I think that these deserve a place too. I mention first Colonel Percy Fawcett who set off into the Brazilian interior, in 1925, in search of a lost city in some mountains - it turned out that that even the mountains did not exist and he and his son and his son's friend then just disappeared; had they found the tunnel to the centre of the earth; had they been eaten by cannibals? In 1932, Peter Fleming and a group set off to look for them and the resulting book "A Brazilian Adventure" is a delight - P G Wodehouse gets lost in the jungle.
Woolf Barnato I mention next - the man who bet, in 1930, that he could drive his Speed Six Bentley saloon and race against the Blue Train, from Cannes, and that he could be in his London club before the Blue Train reached Calais. Racing all night, he reached his club, in St James's Street, four minutes before the Blue Train did reach Calais.
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Daring Adventurers
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storeynicholas
Last edited by storeynicholas on Mon May 24, 2010 2:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Worth mentioning Peter Fleming was Ian Fleming's older brother.
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storeynicholas
Indeed - also married to the actress Celia Johnson and the writer of Travels In Tartary and other tales of his adventures.
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Jordan Marc
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Nicholas:
Mustn't exclude Thomas Edward Lawrence from the Daring Adventurers. Although Lawrence is best remembered for his daring exploits in Arabia, where he was known as The Prince of Dynamite, he later became a brilliant man of letters. The original manuscript of Seven Pillars of Wisdom was lost so he rewrote it by hand on his way back to England. Prior to Pillars publication he wrote Crusader Castles, replete with sketches by his own hand and very artfully done they are, too. After the war Lawrence wrote what many still consider the foremost prose translation of Homer's Odyssey, just for money. Later a fat volume of his fascinating letters was published. All are well-worth reading.
Many years ago I wandered into Beach's Book Shop in Salisbury. I picked up a couple of books by Lawrence, and Beach himself told me an
anecdote about Lawrence. He said: "Lawrence used to ride his Brough up to the shop from Cloud's Hill in Dorset. It made a terrible racket. He'd find a book that interested him, lean up against a bookcase and read it from cover to cover. If a customer in the shop thought he looked familar and asked me who it was, Lawrence left the shop with book in hand. He always paid for it, of course, but he didn't want to be bothered by curiosity seekers."
JMB
Mustn't exclude Thomas Edward Lawrence from the Daring Adventurers. Although Lawrence is best remembered for his daring exploits in Arabia, where he was known as The Prince of Dynamite, he later became a brilliant man of letters. The original manuscript of Seven Pillars of Wisdom was lost so he rewrote it by hand on his way back to England. Prior to Pillars publication he wrote Crusader Castles, replete with sketches by his own hand and very artfully done they are, too. After the war Lawrence wrote what many still consider the foremost prose translation of Homer's Odyssey, just for money. Later a fat volume of his fascinating letters was published. All are well-worth reading.
Many years ago I wandered into Beach's Book Shop in Salisbury. I picked up a couple of books by Lawrence, and Beach himself told me an
anecdote about Lawrence. He said: "Lawrence used to ride his Brough up to the shop from Cloud's Hill in Dorset. It made a terrible racket. He'd find a book that interested him, lean up against a bookcase and read it from cover to cover. If a customer in the shop thought he looked familar and asked me who it was, Lawrence left the shop with book in hand. He always paid for it, of course, but he didn't want to be bothered by curiosity seekers."
JMB
Last edited by Jordan Marc on Mon Oct 19, 2009 2:09 am, edited 2 times in total.
i believe he lost to the french constabulary much more than he got for winning the betby storeynicholas » Sun Oct 18, 2009 1:14 pm
Woolf Barnato I mention next - the man who bet, in 1930, that he could drive his Speed Six Bentley saloon and race against the Blue Train, from Cannes, and that he could be in his London club before the Blue Train reached Calais. Racing all night, he reached his club, in St James's Street, four minutes before the Blue Train did reach Calais.
NJS
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storeynicholas
I think that there was a nominal finacial bet but Barnato was very rich and I am sure that he undertook it all just for the hell of it but I think that the news of his exploit reached the French authorities, who calculated that he had, by necessary implication, broken their speed limits (probably for most of the journey) and imposed a speeding fine! You'd think that they might have turned a blind eye in all the circumstances - but I suppose that it was revenge for beating their Blue Train. Still, quite a feat - especially since it was just a saloon! He must have performed some calculations beforehand to see that it was even feasible. I also like the fact that he parked up in St James's Street, of all places, and with such a narrow margin to spare.andrei67 wrote:i believe he lost to the french constabulary much more than he got for winning the betby storeynicholas » Sun Oct 18, 2009 1:14 pm
Woolf Barnato I mention next - the man who bet, in 1930, that he could drive his Speed Six Bentley saloon and race against the Blue Train, from Cannes, and that he could be in his London club before the Blue Train reached Calais. Racing all night, he reached his club, in St James's Street, four minutes before the Blue Train did reach Calais.
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