First Overland

Decades before Race Across the World, six friends made the epic journey from London to Singapore and back in two Land Rovers.Foreword by SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH ‘Delightful ... written with humour and beguiling gusto.’ — TLSWhy not? No-one had ever done it: one of the longest of all overland journeys, from the English Channel to Singapore. Several expeditions had tried. Some had reached the Persian deserts; a few, the Indian plains. But none had gone further: over the jungle-clad Assamese mountains, across northern Burma, to Thailand and Malaya. It was 1955. For the final 3,000 miles, it seemed, there were ‘too many rivers and too few roads’. But no-one really knew...They were undergraduates with no money, no cars—no nothing, except cool audacity. They wheedled and cajoled, coaxing the BBC into supplying film for a possible series; ‘persuading’ Rover to lend them two factory-fresh off-road vehicles; sweet-talking a book publisher into offering an advance. By the time they set off, their eighty-plus sponsors ranged from whiskey distillers to collapsible bucket–makers. Seven months and 12,000 miles later, two weary, police-escorted Land Rovers rolled into Singapore to flash-bulbs and champagne. Here, their bestseller is republished, with a foreword by Sir David Attenborough. He had given them that film, after all.A travel writing classic that has sold over 100,000 copies worldwide A group of university students successfully undertook the overland journey in Land Rovers from London to Singapore and back, the first time the drive was ever completed The journey and the photos accompanying it are a fascinating piece of history, espe-cially given that the route taken is now largely impassable due to entrenched local conflicts