Corporate Procedure and Artistic Expression

Last month I was summoned to a 'formal interview', and two days later a letter informed me that I was to attend a 'disciplinary hearing'.

I sent a text to Linda: A chocolate has mysteriously found its way into my lunch box. I am giving it a 'formal interview' to establish why it hasn't followed 'procedures'. If I discover that the chocolate has a brain and is capable of acting upon its own initiative, it will be given a 'disciplinary hearing' and charged with 'conduct unbecoming of a lemon cream'.

The manager conducting the hearing showed all the humanity and sense of proportion I expect of a speed camera. When I reminded him that I had an exemplary record during my eight years with the company and that no-one had suffered from my 'crimes', he informed me sanctimoniously that a murderer is still a murderer, even if he (or she) has led a previously blameless life.

The night after the hearing I dreamt that I was back in the flat in Colnbrook. Concorde had just been bought by Quantas, painted bright red, and was about to make its first flight since coming out of retirement. We rushed to the windows to watch the beautiful bright red bird ascend smoothly into the stratosphere, but then something went horribly wrong. The plane went into a spin, then plummeted earthwards, disintegrating into flaming pieces. Horrified, I could only think of all those people on board, anticipating the journey of a lifetime and a happy landing on the other side of the world. I woke up at 3.30 wondering whether this dream was symbolic of the crashing and burning of my driving career, or of the more widespread crushing of the human spirit's freedom to soar by the weight of procedure and legislation. Are we in the hands of incompetent pilots or afflicted by a more general social malaise that is eliminating human essence from existence?

The divorce of essence from labour was fundamental to the antagonism Marx felt towards capitalism. In performing the dull and repetitive tasks generated by the division of labour, the factory workers spawned by the Industrial Revolution were no longer making use of the invention and imagination that distinguished human productivity from the instinctive forms of production practised by animals. 'Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to division of labour, ' declared The Communist Manifesto (published in 1848), 'the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, the most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him.' Because such labour separated people from the distinctive qualities that made them human, Marx contended in the mid-nineteenth century that they were scarely identifiable any more as human beings.

In the twenty-first century, management issue 'procedures' like confetti because people cannot be programmed into instinctive obedience like computers. Imposed to eliminate the requirement to think, 'procedures' - never to be questioned, overlooked or disobeyed - are the next best thing. I'd left the hearing with a 'Final Written Warning' (an odd concept considering I've never previously had a 'written warning') and questioning the manager's grip on reality. I hadn't murdered, hurt or maimed anyone. I hadn't been rude or abusive. I hadn't damaged any equipment. I hadn't stolen from anyone or attempted to defraud the company. I had committed the worst heresy of all in failing to follow 'company procedures'.

If this computer malfunctions once more it will be scrapped

For the past eight years the day job has served its purpose admirably. It demands no thought, so I have been able to perform my daily tasks on automatic pilot, pay the bills and get on with what makes me human: creating 'Why Don't You Fly?' and Karl Marx and Careful Driving. An idea is sometimes so good that I have to stop in the next lay-by or service area to write it down in my notebook before continuing, but the disciplinary hearing followed by the dream are the clearest signals that I have reached one of life's T-junctions. I can now hardly bear the prospect of going to the place I call work, where 'procedures' overrule common sense and where for the next twelve months I'll be operating under the threat of dismissal for the smallest misdemeanour or mistake.

Reuniting human essence with existence can only achieved by forging a career as author and inspirational speaker, but if I am to abandon the day job I must write one or more best-sellers and / or build a client base for my talks which means approaching more schools, colleges and universities, places where each year I'll be speaking to a different set of pupils or students.

Neither task will be easy. First of all the writing: I was simultaneously appalled and inspired by an article in the Sunday Times Magazine about the author Stephen Benatar. I had never heard of him.

'No, I never felt downhearted about the failure of any of my books. I have wondered why they haven't been taken up by readers and why does nobody know me? The thing is, I love to write. '

Stephen Benatar writes for exactly the same reason that I do: because he wants to be read. He got his first rejection slip at the age of twelve for a short story. At the age of 19 his first novel was rejected. He wrote 11 novels over the next two decades, but all were rejected by publishers. When The Man on the Bridge was published by Harvester when Benatar was 44, he dared to believe that finally, his literary career was about to take off. Despite good reviews, however, the novel failed to get good sales. Wish Her Safe At Home was then published in 1982 by The Bodley Head. The book received great reviews and was the runner-up for the prestigious James Tait Black Memorial Prize, but like The Man on the Bridge it was unable to generate good sales figures. Bloodied but unbowed, Benatar kept on writing. By the end of the eighties he had written 15 books, only four of which were published. Cosmo Landesman, the Sunday Times interviewer, asked Benatar if he was downhearted during this period. His answer is salutary, proof to me that writing is a vocation, something one simply has to do irrespective of income.

