Eric Newby

Last updated

Eric Newby
Eric Newby 1919-2006.jpg
Born(1919-12-06)6 December 1919
Hammersmith, London
Died20 October 2006(2006-10-20) (aged 86)
Guildford, Surrey
OccupationAuthor, travel writer
NationalityBritish
Period1956–99
GenreHistory, travel, non-fiction,
SubjectIndia, Middle East, Britain, Europe, Afghanistan
SpouseWanda (née Škof)
Children2 (Sonia and Jonathan) [1]

George Eric Newby CBE MC (6 December 1919 – 20 October 2006 [2] ) was an English travel writer. His works include A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush , The Last Grain Race and A Small Place in Italy .

Contents

Early life

Newby was born in Barnes, London, [3] and grew up near Hammersmith Bridge, London. His father, George, was a partner in a firm of wholesale dressmakers, and his mother, (Minnie) Hilda (née Pomeroy) had been a dress model at Harrods. [4] Newby was educated at St Paul's School; [5] after leaving school he worked for two years at the Dorland advertising agency until 1938 when, at the age of 18, [1] he apprenticed aboard the Finnish windjammer Moshulu and took part in the "grain race" from Australia to Europe by way of Cape Horn. This voyage was subsequently described in The Last Grain Race and pictorially documented in Learning the Ropes. [6]

Military career

During the Second World War, Newby was commissioned in the Black Watch [7] in 1940. As a junior officer in the Rajput Regiment of the British Indian Army, he studied for six months of 1941 in Fatehgarh, India, for the Lower Standard Urdu Examination that was required to command Indian troops abroad. [8] After passing the examination he was posted to North Africa. [1]

He served in the Black Watch and the Special Boat Section, and was captured during an operation against the coast of Sicily in August 1942. He was awarded the Military Cross in 1946 [9] for his part in the raid. [1]

Newby was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp, PG21, at Chieti, a few miles inland from Pescara on the Adriatic coast, and later to PG49 at Fontanellato, near Parma. Escaping with Michael Gilbert [10] and other British prisoners after the Italian Armistice, he was helped to hide in the Apennine countryside by a Slovene anti-fascist woman, Vanda Škof (later Wanda Skof), [11] who married him after the war and became a companion on his travels. These experiences were described in his memoir Love and War in the Apennines , which focuses on how he was helped by ordinary Italians. A film, In Love and War , was made in 2001 based on the book, starring Callum Blue as Newby and Barbora Bobuľová as Wanda. He was free until January 1944, when he was recaptured. [1]

Postwar career

After the war, he spent 17 years working on and off in the women's fashion business, described in the book Something Wholesale (1962). In 1956, he set out to climb Mir Samir in the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan with his friend Hugh Carless, [1] an expedition later chronicled in A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush . The voyage included a chance meeting with the English explorer Wilfred Thesiger. [12] From 1964 to 1973, Newby was Travel Editor for The Observer newspaper. [13]

Later life and recognition

In 1967, Newby and his wife began restoring a dilapidated farmhouse in the foothills of the Apuan Alps in Italy. [14] A Small Place in Italy , a memoir of the couple's experiences in renovating the house, was published in 1995.

Newby was awarded a CBE in 1994 and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the British Guild of Travel Writers in 2001. His life and work were profiled in ITV's The South Bank Show , directed by Tony Knox, in 1994. In the same decade, he made travelogues for the BBC, returning to Parma with his wife Wanda in The Travel Show (TV programme) (1994) and visiting one of his favourite cities, Istanbul (1996), both films directed by Paul Coueslant. [15] [16]

Newby's last published book was A Book of Lands and Peoples, which appeared in 2003. [17] He died aged 86 in Guildford, Surrey. [16]

Selected bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilfred Thesiger</span> British military officer, explorer, and writer.

