The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson

Here's the thing about reading Bill Bryson's The Road to Little Dribbling: I was not only treated to a travelogue of his wanderings from the southern coast of England to the tip-top of Scotland with a little side trip through Wales, but also learned interesting tidbits about people I may never have heard of but in some way played an important part in British history.  

Perhaps best of all I get to laugh out loud at his all-too-spot-on rants about the ways of the modern world.

In The Road to Little Dribbling Mr. Bryson pays homage to his book about an earlier walking tour of England, Notes from a Small Island published in 1995, only this time he does more traveling by rental car and public transportation. He revisits some of his stopovers in Notes and finds himself in new places as well.

His journey takes him from the seaside town of Bognor Regis to the rugged Cape Wrath in the Scottish Highlands, with many stops in between.

Once again, I had to have a map handy to follow along as I did when I read Notes (which I wrote about here and here).

In a way it is a melancholy trip as he witnesses more and more change to the countryside and the towns. He bemoans the practice of tearing down perfectly serviceable buildings in urban centers to erect ugly creations of concrete and glass. And the towns that remain true to their architectural and historic heritage are so jam-packed with tourists and traffic that visiting there is quite the ordeal.

I am always happy to be in Mr. Bryson's company. If you have read anything by him, you know what a delightful experience his books can be. If you haven't read Notes from a Small Island I might suggest you read it first and then follow up with The Road to Little Dribbling.

Spoiler alert: There isn't really a town named Little Dribbling which is a shame. I was looking forward to arriving there, but, alas.

A Fan Letter to Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson

Dear Mr. Bryson,

May I call you Bill?

I do so love that you love Britain. As a fellow American, I too am enraptured with The Mother Country.

Bill, in your Notes From a Small Island, you so captured the best - and the worst - that England has to offer. I can't agree with you more that when England is good she is very, very good - think tea and scones, The Queen, Oxford and Cambridge, lovely castles, soaring churches, and dramatic seacoasts. Not to mention her ancient hedgerows. Ooh, and the language.

But, oh my, when she is bad...well, you saw for yourself and ranted about it so eloquently: the architects and planners that tear down history and erect buildings that look like hardened vomit (one of your favorite words). The sameness of even the smallest towns with their Boots, M & S, and shopping malls that have replaced the local shops on the ubiquitous High Streets.

Alas, that is not just a British sin. As you know, much of America is quite ruined by corporate greed and stunted imagination.

I must admire your stamina in spending seven weeks on foot, train, bus, and auto (only when necessary) traversing the paths and mountains, fields and streams, of your adopted country. You are right; the Brits do love tromping about and don't let the rain or fog, sleet or hail, dampen their spirits.

As your amble took place over 20 years ago, I wonder if things are better or worse. Is John O'Groats still there at the top of Scotland? Would you still like Iverness and Edinburgh (even though Princes Street has been destroyed)? Are the trains still running? Is Durham still a wonderful town to visit? Do people still throng to the tacky seaside resort of Blackpool?

Not only did I laugh out loud at your rants, I learned from you. You throw in, in such an noble way, bits and bobs of local lore, tales of eccentric lives, and just plain foolishness.

I feel as if I have been walking and riding around the small island with you  - only I have no blisters on my toes. So thank you for the armchair journey.

Ta,
Belle

More From Bill Bryson

From Notes From a Small Island by Bill Bryson--

On Britain's weather:

To an outsider the most striking thing about the English weather is that there isn't very much of it. All those phenomena that elsewhere give nature an edge of excitement, unpredictability, and danger --tornadoes, monsoons, raging blizzards, run-for-your-life hailstorms -- are almost wholly unknown in the British Isles, and this is just fine by me. I like wearing the same type of clothing every day of the year. I appreciate not needing air conditioning or screens on the windows to keep out the kinds of insects and flying animals that drain your blood or feast on your extremities while you are sleeping. I like know that so long as I do not go walking up Mount Snowdon in carpet slippers in February, I will almost certainly never perish from the elements in this soft and gentle country.

On Britain's accomplishments:

...and it occurred to me, not for the first time, what a remarkably small world Britain is.

That is its glory, you see -- that it manages at once to be intimate and small scale, and at the same time packed to bursting with incident and interest. I am constantly filled with admiration at this -- at the way you can wander through a town like Oxford and in the space of a few hundred yards pass the home of Christopher Wren, the buildings where Halley found his comet and Boyle his first law, the track where Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile, the meadow where Lewis Carroll strolled; or how you can stand on Snow's Hill at Windsor and see, in a single sweep, Windsor Castle, the playing fields of Eton, the churchyard where Gray wrote his "Elegy," the site where The Merry Wives of Windsor was first performed. Can there anywhere on earth be, in such a modest span, a landscape more packed with centuries of busy, productive attainment?

Notes From a Small Island

I am thoroughly enjoying Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson. It is the laugh-out-loud tale of his wanderings around Great Britain. He uses mainly public transport - bus and train - and walks an inordinate number of miles. I am getting blisters just thinking of his poor feet.

The book was published in 1995 and I recognize some of the places he visits. Some I have never heard of and am constantly referring to a map to see where he is. Here is a bit toward the beginning of the book when he is tramping about in the south coast. A rant on sand:

Much as I admire sand's miraculous ability to be transformed into useful objects like glass and concrete, I am not a great fan of it in its natural state. To me, it is primarily a hostile barrier that stands in between a parking lot and water. It blows in your face, gets in your sandwiches, swallows vital objects like car keys and coins. In hot countries, it burns your feet and makes you go "Ooh! Ah!" and hop in the water in a fashion that people with better bodies find amusing. When you are wet, it adheres to you like stucco, and cannot be shifted with a fireman's hose. But -- and here's the strange thing -- the moment you step on a beach towel, climb into a car, or walk across a recently vacuumed carpet, it all falls off.

For days afterward  you tip astounding, mysteriously undiminishing piles of it onto the floor every time you take off your shoes and spray the vicinity with quantities more when you peel off your socks. Sand stays with you longer than many contagious diseases. And dogs use it as a lavatory. No, you may keep sand as far as I am concerned.

Oh, To Be In England

Queen Elizabeth II

I have hoisted the book London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd back onto its place on the shelf. I am afraid that I will have to postpone starting such a tome until I can purchase a reading stand. It is much too heavy to hold.

But, I am still going to celebrate, in my own way, the Queen's Jubilee during September. I have quite a royal To Be Read list going.

My neighbor lent me a copy of Bill Bryson's Notes From a Small Island. As a longtime Anglophile, I look forward to chuckling over his observations of what makes Britain so very British.

I also have Mrs. P's Journey by Sarah Hartley that I bought in Stanford's in London a decade ago and have never read.  It is the story of Phyllis Pearsall who created the A-Zed map of London's streets.

I plan to linger in the gardens of Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols. This book is the first in a trilogy (I have them all) about his efforts to restore a Georgian house and its gardens after WWII. I have read this one before and can hardly wait to accompany Mr. Nichols down the garden path.

Of course, there are also all those lovely mysteries by Agatha Christie. I am reading one now on my Nook - A Pocket Full of Rye.

I envision many a lovely September afternoon sipping tea and reading about The Emerald Isle.

Long live the Queen.