'No, I don't feel any bitterness or envy of successful authors. Honest. People like Ian McEwan, I don't envy him because I don't rate his work. '

In 2007 Benatar attempted to get Wish Her Safe At Home republished as a Penguin Classic, but despite a fantastic review from Professor John Carey, a highly regarded reviewer for the Sunday Times, they rejected him. So did 36 other publishers. He took to republishing his novels under his own imprint - Welbeck Classics - and selling signed copies personally at bookshops. Managers have been astonished by his success - he sells on average around 50 books on each appearance. His record is 128. His secret is to approach browsers in bookshops and chat to them about his book - something that admittedly I'd find very hard to do.

Now, at the age of 73, after decades of obscurity and countless rejection slips, Stephen Benatar is finally on the verge of finding success as a writer. The New York Review of Books, having already published his novel Wish Her Safe At Home in the States, is about to launch a British edition. His lucky break came when he bumped into the managing editor of the publishing section in a bookshop and persuaded him to buy a copy. 'I read the book straight away and was knocked out . It's not every day you find a neglected classic from an Englishman who is still alive. Everyone in the office read it and was just as excited as I was,' said Franks.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/opera/article6838975.ece

I hope I get my lucky break before I reach my seventies, but I may never get it at all. Like Benatar, however, I will keep writing. What started out many years ago as Driving Dorabella, a story about one man driving his truck from the United Kingdom to the oil fields in Kazakhstan has metamorphosed into Karl Marx and Careful Driving, a grand opera in three parts about European history and the ideas that shaped it. For centuries the conductor of this great opera was thought to be supernatural but the rise of humanism in the fourteenth century led to an increasing belief that human beings are the directors of their own opera. Because of the role his ideas played in the political history of the land through which the author is travelling, Karl Marx is the star. The validity of his materialist conception of human nature and his critique of nineteenth century working life is tested against the author's personal experience of working life at the end of the twentieth century. Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Rousseau, Aristotle and Plato are co-stars, and Emperor Constantine, St Augustine, Tsar Nicholas II, Ronald Reagan, Bakunin, Feuerbach, Hegel and John Locke are amongst an illustrious supporting cast.

Thinking that watching someone else talk about an epic cycling adventure might give me some ideas of how to improve my own talk, we went to Malvern Theatres on 22 April to see a talk by the record-breaking long-distance cyclist Mark Beaumont. In 2008 Mark took 81 days off the previous record for the time taken to circumnavigate the world by bicycle, covering the 18,300 miles in 194 days and 17 hours, and crossing four continents and 20 countries. 16 months later he cycled 13,000 miles from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego. I would estimate that there would have been perhaps around 800 people who paid £14 each for tickets to see the talk and Mark probably sold around 200 copies of his book in a single evening.

Two years ago the Ludlow Cycle Users Group hired Ludlow Assembly Rooms and opened my own talk and slideshow up to the general public. Over a hundred people paid £5.00 per ticket, and many more were apparently turned away at the doors. The talk was well received and I sold 20 copies of 'Why Don't You Fly?' afterwards. I began to think that as well as approaching groups such as the W.I., Townswomen's Guilds and Probus Groups, I ought to be hiring theatres and directing my talks to the general public. Unlike Mark I haven't broken any world records and my journey hasn't been serialised by the BBC, but the experience in Ludlow indicates that I might reasonably expect audiences of between 100 and 200 people to turn up and pay £7.50 each to hear about another epic ride. Hopefully they might also purchase 20 - 30 copies of 'Why Don't You Fly?'.

