WILD IN WALES

Even today there is still a degree of pride in Norfolk literary circles engendered by the fact that George Borrow was a man of this fair county; and a certain degree of good fortune in the fact that this was so. Borrow's father was a Cornishman, a military man, and it was a matter of pure chance that when little George decided it was time to put in an appearance his dad's regiment was quartered at East Dereham.
But Norfolk, one would like to think, also made Borrow, and what is more, made him inquisitive, creative and active. Famous largely because of Lavengro and The Romany Rye, George seems to have approached his 1854 family excursion - which eventually lead to the writing of Wild Wales - with a degree of indifference, because it was scarcely a viable commercial undertaking.
Wales and its mysterious interiors was, at the time, hardly of much interest to the English reading mass, as no doubt his publisher would have told him. Then again, the book took a long time to write, so that he had to make a second visit to the land of the dragon in order to complete his literary journey. Even then, the manuscript languished at his publisher's office for a year or two and was not published until 1862, whereupon, and from a sales perspective, it performed only modestly.
This was a pity, but at this distance it seems at least possible that Borrow - writer, linguist, walker, and gypsy-lover - actually undertook the excursion to satisfy his own curiousity, anyway. Nevertheless, on July 27, 1854, Mr Borrow (then over 50 years' old), his wife Mary and their daughter Henrietta, boarded a train at East Dereham and travelled by Ely, Peterborough and Chester to Llangollen.
Here his plan of campaign became more apparent. Leaving his wife and daughter behind in various hotels and lodgings, he took off on foot to his next destination, where he would meet up with his family again. They, in the meantime, and in addition to playing catch-up on public transport in the wake of the rarely still George, also spent time looking at the flowers and the local natural history, or 'botanising.' They seemed to enjoy it. However, it was George's walking routines which really fascinated me.
Whatever the weather, Borrow walked. Indeed, he appeared indifferent to the weather. And if he did get wet, well, he simply sought a rural pub and steamed himself dry in front of the fire. By and large, he also ignored the time of day. If it was midnight when he wanted to set off, then it was midnight. After all, what better time is there to start a walk? And if he was uncertain of the route, over - for example - a mountain pass, he simply offered a few coins to a local to act as his guide.
So weather, time and the lack of a compass seemed to make little difference to George Borrow. He ploughed on regardless, covered what I would describe as prodigious distances, dried himself down and got up for more. And Wild Wales is all the more fascinating because of it.
I read it again recently and enjoyed it, and afterwards found myself wondering if today's greater ratio of timidity somehow runs, proportionally, hand in hand with the more kit, special clothing and equipment we have available today. We rarely adopt the philosophy that if it is raining, well, it is only rain and therefore hardly worth bothering about. But of course it is a very hard thing for an Englishman not to worry about the weather.
(Wild Wales, by George Borrow, Collins Library of Classics, undated but probably 1940s)