my shoulders, and struck your head from behind. You went down with an awful scream and I banged your head again. Twice. As hard as I could. Then I used the edge of the spade as an axe and swung again. It was very satisfying. But it did take four blows before your head was separated.

I glanced around. Summer in the country. All the lively noises of nature were there. A starling was eyeing me. There was no reproach in her beaky stare. I listened hard. Something passed on the road maybe once every two or three minutes. I went and drove the car back towards the entrance to the wood, stopping it plumb on the narrow track to discourage any other casual explorer. Then I came back and dug your grave. In it went your body. I spread leaf litter as best I could over the top.

I carried your head by the hair. Sure it dripped blood along the trail, but there wasn’t too much mess. Your good looks had gone with the life which had drained out. I looked briefly at the mouth which had given me so much pleasure. By chance I had an empty supermarket bag in the car. That would be good enough.

I drove out of the wood. There was earth under my fingernails. Eventually the lane I was following crossed the A1. I parked and sauntered back to the bridge with the bag, tying a knot in its handles. It was simply a matter of judging when to drop it. One didn’t want to be seen letting an object fall onto a busy road. The traffic, though fast, was pretty light in volume. A moment came when three articulated lorries, line astern, were about half a minute away. I let a couple of fast cars pass underneath and then dropped the bag. I didn’t stay to watch, but was confident your head would be pulverised out of all recognition.

At home I had the salmon sandwiches and the wine. Sure, I felt guilty as hell. But when I thought about it, you really were a bitch. It had got to the stage where I couldn’t bear to watch you eat. I hated your trinkets in the bathroom. And the way your lipstick came away on a glass.

The next day I checked the car and shovel for any stains. Nobody missed you. Your work as a freelance translator meant there was no regular employer who worried about your absence. People like you move on. There are no restrictions for Europeans. When your friend phoned I said we had split up, and you had gone back to your parents in Spain. But I knew the main reason you had come to England in the first place was to escape their oppressive regime. You had made a point of not writing to them.

No, no-one missed you. I miss you sometimes. That’s why I like talking to you. And it assuages my need to confess, having these little chats. You were fascinatingly foreign, to begin with, and we did make love very well. It would have been lovely to do it in the bluebells. You reminded me a bit of Francine, except that her head came off straight away.

Graham Buchan has worked in film, video and television as an editor, writer, producer and director. A regular on the London poetry scene, he has published short stories, travel writing and film appreciation.