On Saturday 24 April we went to the Symphony Hall to see a performance by the Academy of Ancient Music of the Overture to Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, Mozart's Piano Concerto No 25 in C major, and Mozart's Requiem. Two of the soloists in the Requiem interested me a great deal. James Gilchrist, the tenor, used to be a doctor before turning to a full-time career in music in 1996:

'I was once accosted by someone after a concert in Aldeburgh, who told me I wouldn’t remember him (he was not quite right, but I certainly couldn’t place him), and telling me that he used to tell me off for humming during his operations when I was a student of surgery, and now look – he’s having to fork out a fortune to hear me! He was delighted to do so, of course, and it was an important lesson for me about why music is so valuable to us all. I believe the arts are in some profound way essential to all of us. Artistic expression and endeavour are what make us human, and the most visceral and basic of our modes of communication. It’s glib to call music the medicine of the soul, but I think there’s some truth in that. '

(http://www.jamesgilchrist.co.uk/)

Christopher Purves, the bass, began as a performer with the rock and roll group Harvey and the Wallbangers before embarking upon a career singing as a classical soloist:

Purves came to opera late and not by the well-trodden route of young artist programmes, prizes and talent scouts. He didn’t study music (he read English at Cambridge) and sang in a rock band, Harvey and the Wallbangers, until 1987. He also recorded the theme to the Um Bongo soft drink ads (“Um Bongo, Um Bongo, they drink it in the Congo . . .) “Not the prime way of getting into opera,” he notes drily.

(http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/opera/)

I rather like people who don't follow established procedures. James Gilchrist and Christopher Purves are wonderful talents. Artistic expression and endeavour are what make us human.

Nodding donkeys near Atyrau, Kazakhstan (photo courtesy of Lenny Coulson)

May promises to be a busy month. Switching from one line of narrative to another in Karl Marx and Careful Driving must be achieved without derailing the reader, so points will have to be oiled. I must research the oil industry in Kazakhstan and the Crusades, and re-read Rousseau's Social Contract.

In Memoriam

Linda has been worrying about her children. Hannah (31) is battling serious health problems and William (24) has just split up with his French girlfriend after six years. Although I'm not a parent myself, as an author I am able to understand that parents never really stop worrying about their offspring.

My books are my children. The way I see life and choose to express my ideas is as distinctive as my DNA so it might be argued that each of my books contains my genes. My first-born, 'Why Don't You Fly?', will be six years old in June, and I have a second, Karl Marx and Careful Driving, on the way. 'Why Don't You Fly?' is making its way out there in the unforgiving world, competing with its peers for attention on the shelves of bookshops and on the Internet. I am concerned every time the Amazon ranking drops, but the book has never failed to rally and although sales have never been spectacular there hasn't yet been any consistent downward trend. Like any doting parent I am offering as much support as I can - by attempting to attract more traffic to my website and blog, and by publicising my talks and slide shows about the ride to China.

I did four such presentations in March - to Hindlip Ladies and Age Concern Over Sixties (both in Worcester), to an Agricultural Discussion Group (at a pub in Grimley), and to a group of around 25 people at the Village Hall in Heightington. After each presentation I answered questions, sold signed copies of 'Why Don't You Fly?' and sometimes found myself unable to pack up my gear because so many delightful people wanted come up to chat and shake my hand. One member of the audience at Heightington who had read 'Why Don't You Fly?' twice announced that he felt privileged to have met its author.

I am alway thrilled when my presentations are well received but opportunities to speak to a Women's Institute or a Cycling club only occur once. If I am to achieve my ambition of abandoning the day job in the near future I will have to build up a client base conisisting of venues that I can visit year after year, inspiring a different group of people on each occasion. This means approaching more schools, colleges and universities. In the longer term, of course, I hope to achieve my ambition by writing one or more bestsellers.

I also went for a 25-mile walk and attended a performance of Beethoven's Violin Concerto (soloist Joshua Bell) and the Eroica Symphony at Symphony Hall last month, but all of these events were overshadowed by the death of my father after a long illness on the 22nd at the age of 80.

On Friday 26 March the following obituary appeared in The Times:

ASTON SMITH Anthony, passed peacefully away on 22nd March 2010, at Michael Sobell House, Oxford. Much loved father of Chris, Piers, Ben and Poppy and loving grandfather. Dear husband of Julia. Good friend to his five stepchildren and their families. A great enabler who asked us to smile in his memory.

'Anthony was a great friend, a loving husband, a kind stepfather and a gentle grandfather. Along with Piers, Ben and Poppy, I am immensely privileged to have been able to call him Dad.

Even after the tragic death of our mother he never failed to find time for us. After coming home from work he’d cook our supper.

I retain fond memories of his delicious curries, never ending supply of rissoles, blackberry ice cream, vast 4-tier alcohol-laden chocolate cakes, and those exploding bottles of home-made ginger-beer. He was always available to help us with homework, and later on we would curl up on his bed and he would read us stories. I remember the different voices he used for Piglet, Roo and Eeyore; and for Gandalf, Gollum and Wormtongue.

