Hidden Histories: A Spotter’s Guide to the British Landscape by Mary-Ann Ochota
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The British landscape as we see it today smothers a whole load of history. But if you look very carefully at the scene in front of you, you can start to see hints of the features that lie just beneath. But what are they? This is where Hidden Histories can help. Ochota has compiled a guide to discovering what the lumps and bumps that dot our countryside really are, so you can tell your cursus from your barrow, standing stones from a rubbing stone and your stretchers from your English bond. For each of the sections, you are provided with lots of details on what to look for, how to make an assessment of just what it is you are looking at and how to determine just how ancient it really is.

The book is packed full of excellent photos as well as artworks, maps and detailed drawings of all sorts of places, buildings, landscapes and features. I particularly liked the way that he has chosen her top five of a specific feature, so you can go and have a look yourself. It is a very good guide for getting you out into the landscape to look at it with a different set of eyes and to discover the history that you probably haven’t noticed before. 3.5 stars

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Interstate: Hitchhiking Through the State of a Nation by Julian Sayarer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Julian Sarayer arrives in New York with the opportunity to make a documentary, and maybe, just maybe hit the big time. At the first meeting they find out that it has been cancelled. He has nothing to do and nowhere to go. Lodging temporarily with a friend, Natalie, he slowly conceives a plan to hitchhike from New York to San Francisco. Sarayer is a seasoned traveller; he set the world record for cycling round the world in 169 days in 2009, a story written about in his book, Life Cycles, so begins his Kerouac inspired trip across the North American continent

Travelling in a variety of vehicles, trucks, cars, pickups, Greyhound buses, the odd police car and even hobo style on a train, Sarayer finds a nation that seems to be a little bit lost. He meets the homeless who have dropped out of society after financial problems, anarchists who have made the decision to have very little interaction with normal society and the honest working, blue collar Americans whose struggle is relentless against the system. There are those are ignore him, leaving him walking along the side of the road and others who show the true generosity of spirit and do all in their power to help him.

The book starts with an emotive dedication at the start of the book: ‘To the immigrant’, a people in America who are both despised and relied on in equal measure. He tells a story that is despondent at times, when you read about the stark differences in society, thankfully there are people who are prepared to pick him up and take him to the next town along the road. What also comes across from the book is just how immense this country is, he spends days with an truck driver from India as they travel back and forth with deliveries; when they part for the next stage of his journey, it is as friends. The last time he crossed America, it was on a bike doing 110 miles a day under his own steam, this time he could get to know the people and the places and it is a much better book because of it.

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The Hills of Wales by Jim Perrin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Hills of Wales is a collection of Jim Perrin’s writings and essays taken from a number of years. They have been grouped together under the various geographical regions that he has walked around and written about. Even though the Welsh hills and mountains do not have the height of their Scottish or European compatriots, they still have a certain majesty to them, but these are still places that need to be treated with respect. Perrin has been walking these hills all his life, even living on them as a shepherd for a time, so knows them intimately. Walking and just being in these hills for him is akin to a spiritual experience for him.

It took me a short while to get into, but once I got the hang of his writing style, I found a man who is deeply besotted with the hills and valleys of his country. He is equally fascinated by the wildlife that populate these hills too, noting when he sees magnificent Red Kites, the smallest wrens, finding the pellets that the owls leave of the small mammals they’ve consumed. He weaves in quotes and poetry from Welsh and other authors throughout the book, chosen perfectly to reflect the mood and the landscape. His passion for the landscape, his landscape, means that when he sees it ruined by workmen, he rightly becomes quite cantankerous, blowing off steam in his prose and taking action by writing to the offending companies. Perrin is a fine author indeed and now I want to read the companion volume. Snowdon: the Story of a Welsh Mountain.

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White Sands: Experiences from the Outside World by Geoff Dyer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In this series of ten essays, Geoff Dyer explores the reasons why we travel using examples from the excursions that he makes. He travels to China to see the Forbidden City in Beijing where he starts to become besotted with his guide there. From his home-town of Los Angeles, he makes a pilgrimage to visit the residence of TW Adorno and the art that is the Watts Towers. There is a trip to Mexico to visit the art installation of Walter De Maria called The Lightning Field and the amazing Spiral Jetty draws him to Utah. A trip north to see the aurora borealis with his wife and she is with him again in New Mexico after visiting White Sands where they collect a hitchhiker and then see a sign advising against it…

A trip that has lots of activity for him would be boring, as we see when he goes to French Polynesia to trace the ghosts of Gauguin and it falls a little flat. But it is the journeys that don’t work that gives him scope to explore the inner recesses of his mind and to explore the reasons behind us travelling. Is it for the experiences or the desire to tell people what we have done? Slightly surreal at times, it is really well written in some of the essays, he is very perceptive and his bone-dry wit makes this book amusing quite often. Some of it is fictionalised, and it does feel embellished at times, almost as though he is responding to the desire to convince people that he had great time. You can travel in the mind as much as in the physical world, but his final essay is about a profound life changing event that he has. Some great parts; others less so, but interesting nonetheless.

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Station to Station: Searching for Stories on the Great Western Line by James Attlee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

All roads lead to London, and so do the railway lines. The one connecting Bristol with our capital has been around for over 150 years now. This line was constructed by the brilliant and indomitable Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Originally built in wide gauge it was described as his ‘billiard table as the alignment was almost completely level along the whole route. Attlee has been a regular traveller on the route for many years, but he has been fortunate to be appointed ‘writer on the Train’ with a pass for unlimited travel and a letter of authorisation allowing him to talk to anyone on the network.

His journey along the route begins at the architectural masterpiece that is Paddington Station. This is the first of many of the listed and significant tunnel portals, bridges and viaducts the enable the line to remain perfectly level. The chapters are titled, location, diversion and digression, and he uses those headings to good effect as he travels west. We learn about the history of the line as well as places of significance that stretch way back in time to the Neolithic. There are profiles of the famous and infamous people that line the route from royalty to the wild parties of Diana Dors. He meets the people that keep the railway moving, drivers, guards and ticket officers. The foundation of all of these stories is centred on Isambard Kingdom Brunel; his presence still permeates the route and the architecture all the way.

It is quite amazing the quantity of stories that can be drawn just from one point to point journey and Attlee’s book makes for entertaining reading. It is well researched, full of fascinating anecdotes, tales and facts about all manner of random details and well worth reading even if you’re not a train fan.

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