How I spent my summer

Almost forty years ago, on the plains of northern India, I watched in amazement as four bare-foot Indians in pale blue gowns trotted past me on a long, dusty road carrying on their shoulders the two poles of a litter. On the litter sat a young man, cross-legged, dressed in blazer and slacks, wearing an old school tie, smoking a cigarette, and gazing languidly over the landscape (which probably belonged to him).

That memory came back to me at the beginning of June when I went to a literary festive in Ireland. I couldn’t command a litter but I did have a very comfortable chair and a bearer, Jacqui Furneaux,  who carried it around the festival grounds at my whim. Unfortunately she was not strong enough to carry me in it, and I had to hobble painfully behind her.

Two days earlier I had had the worst fall of my life – nothing glamorous or motorcycle related, just a stupid slip over some stone steps by the side of a pool in London. Two stone treads smote me on the coccyx and the middle of my spine and drove the life out of me. After a minute or so I began to breathe again, and slowly reassembled my various parts.

The pain was heroic, the bruises were glorious, and I went on a massive diet of ibuprofen and paracetamol but nothing was apparently broken. The tickets for the ferry and the festival were for the next day and Jacqui, who was also going, volunteered to drive me to the ferry.

The weather was wonderful, the festival was most rewarding. I met Ian McEwan, one of my heroes, and sat in state all over the place, listening to great voices say marvellous things and, in particular, watching an extraordinary young actress called Aoife Duffin (I can’t pronounce it either) doing an incredible one-woman production of a searing coming-of-age drama involving several family members one of whom I would gladly have ripped apart.

The day before the accident, Margaret Driscoll interviewed me for the Sunday Times, and in her piece she described me as a “magnificent relic.” Ensconced in my peripatetic throne on the lovely grounds of Borris House that was probably a fair description.
Certainly something separated us from the crowd. A passing artist, John Sullivan, decided to paint us in oils. It took him half an hour and here’s the result.

So that was the start of a month over there, which was crowded with events.
Naxos Audio Books had me recording an introduction to their version of Jupiter’s Travels – which was the reason for the Sunday Times interview. Naxos is a prestigious and discriminating house, and most of my fellow authors are classic and  dead. I hope Jupiter’s Travels will be released soon, before I join them.

I spent a weekend in Germany visiting old friends and as a guest at the Touratech Travel Event in the Black Forest. Many thousands  turn up abd at night  everything happens under the most stupendous canopy

After that came a night at the Coventry Museum where I believe I entertained a roomful of the faithful with pictures and stories. We were right next to XRW964M, my beautiful and ever-more appreciated Triumph Tiger that carried me around the world in the seventies. As a result of that visit it now seems likely that the BMW R80GS which I rode on the second go-round will soon also be alongside it at the museum.

And a couple of days later I enjoyed the hospitality of Paddy Tyson whose Overland Magazine held a hugely successful meeting just outside Great Missenden, which is not great at all, but rather small and picturesque. I was almost there decades ago visiting my other hero, Roald Dahl, in his garden kiosk where he wrote his books, but I missed Great Missenden altogether.

Paddy had the genial idea of  plonking me into another comfortable armchair in a large tent and just telling me to say whatever came to mind. It seemed to work wonderfully well. The tent was full of people, and I didn’t see anyone leave.

I’m home again now. It’s five weeks since the accident and my back has almost stopped hurting. I have a fair amount of physical work to do on my place, but there are more wonderful things to look forward to, mostly to do with France, my other spiritual home. One of them will, I hope, add something new and exciting to the Foundations’s ability to promote and expand the powerful role of independent travellers. I hope to have something to tell you soon, but I can’t count my chickens, because the bobcat ate them all.
Thanks for staying with me.

PS: Uber and Out. A poignant message from Charing Cross Railway station