He rearranged pieces of Mozart for our family quintet, wrote us ghost stories and built us fabulous scale models of battleships out of cardboard. For Poppy he built a scale model of the house we lived in to serve as a doll’s house.

He chased us around the garden with the watering can and introduced us to the enduring beauty of the Shropshire Hills.

Although he surely questioned the wisdom of some of our decisions he was always supportive of whatever we decided to do. When I told him that I wanted to drive Volvos, Scanias and DAFs all over Europe, he might have told me that university graduates don't become truck drivers.

Instead, he pointed out that I had spent four years studying at university in order to widen my choice of career, not restrict it, and that the very last thing my degree should do was prevent me from following the path of my choice. Those were the words of a great father. They were also the words of a wonderful human being.

It is with a sense of great loss that I refer to him in the past tense. During a short speech at a lunch held in honour of his 80th birthday, he thanked everyone present for having given him so much more than he could ever hope to give back. I speak on behalf of us, his four children, and we want to shout it from the roof tops that he gave us more than he could ever have known, that we loved him more than words can say, and that we are deeply proud to be his children.

We will miss him terribly.'

My father will be immortalised in the memories of his children and grand children and the many others whose lives he has touched and influenced.

I will smile in his memory.

16,500 miles. No support crew, no engine, and no ghost writer

I began March by tentatively embarking upon my first run since the fall and the injury sustained to my hip put me out of action on 7th January. Cycling and walking have built up my fitness but I was a little apprehensive about how I was going to feel after around eight run-free weeks.

Rose, who has has appointed herself as my personal trainer, insisted on coming with me. We ran along the river, the frost having helpfully hardened the muddy, slippery parts of the path, and then into the forest. I was wearing gloves but my hands, always the most vulnerable to the cold, were freezing.

Rose - small but deadly

It didn't take long for me to warm up, however, and the crisp air and dazzling sunshine made the running a joy. Once in the forest, Rose becomes a hunter, her ears alive to the sounds and her nose to the scents made by the wildlife inhabiting the forest. 'Nature commands all animals and the beast obeys,' wrote Jean-Jacques. 'Man receives the same impulsion, but he recognises himself as being free to acquiesce or resist; and it is above all in this consciousness of his freedom that the spirituality of his soul reveals itself.' During a circuit of around six miles that even included a sprint, Rose was consistently beastly to the local wildlife and I wondered whether life dicates consciousness (Marx) or whether consciousness dictates life (Hegel). This is a debate that will recur throughout Karl Marx and Careful Driving.

I arrived back home less exhausted than I expected. Rose reclined on the sofa listening to a phone-in on Radio Five and ruminatively licking her nether regions while I peeled off my muddy running gear, showered and got changed. Assuming that there are no ill-effects I'll add twice-weekly runs to the cycling commuting I do four times a week. I run and cycle not only to keep fit, but also because I tend to get some of my best ideas for the book when out running or cycling to work. The physical activity seems to clear the mind and the seratonin released by vigorous exercise stimulates the grey matter. Inspiration is fleeting, precious and so fragile. Like the body, the mind thrives on regular exercise.

This morning someone was talking on the radio about the determination, drive and focus necessary to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics. If determination, drive and focus was all one needed to become a best-selling author then 'Why Don't You Fly?' would be somewhere near the top of the best-sellers lists. Reviews in the media and the feedback I receive from readers (http://www.cycleuktochina.com/) reassure me that I possess talent too. Unfortunately you also need to find a mainstream publisher prepared to invest in your talent, and I've come to the conclusion that attracting a publisher requires more than just determination, drive, focus and even talent.

Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman rode their powerful BMW motorbikes from John O'Groats to Cape Town, a 15,000 mile journey that took them twelve weeks. The BBC sent along a camera crew and made their adventure into a television series. Their ghost-written travelogue was written in about six weeks and almost instantly made it into the best-seller lists.

For the past three years I have been entertaining members of cycling clubs, the W.I., photographic societies, the National Trust, groups of businessmen, and audiences at festivals, bookshops and schools with a talk and slideshow about what it takes to cover 16,500 miles in thirteen months without an engine. My book took me eighteen months to write, and a further eighteen months, after countless rejections from agents and publishers, to get into print.

