The Books That Made Me

I read pretty voraciously as a child, but I can’t say that what I consumed helped me develop any early authorial skills. Perhaps this was because so much had been written a generation earlier. Was I the only one still reading The Famous Five, Swallows and Amazons, and even Biggles in the 1970s? I just don’t remember there being a Harry Potter equivalent – a blockbuster where the next instalment might not be available for another year.

I guess a wider love of literature was then helped along by a wonderful A-level English teacher and as thorough a dipping into the classics as any 17-year-old could handle. Prose: Charles Dickens. Poetry: John Keats and Gerard Manley Hopkins. (Please don’t cross-examine me on any of them these days, but thanks, Mr Friar.)

No, the books that made me a writer have come into my life within the past 10 years – after my fiftieth birthday, let’s say. How’s that for being a slow starter? And they are all to be found within the travel section of the bookshop (I’ve typically read at least half of whatever the experts have put out on that special table).

The first to whet my appetite – and allow me to dare to dream – was The A303 by the quirky and erudite Tom Fort. The book’s subtitle is Highway to the Sun, complete with a cover showing a couple in an old-fashioned convertible cruising towards Stonehenge without a care in the world. The road itself runs for a mere 90 miles from the outskirts of Basingstoke to Devon – hardly an epic. But Fort manages to imbue it with a mysticism all of its own via a charming admixture of personal history and intelligent fact-finding.

His book taught me to be inquisitive and to talk to people. He showed me how to be proud of being nerdy, exploring and exploiting historical rabbit-holes with glee; all too happy to show his workings – metaphorical cul-de-sacs and all.

Since then, I have read countless other travelogues, some set in foreign lands, but mostly from these shores. The quality of other people’s prose often blows my mind. Oh to get anywhere near the cadences of Simon Armitage in Walking Home – the book which sees the Poet Laureate walk “the wrong way” down the Pennine Way, reciting his verse in tiny venues along the way. Oh to be as brave as former cabinet minister Rory Stewart who set out to walk across Afghanistan shortly after the fall of the Taliban, despite the gravest of warnings about the threat to his own life. And who can resist the genuine LOLs of Tim Moore – the master of two-wheeled escapades – a hapless Brit meandering across the great cycling nations of Europe.

I love them all, because if I’m not travelling then I am writing about travelling. And if I can’t manage either, then I’m wanting to vicariously enjoy the journeys of others – be they troubadours, nomads or pilgrims.

Incidentally but importantly, if you’re reading this, then you should really be giving writing a go yourself. In some ways, travel is the easiest of the genres – but let’s keep that bit quiet, eh? It’s straightforward in as much as the “plot” is set out for you: start at A, get to B and have some adventures along the way.

My latest book might give you some ideas. But, if you really want to get under the bonnet, then I recommend The Travel Writer’s Way by Jonathan Lorie. It’s full of the kind of extracts and advice that will have you packing your bag there and then.

Certainly, it’s that urge that has got me into all kinds of wonderful trouble since I picked up my pen. Give it a go. Enjoy getting lost. Enjoy finding out more about the world and, inevitably, enjoy finding out more about yourself.

· Go West by Steve Silk publishes by Summersdale on 10th July.

Steve Silk, Author of Go West
Non-Fiction Book of the Month for August