Book by Simon Reeve brought back fond memories of Fakenham writer’s travelling days
In his weekly Wensum column, Fakenham writer Jim Harding reflects on his travelling days…
Libraries have been an important part of my life, whether here or in Australia. Our own one in town is no exception. I visit most weeks and am entranced by the array of books laid out for my attention. Mostly, these days, I prefer non-fiction and have taken a shine to numerous memoirs.
The most recent has been one called Step By Step, written by Simon Reeve. He will doubtless be familiar to you as the presenter and accompanist on numerous television documentaries to faraway places across the world. I love them and even more so when he explores countries I'm more or less familiar with myself.
I spent many months hitch-hiking through Central and South America so Simon's time on that amazing continent has been of particular interest. The subtitle of his book is 'The Life In My Journeys' and what a life it was. My trip nearly didn't happen as it started after the Mexico Olympics in 1968 when I'd reached saturation point and was keen to get home to England rather than continue hitching on my own. But then I bumped into another traveller who had plans to go down to Panama and continue around South America.
We met up in the Guatemalan Embassy where I was trying to get a visa for that country and after some chat over a drink or two decided to join forces. Jim Gronsand was from Portland, Oregon and, like me, had attended the Games. We were both interested in the history and literature of the places on our itinerary so that kind of sealed our arrangement.
We would try to stick together at least as far as Panama and see how things worked out from then on. You never know with these quick decisions. Anyway, we got on well and were able to share the experience, sometimes going solo and then meeting up at some pre-arranged point, such as an embassy or a consul.
To cut a long story short, we kept going all around South America, reckoning that we might never come this way again in the future. In retrospect, it was the right decision and one neither of us ever regretted. One highlight was island-hopping through the San Blas Islands off the coast of Panama, relying on boats selling coconuts to stop off and pick us up.
It worked out well, if slowly. Speed was not a priority and we loved lazing around, swimming and taking our days slowly. Sadly, after Jim G eventually got back to America, he died on an operating table, much to my despair. We had continued a regular correspondence between England and America when we both finally got home, sending cuttings and sharing what we were reading at the time. I still miss him.
Simon Reeve's book really surprised me as it revealed a troubled childhood and plenty of obstacles to the kind of successful career he eventually achieved. I rather identified with this as my teenage determination to travel around the world was not something which registered with my parents and certainly not with my peer group.
Luck plays a part, in the end, but unless you 'go for it', the dreams will never be realised. I look at and listen to Simon now somewhat differently, knowing the struggles he overcame in his early life. To quote: 'I'm not proud of everything I did in my early teens but I mention it as evidence of what I was and eventually where I was able to get to. In many ways the teenage me is a far cry from the guy on TV but I'm still much the same person, with most of the same failings and some of the old fears.”