'These areas are often labelled "God-forsaken" for no better reason than that they are uninhabitable by humans, but I love deserts. Deserts are human-being-forsaken and the result is a natural perfection that is the most compelling evidence I've ever come across that perhaps, after all, there is a God out there somewhere. The constantly changing landscape of Baluchistan, from flat plains covered in shingle through rolling sand dunes to mountains, was a source of fascination. These are the last outposts of creation as it was meant to be before human interference. The silence that reigns in a desert is so overwhelming that it compels you to contemplate the nature of being and even enables you to tune in to the all but imperceptible music played by your soul, which I assure you is there but most of us are too distractied by other noises to pay any heed to it - and it is always worth listening to.' (Slide 25 of '16,500 Miles Without An Engine.')

Instead of a 1100 c. c. motorcycle engine my lungs and my legs powered me into headwinds, across deserts and up to mountain passes, and a wonderfully indomitable and reliable source of energy they proved to be. I set off without accomplice, satellite navigation or support crew. I wore out three sets of tyres, three chains, two pairs of boots and fell off the bike six times. It took a great deal of determination, drive and focus - and some of you would doubtless suggest considerable stupidity too.

'The cool mountain air of the Southern HIll Stations of Kodaikanal and Ooty provided much-needed relief from the tropical stickiness of the plains below, but only at the cost of brutal ascents to heights of over 8,000 feet. I think brute strength and physical fitness will only take you so far on this kind of journey. I spoke of my body being my engine; as well as fuel (which was excellent here in India), the engine needs a spark to the plugs. That spark was provided by passion. Passion drove me into headwinds and up to mountain passes wehn my feet were smarting, my crotch was sore, and my back was aching. When my strength and energy deserted me through illness in Pakistan and China, passion was all that drove me on. I think that everything one does in life should be motivated by passion. With suffiecient passion you can overcome any obstacle.('Slide 33 of '16,500 Miles Without An Engine.')

Last week I spoke to an audience of sixth-formers at a school in Blackpool and this evening I'll be speaking to a women's group in Worcester about my stupidity. How does it feel to trade domestic comfort and security for life as a nomad and to pare one’s life down to the bare necessities? What is it like to push at the frontiers of one’s physical and mental endurance? What is the effect upon the human spirit of struggling against hurricanes in the Gobi Desert by day and shivering alone in culverts at night? How does the agnostic westerner react to the religious fatalism of Islam and Hinduism in encounters with locals? As well as attempting to answer these questions, I speak about the importance of having a dream, about connecting with one’s passions, and about recognising and seizing opportunities.

'Isolated from the north, west and south by mighty mountain ranges, and from the east by the world's second-largest desert, Xinxiang, the westernmost and largest province of China, is one of the most inaccessible places in the world. Although I'm not religious, I felt that the sheer perfection of this scenery is a far more telling tribute to the Creator (whoever he, she or it might be) than any man-made church, mosque or temple. The only imperfection in the scene is the road, but thankfully there are no vehicles on it to break the silence, for that too is perfect as soon as I dismount and my breathing quietens and my heartbeat slows. Cycling at these altitudes was lung-heaving work because of the lack of oxygen. (Slide 43 of '16,500 Miles Without An Engine.')

After each presentation I stay for as long as necessary to answer questions, and I usually manage to sell a few signed copies of 'Why Don't You Fly?' We unrecognised, uncelebrated authors have to draw upon every drop of our determination, drive, focus - and talent - to sell our books.

Audiences seem to enjoy the presentations:

On behalf of Hagley Wives I’m writing to say a huge thank you for coming and telling us about your amazing achievement. We all had a thoroughly enjoyable evening. I can fully understand the personal satisfaction that you gained from your trip. I am very much looking forward to reading your book and seeing the pictures on your website. It was hard to believe that that relatively small bicycle had taken you across so many miles. If ever you do another journey, please let us know and we’ll have you back in Hagley to share it with us. Again, many many thanks for your visit. Ann Pagett (Programme Secretary)

Readers and reviewers alike have been enthused by the book:

Chris Smith seems to be a man of considerable talent. I lived every mile of his journey to Beijing, which included a four-month side trip around India. By the end I felt that I’d done the trip with him and enjoyed every inch. Buy this book! It’s a great read. Cycle Magazine

Smith’s smart, honest prose is crafted superbly and peppered with wonderful moments of drama, dialogue and real humanity. Asia and Away Magazine

For eighteen months I wrote, proof-read, edited and agonised over every word, sentence and paragraph of 'Why Don't You Fly?' myself. Tributes like the above therefore mean a great deal more to me than they would to celebrities whose memoirs are ghostwritten for them.