Sir Wilfred Patrick Thesiger, also known as Mubarak bin Landan was a British military officer, explorer, and writer. Thesiger's travel books include Arabian Sands (1959), on his foot and camel crossing of the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Peninsula, and The Marsh Arabs (1964), on his time living with the Marsh Arabs of Iraq.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Viscount Chelmsford</span> Title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom

Viscount Chelmsford, of Chelmsford in the County of Essex, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1921 for Frederic Thesiger, 3rd Baron Chelmsford, the former Viceroy of India. The title of Baron Chelmsford, of Chelmsford in the County of Essex, was created in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1858 for the first Viscount's grandfather, the lawyer and Conservative Sir Frederic Thesiger, who twice served as Lord Chancellor of Great Britain. Then following was the 2nd Baron, who gained the rank of general and was awarded. As of 2010 the titles are held by the first Viscount's great-grandson, the fourth Viscount, who succeeded his father in 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Dalrymple</span> British historian and writer

William Benedict Hamilton-Dalrymple is an India-based Scottish historian and art historian, as well as a curator, broadcaster and critic. He is also one of the co-founders and co-directors of the world's largest writers' festival, the annual Jaipur Literature Festival. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fosco Maraini</span>

Fosco Maraini was an Italian photographer, anthropologist, ethnologist, writer, mountaineer and academic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Travel literature</span> Literary genre

The genre of travel literature or travelogue encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoirs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Port Victoria, South Australia</span> Town in South Australia

Port Victoria is a town on the west coast of Yorke Peninsula in the Australian state of South Australia.

Benedict Colin Allen FRGS is an English writer, explorer, traveller and filmmaker known for his technique of immersion among indigenous peoples from whom he acquires survival skills for hazardous journeys through unfamiliar terrain. In 2010, Allen was elected a Trustee and Member of Council of the Royal Geographical Society.

<i>Moshulu</i> Sailing ship built in 1904

Moshulu is a four-masted steel barque, built as Kurt by William Hamilton and Company at Port Glasgow in Scotland in 1904. The largest remaining original windjammer, she is currently a floating restaurant docked in Penn's Landing, Philadelphia, adjacent to the museum ships USS Olympia and USS Becuna.

<i>Love and War in the Apennines</i>

Love and War in the Apennines is a 1971 Second World War memoir by Eric Newby. In the United States the title was changed to When the Snow Comes, They Will Take You Away. It was dramatised as the 2001 film In Love and War starring Callum Blue and Barbora Bobuľová.

<i>The Last Grain Race</i>

The Last Grain Race is a 1956 book by Eric Newby, a travel writer, about his time spent on the four-masted steel barque Moshulu during the vessel's last voyage in the Australian grain trade.

HMS <i>Una</i> Submarine of the Royal Navy

HMS Una was a British U-class submarine, of the second group of that class, built at Chatham Dockyard. She was laid down on 7 May 1940 and was commissioned on 27 September 1941.

<i>A Small Place in Italy</i> 1994 memoir by Eric Newby

A Small Place in Italy is a travel memoir and autobiographical novel written by Eric Newby, author of The Last Grain Race, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush and Slowly Down the Ganges. In 1967, Eric Newby and his wife Wanda acquire an old run-down farmhouse in Italy, I Castagni, in the foothills of the Apuan Alps on the borders of Liguria and northern Tuscany. The book is a personal memoir of the couple's experiences in renovating the house, which had a tileless roof, a long-abandoned septic tank and a wealth of indigenous flora and fauna, as well as a vivid description of their neighbours and the lifestyle of country people in Italy at that time.

Travellers' Century is a 2008 BBC Television documentary series presented by Benedict Allen that profiles the lives of three influential 20th-century British travel writers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dinas Cromlech</span> Rock climbing crag, Wales

Dinas Cromlech or Dinas y Gromlech is a distinctive rhyolite rock outcrop at the Llanberis Pass, in Snowdonia, northwest Wales, which has a distinctive "open book" shape that is clearly visible from the road (A4086), and is very popular location for rock climbers and contains some of Britain's most famous and notable rock climbing routes, several of which are important in the history of rock climbing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grain race</span> Sailing race from Australia to England

Grain Race or The Great Grain Race was the informal name for the annual windjammer sailing season generally from South Australia's grain ports on Spencer Gulf to Lizard Point, Cornwall on the southwesternmost coast of the United Kingdom, or to specific ports. A good, fast passage Australia-to-England via Cape Horn was considered anything under 100 days.

