The urge to travel

Many people these days won’t fly at all because of the climate crisis, and of course they have a point. Also many of us find travel too expensive, but I can’t help missing the far-flung places I used to take for granted.

You can read about them in my latest novel A DISTANT VOICE IN THE DARKNESS, and also in some of the stories in my collection FRESH BEGINNINGS, if you want to travel with your feet up on the sofa!

One short story is set in Ireland, where a family goes by boat over to Skellig Michael. There they see the beehive-shaped stone huts of the monks who carved out a precarious life on the island for six hundred years, and more poignantly – for me at least – they hear of the lighthouse keeper William Callaghan who lost two of his infants in 1868 -69, first two-year-old Patrick and then weeks later four-year-old William, when they fell down the seven-hundred foot cliffs. Finally, Mr Callaghan wrote to Head Office respectfully begging to be moved to another job.

How I wish I could go back to the Skelligs and read William Callaghan’s letter again, and see the crowds of white gannets on the islands!

Another short story is about a holiday in the south of France, with enticing detail about exploring the papal palace in Avignon, and the Grotte des Demoiselles, a huge ancient cave system with stalagmites and stalactites – that’s another place I’d like to see again.

A DISTANT VOICE IN THE DARKNESS will take you from Wales to Nigeria, to a university campus where my family lived years ago, and on to Copenhagen, where my mother’s family lives, with undertones of Danish food woven into the long-distance love story.

I wrote extensively about Kolkata where my father’s family lives, and there’s a significant train trip up to Darjeeling. There’s also a major row in the Grand Canyon, USA, penguins and the Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia and of course the climax where our heroine is shot at a roadblock in Lesotho, trying to escape to South Africa.

FRESH BEGINNINGS is delightfully illustrated by Kate Attfield, and I’ve found the stone beehive-shaped hut she drew, and also the car the characters drove round Avignon.

You can get the ebook version for £1.77 or free if you have Kindle Unlimited, or get the paperback for around £8. The novel A DISTANT VOICE IN THE DARKNESS is also an ebook, and a paperback.

Get in touch: info@attfieldduttbooks.com

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