Celebrity memoirs guarantee sales, however, and that is all the justification the publishers need. A passion for writing, a love of the English language, determination, drive, focus and even literary talent aren't enough to earn a publishing contract because they don't guarantee sales.

Reasons to be cheerful

January 2010 has been a strange month. The strangeness began on the seventh when my bicycle hit black ice and dumped me upon the unyielding road at around 7.30 a.m. on the way to work. I remember being frogmarched into a house at the roadside, mumbling 'Don't worry, I'll be fine...' An ambulance took me to hospital where the doctor was more concerned about the bang to my head than the pain in my right hip, which had taken the brunt of the impact. She told me to get 'a responsible adult' to keep an eye on me for the next 24 hours and to rest for a couple of days. In the absence of 'a responsible adult' Linda came to collect me and we drove home along the road where I'd had my accident in order to collect the bike but I was unable to find the address given to me by the ambulance man. The problem was solved the next day by an unexpected email:

Hi Chris. I was the girl with the dog from this morning. I really hope you are ok after your nasty fall. I know you were a little confused (naturally) and was worried you might not have remembered where your bike was. (I imagine it to be your prized possession!) It is at my sisters house, safely in the shed.

There followed details of her sister's address, directions, phone number and 'best wishes for a speedy recovery'.

Dear Victoria, (I wrote back) Many thanks for your concern and for having the initiative to note the website address. I'm basically OK - just a little sore. I've been told by the hospital doctor to take things easy for a couple of days. You are right - I have been worrying about the bike and wondering just how I'm going to collect it when I have only the vaguest recollection as to where I fell. I think I must have blacked out for a few seconds because I have no memory at all of a girl with a dog! My partner came to collect me from Worcester Hospital yesterday morning and we drove up the road but couldn't locate the Cottage. I'll phone you later today on your mobile. We may try to collect the bike if road conditions permit. Thanks again.

We duly recovered the bike but I was experiencing the kind of excruciating pains in my badly swollen hip that I associate with fractures. Linda drove me to Kidderminster Hospital where the X-ray failed to show the expected fracture but the doctor told me that the swelling was a haematoma. The stabbing pain I was experiencing was the mass of clotted blood pressing on a nerve.

I'd like to thank Victoria Lacks again for scraping me off the road and her sister Caroline for looking after my bike and for welcoming a dazed, incoherent and - as she confided in me when I collected the bike - a rather 'scary' figure into the warmth of her cottage to await the ambulance. At the beginning of February the swelling on my hip has almost disappeared but I'm still getting isolated stabs of pain and I haven't yet gone back to work. I am more mobile but don't feel up to walking the dog for more than around twenty minutes, let alone do any running or cycling and I still can't lie on my right side when in bed.

In other respects January has been a good month. The haematoma hasn't affected my fingers and the head injury I sustained merely left me a little woozy for a couple of days, so I've had sorely needed time with the manuscript of Karl Marx and Careful Driving and it has benefitted accordingly.

'During the first few weeks at Fransen the gap between essence and existence appeared to be unbridgeable and at times I teetered on the brink of despair. I'd stumbled entirely by accident upon one of the most coveted driving jobs to be had. Fransen's drivers saw themselves as an elite and were the most demanding and ruthless of critics. Any failure to match the standards they set or to pull one's weight wouldn't be tolerated and inexperience wasn't an alibi that I'd be able to use for long.'

Other reasons to be cheerful came in the form of three more emails from readers of 'Why Don't You Fly?' The indifference shown by mainstream publishers to the book means that, like so many other people who love writing, I haven't been able to give up the day job. Fortunately that indifference doesn't seem to extend to the book's readers:

Chris,
I look forward to being able to buy your next book; Marx/Driving. I wish you good luck in finding a publisher because I have just been enthralled by 'Why Don't You Fly?'. I can empathise with your efforts just a fraction. After the collapse of my parents' health I decided to cycle from 'new' home to 'old' home, Isle of Wight to Blackpool. It turned out to be a brief Odyssey plagued by a deluge of biblical proportions for its second half. At 422 miles cross-country in 3 days it pales in to insignificance with your own achievements but just allows me a tiny insight into the stimulation of the human spirit that challenge, difficulty and adventure can engender. Having also travelled in some of the countries that you wrote about, I also thank you for your reflection on their precious contrasts before globalisation rapidly shrinks too many of them. You write very well.
Again, Good luck.
Paul Lyon

