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After eleven years as an alien in London, Paul Theroux set out on a
damp May day in 1982 to discover Britain by travelling round her
entire coast. Being American was an advantage. He could write about
the British as they could not write about themselves. He did not want
to write about museums, castles and cathedrals. Nor did he want his
journey to be a stunt; he would not set a time limit or restrict
himself to one means of transport. He would simply take to the coast
and keep to it. Mainly by train, but walking too, he would
circumnavigate Britain. It was a natural itinerary. Britain’s coast
defined her: ‘the coast belongs to everyone.’
Naturally
talkative, Theroux discovered the candour as well as the secretiveness
of the island’s people. Staying in bed and breakfasts and small hotels
he found himself on the receiving end of confidences and strident
opinions as well as British hospitality. He found unadulterated
pleasures -- sunlit strands, three-coach branch-line trains, an
invitation to a crofter’s cottage for tea -- and doubtful experiences
-- caravan-lined beaches, stony cities, a day at Butlins, and the
terrors of Ulster which rule its hard-pressed people. ‘To be anonymous
and travelling in an interesting place is an intoxication,’ he says,
and from Weymouth, with its welcoming smell of fish and beer, to Cape
Wrath, ‘a beautiful unknown place,’ he communicates that intoxication
in a restless, vivid, opinionated series of eye-witness impressions. |
