Book Review : On a Bicycle made for Two By Anna and Howard Green

6000 Miles from London to Nepal

Published by Hodder and Stoughton 1^st February 1990

I enjoyed reading this book. I enjoy reading biographies and a travelogue like this is an increment of autobiography.  The model for such writing must be “Travels with a donkey” by Robert Louis Stevenson.  In this the donkey plays her part. In “On a Bicycle…” the tandem and its spare parts and repairs also play a prominent part. It must have been in the eighties when the two newly wed Cambridge graduates cycled out to take up missionary work in Nepal.  In both books religion takes its place, but in neither is it obtrusive but occurs naturally. In both books local characters are taken seriously and with respect.

There is a temptation for the modern writer to seek an impact with explicit descriptions of everything. These writers avoid this temptation. Digestive problems are mentioned but not described in detail. An assault on Anna is described but neither sensationalised nor trivialised. It is this moderation that I found so appealing. The subject material was interesting in itself. It needed no embroidery. It was however enhanced by a couple of maps and about fourteen photographs. Having read the book I then noticed the dedication to John Loudon Macadam. Having followed the writers through potholes and bumps I realised how apt the dedication was.

I suspect the book is out of print but I found quite a few copies available on the internet.

 

Peter M. Grinham December 2014

Poppies

Poppies

 

In Flemish fields the farmers ply their trades

And break the soil for man’s essential corn.

Soon Gallic ploughs give way to English spades

That leave the arts of peace and joy, forlorn.

Where once the drill received the fruitful seed,

Great gashes in the fecund earth appear,

The trenches where the men will scream and bleed,

And clerks and boys will learn unnatural fear.

But now another plough rakes up the ground

The shells from distant guns fresh wounds impose,

Upon the sinless earth with eerie sound.

And all that’s fair and high in man just goes

Yet from the earth for each man’s blood that’s shed

A fluttering monument grows up in red

 

 

©  Peter M. Grinham December 2014