Hi Chris,
My husband got me your book for Christmas, and as he's a really keen cyclist (and I'm not) I suspected it might be more of a present for him to borrow! I couldn't have been more wrong -- it is a wonderful book and makes a refreshing change from other cycling/travel books I've dipped into. I've just visited your website to see the photos, and came across your essay about writing and being published. I am a writer too and I find your views very realistic about the real way publishing works, something that hardly anyone seems to acknowledge. Well done for hanging in there and getting the book out to readers. I look forward to your new book coming out. Best wishes,
Josie Aston

Dear Chris,
Your book ' Why Don't you Fly' was fascinating. I have been reading travel books for years, always looking for the 'wow factor'. More recently and more specifically my interest has turned towards cycling adventures. Whilst your story started slowly I soon found myself endulging in your next adventure and imagining what it must feel like, the frustration and relief, the isolation, the incredible people and landscapes. I am sure that you have many people writing to you and saying what I am about to say, but I do not mean it to be a cliche, rather my honest account. My personal interest is in some ways similar to yours, the daily grind of working in London is getting in the way of what I really want from my life. So the ending of your book coincides nicely with the handing in of my resignation. Destination London to Australia by bicycle. Of course I am not as brave as you and without my fiance I am sad to say I would never have thought it possible. But here we both are, counting down the last weeks before we leave. So thankyou for keeping me motivated and proving that it is possible. The number of times I have been asked 'Why Don't You just Fly' made the title of your book so fitting.
Cheers, Kelli

This is why I write - and what better reason could one possibly have? Many people dream of winning the lottery but the knowledge that my writing has brought pleasure to complete strangers makes me far richer than any amount of money. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Paul, Josie and Kelli for getting in touch, and I'm deeply grateful to the many other wonderful people who have taken the trouble to email or write to me. Your letters and emails have made all the countless hours spent in front of the computer and poring over the manuscript infinitely worthwhile. They have vindicated my decision to dedicate my life to writing...


'Intoxicating highs were followed by subterranean lows. The exhilaration of crossing the Alps in bright sunshine in a giant DAF pulling a tri-axle trailer loaded with twenty tonnes of peaches from sun-drenched Ravenna was the stuff of dreams but it would be counterbalanced by the horror of a delivery at 3 a.m. in the insanely congested streets of Spitalfields market.'

...and are a source of encouragement during those inevitable periods of self-doubt when I suspect that what I'm writing is garbage and wonder if anyone will bother to read it. A selection of readers' comments can be found by clicking on the following link: http://www.cycleuktochina.com/Readers.htm.

On the penultimate day of the month Linda drove us into Birmingham to see Daniel Barenboim conduct Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht and perform Beethoven's majestic Emperor piano concerto. I think friends can be defined as 'those people without whom the world would be a poorer place' but there is also a handful of people whom I've never met without whom the world would also be a poorer place. Daniel Barenboim comes into the latter category. I was brought up with his early recordings of Mozart's piano concertos and a packed Symphony Hall audience was enraptured by his virtuosity and brio at the keyboard. When announcing the encore (a dreamy Chopin Nocturne) he displayed a nice sense of humour in wagging an admonishing finger at us for preferring the Beethoven to the Schoenberg.

'Daniel Barenboim is a great man,' commented my father when I told him about the concert. Brilliant people perform a service to humankind by showing the rest of us what is possible but Barenboim's greatness doesn't lie just in his legendary status as a performer and a recording artist; he is a visionary who believes in the potential of music to bridge political divides. In 1999 he collaborated with the Palestinian literary scholar Edward Said to found the West-East Divan Workshop, a project designed to bring together young Palestinian and Israeli musicians.

Barenboim's long-term vision contrasts starkly with the paucity of genuine vision that exists within Westminster. The months leading up to a general election ought to offer us an opportunity to witness a series of exciting debates about the long-term destiny of the United Kingdom. Nobody in either the party of government or the opposition appears to have a vision that extends beyond offering the electorate a series of short-term bribes intended to persuade it to vote them into office for the next five years. Three months of sterile and unprincipled bickering is a deeply depressing prospect. None of our politicians will achieve greatness until their vision extends to serving others before themselves. Their presence in the world might in that case make it a better place for millions of people who have never met them.

