The Sea on Our Left: Couple's Ten Month Walk Around Britain's Coastline [Paperback]

To walk the 4,000 odd miles around the coast of Britain is an amazing achievement, however, I thought that this book didn't really give me a real insight into that experience. I felt that the book was badly written in that I didn't get a sense of any, of the many, places they passed through -I've walked large sections of the South West Coast Path and the Pembrokeshire Coast Path but recognised little from the book. Perhaps this was because although Shally wrote the book the trip was planned and organised by her husband Richard. She notes that she grew up in Liverpool but she describes the city in just two pages without really commenting on what it felt like to return. Also I didn't get a sense of their daily routines and there was no explanation of the practical differences involved in the transition between the camping and the B&B sections of the trip. She was also always mentioning things and then not following up on them, for example she notes that when in Lancashire they bought some Eccles cakes because her husband had never had one but then neglects to tell us what what he thought of them.

I did think that the writing style improved as the book progressed and the one place I could really identify with was their diversion to the Orkneys and Westray. I quite liked her moaning about her husband - which seemed totally justified - although I would have liked to have seen her confronting him with his bad behaviour and then reaching some kind of agreement.

This is a chronology of a walk around the coast of Great Britain undertaken over ten consecutive months in 1995 by the author and her husband Richard. Why did I buy this book? Because I had hoped to do the same when I retire in fifteen years time, although taking a shortcut across Hadrian's Wall thus leaving out Scotland altogether. But having read this book, I'm no longer so sure about doing the walk. I had adopted a romantic view of the task without thinking through all the complexities of the logistics. Also, I never would have thought it would take so long or cost so much; and that's not even taking account of the weather. To that extent, the book has been `helpful' but in the wrong way.

As for the trip itself, the author writes how they were like "spiritual amphibians threading our way along the margins ... of our `Kingdom by the Sea'." The book certainly could have done with a thorough editing, for the narrative rambles in places and has the odd grammatical or startling spelling error. (`Valerium' and `rhododendrums', for example, and there are two different spellings of Aberystwyth in two consecutive sentences.) But essentially, it's a description of the journey, its highs and lows, interspersed with odd (sometimes very odd) snippets of local history or local lore. She writes how, "Richard did all the map reading. I kept well out of it, for one thing I have no sense of direction, and am always told that if I so much as hold a map, it is upside down."

This lack of geographical knowledge was made plain to me when she wrote about walking through my backyard of Plymouth. It showed up the limits of her historical knowledge too: `Wenham Bay' should by `Wembury Bay'; HMS Gunnery School is HMS Cambridge, which is run by sailors not soldiers (the clue is in the `HMS'); Mount Edgecombe is Mount Edgcumbe; John Smeaton was not a London clockmaker but a civil engineer from Leeds; and `Kernow' (the Cornish word for `Cornwall') does not mean "the strangers of Corneu". She also mangles the story of the Eddystone Lighthouse.

As well as the physical changes, most notably the loss of weight, I found the psychological effects quite interesting. She writes how, "We were always having trouble with days of the week ... The days blurred together ... Our cerebral computers were in a `today' default mode." As the journey progressed, the importance of those small everyday things that we consider vital to our lives receded: "commerce seemed irrelevant, goods and chattels unnecessary."

Unfortunately, they took some shortcuts, taking the bus between Nether Stowey and Highbridge and thus missing some spectacular flatlands at the mouth of the Parrett estuary. They took a train to skip Port Talbot, another at Kidwelly, and yet another at the Dyvi estuary. At first, I thought this was a form of cheating, but when I was following their journey on a map and saw the intricacies of the coastline of west Scotland, they started to have my sympathy for the quite severe shortcuts that were taken along that part of the coast.

The writing possesses the occasional witty observation: thus, "We not only saw a flock of choughs, we also saw a flock of geology students in bright yellow plumage and shiny heads perched on the cliffs." Trying to get some much-needed sleep at a youth hostel, "We had an invasion of Dutch, who assumed that because nobody understood their language, nobody could hear it either." And there are some vivid descriptions of the landscapes encountered. "A chuffing diminuendo in a diminishing cloud of smoke" is how she describes of a departing steam train. Meanwhile, "The Lincolnshire coast seemed unending. Grey sky, grey mud, grey-green marshlands, grey sea everywhere out in the grey space."

They certainly have my admiration for undertaking the journey and my admiration for completing it, despite some personal difficulties along the way. Anyone who moans about the author `having it good' need only read what she recorded as she set off for Arnisdale to feel at least a little sneaking respect for her achievement. (The lack of an index is not helpful, but it straddles pages 180-1 of my copy.)

And now I no longer have to undertake the whole journey myself, as they have done it for me!

This book had a lot of promise... I love books like this... 'Broke through Britain' and 'Two Feet Four Paws' are a much better bet... 'The Sea on Our Left' however didn't work at all... "We decided to walk the coastline of Britain... Except for the bits where we caught a train" The charity aspect was only added at the last minute in contrast to Spud's walk in Two Feet Four Paws. In short the I found the tone of this book depressing... The arguments, the tantrums and the misery left me cold... Buy 'Two Feet Four Paws' instead and read about somebody who really does give a damn, who wasn't walking as a jolly and who didn't have an endless supply of Rotarians to stay with...
There... I feel better for that... Rant over!