<i>In Love and War</i> (2001 film) 2001 American TV series or program

In Love and War is a Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie, directed by John Kent Harrison. It is based on the 1971 book Love and War in the Apennines by Eric Newby. It was filmed in Italy and stars Callum Blue and Barbora Bobuľová. The presentation aired on CBS on November 18, 2001.

<i>A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush</i> Book by Eric Newby

A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush is a 1958 book by the English travel writer Eric Newby. It is an autobiographical account of his adventures in the Hindu Kush, around the Nuristan mountains of Afghanistan, ostensibly to make the first mountaineering ascent of Mir Samir. Critics have found it comic, intensely English, and understated. It has sold over 500,000 copies in paperback.

Hugh Michael CarlessCMG was a British diplomat, philanthropist and explorer who served in Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service from 1950 to 1985. He is best known for the exploration of Nuristan and the Panjshir Valley along with his friend Eric Newby, which was the subject of Newby's humorous travel book A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush (1958).

<i>Arabian Sands</i> 1959 book by Wilfred Thesiger

Arabian Sands is a 1959 book by explorer and travel writer Wilfred Thesiger. The book focuses on the author's travels in the Arabian Peninsula between 1945 and 1950, and details his two crossings of the Empty Quarter undertaken between 1946 and 1948. Thesiger’s first crossing, from Mughshin in Oman to Liwa across the eastern sands, was followed by a crossing of the western sands from Manwakh in Yemen, via Laila, to Abu Dhabi.

Mir Samir, also called Mir Simir, is a mountain in the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan. The first successful attempt to climb it was in 1959 despite a local tradition that it was unclimbable. The English traveller Eric Newby and the diplomat Hugh Carless attempted to climb Mir Samir in 1956, but they could not reach the main peak, as described in the book A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Nicholas Wroe, "Around the world in 80 ways", The Guardian, 9 June 2001.
  2. ↑ "Travel writer Newby dies aged 86", BBC News, 22 October 2006
  3. ↑ A Traveller's Life, Eric Newby, Pan, 1983, p. 11
  4. ↑ "Newby, (George) Eric (1919–2006), travel writer and adventurer – Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/97467 . Retrieved 20 April 2019.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  5. ↑ "Obituary: Eric Newby". TheGuardian.com . 22 October 2006.
  6. ↑ pamir.chez-alice: The grain races (retrieved 1 December 2006)
  7. ↑ "The complete guide to Travels with Eric Newby". Independent.co.uk . 6 December 2003.
  8. ↑ Newby, Eric (1966). Slowly Down the Ganges. Hodder and Stoughton. ISBN   0340499753.
  9. ↑ "No. 37536". The London Gazette (Supplement). 16 April 1946. p. 1950.
  10. ↑ 1976: Meet the COMMUTERS (YouTube). BBC. 25 November 2022 [1976-10-04].
  11. ↑ Jordison, Sam (9 March 2015). "Wanda Newby obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 November 2020.
  12. ↑ "Hindu Kush writer Newby dies aged 86". TheGuardian.com . 23 October 2006.
  13. ↑ Margalit Fox, "Eric Newby, 86, Acclaimed British Travel Writer, Dies", The New York Times , 24 October 2006.
  14. ↑ "The complete guide to Travels with Eric Newby". Independent.co.uk . 6 December 2003.
  15. ↑ "Adventurer before the days of tourism". The Australian . 25 October 2006.
  16. 1 2 "Idiosyncratic travel writer from another age". The Guardian. 23 October 2006. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  17. ↑ "Obituary: Eric Newby". TheGuardian.com . 22 October 2006.

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.