Just like Daniel Barenboim's. (http://www.danielbarenboim.com/)

Aiming High

Bill Nicholson, the Tottenham manager, said, 'It is better to fail aiming high than to succeed aiming low. And we of Spurs have set our sights very high, so high in fact that even failure will have in it an echo of glory.'

I set out to cycle from the UK to Vladivostok but I had to terminate my journey after 16,500 miles at Beijing. I was distraught and the disappointment lasted for several weeks after I returned home but I have since consoled myself with the thought that I failed aiming high, and I like to think that the failure had in it an echo of glory.

The greater the challenge you set yourself, of course, the more likely you are to fail in your endeavour. Karl Marx and Careful Driving is even more ambitious a project than cycling to Vladivostok. The idea for the book goes back to 1993 when I was allocated a brand-new Volvo truck specifically designed for the ultra-long-haul journeys to Russia and the republics of the former Soviet Union. As a University-educated lorry driver I felt that I was almost uniquely qualified to chronicle adventures involving potholes and blistering heat in the summer...



'A series of ripples in the tarmac regularly threaten to wrench the steering wheel from my grasp. All the authorities have to do to prevent speeding is to stop repairing road surfaces; frequently I am obliged to reduce speed to a crawl, my attention completely focused upon the area of worn tarmac immediately ahead. People break the law because national speed limits have remained static in the face of improvements to both roads and vehicles. From time to time my thoughts stray to the bottles inside the trailer and I wonder uneasily if they’ll all be empty by the time we eventually reach Aktyubinsk.' (Photograph courtesy of Jeff Johnston)

...sheet ice a foot thick in the winter...


'Whereas in the summer I lamented the lack of mountain ranges to add topographical and meteorological diversity to the immense plains of the east, I now bless the fact that if the earth were flat one would probably be able to stand on the top of Shropshire’s Clee Hill and see right across to the Urals. One drive axle and a single steering axle out of six don’t make either for effective traction or directional control and the fewer the bends and gradients to be negotiated the better. Mountain passes I can do without.' (Photo courtesy of Jeff Spencer)

...and an armed policeman riding in the passenger seat to discourage bandits – all at a time of great political and social upheaval in the former Soviet Empire...


'It is the complications that have made my driving career memorable. Collecting the guard who was to accompany Tony and me on the trip to Tengiz in October was aggravated by the attempted coup d’etat mounted by Rutskoi and his fellow hardliners in the Kremlin. The parliamentary buildings had been shelled by tanks under the command of Boris Yeltsin and the city centre was in turmoil. A couple of months later the damage done to the ‘White House’ by the shelling is still evident in the scorched and blackened upper storeys.' (Photo courtesy of Richard Breakwell)

I kept an A4 page-a-day diary and made entries every day for a year before swapping life on the road...

'Through this immense and seemingly uninhabited land runs this unforgiving road, an endless black ribbon stretching away to the shimmering horizon. The desert must be further south; at Uralsk the Tengiz-bound cargoes would have followed the Ural River due south towards Atirau and the shores of the Caspian Sea, but our destination lies to the east.' (Photo courtesy of Jeff Johnston)

...for a job in the office in order to have more time to write. The book's first incarnation as Driving Dorabella failed to make an impression with publishers, and I gave up when I was made redundant after five years working in the office.

If at first you don't succeed... Redundancy was the catalyst for the ride to China and a second, more successful effort at writing a travel book. Writing is like any other skill: you improve with practise. 'Why Don't You Fly?' was published in August 2005. Driving Dorabella didn't succeed because ten years ago I was still a beginner in the art of writing. I know that I am a far more accomplished writer now than I was then and I have high hopes that the book's second, very different, incarnation as Karl Marx and Careful Driving will fare better.

I feel that it is my destiny to write this book. The following extracts from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions strike a chord: 'Of the various works I had on the stocks there was one on which I had long meditated and to which I was more attracted than the others. To it I was anxious to devote the whole of my life, for it would, in my opinion, put the seal on my reputation. This was my Political Institutions. It was thirteen or fourteen years since I had conceived the original idea for it... Although I had been engaged in this work for five or six years I had not got very far with it. Books of this kind require reflection, leisure and quiet. Besides, I was working on it, as they say, behind closed doors, and I had preferred not to communicate my plan to anyone, even Diderot. I was afraid that it would seem too bold for the age and the country in which I was writing, and my friends' alarm might hinder me in the execution.'

It has been several years since the book's original conception and I am similarly secretive about the manuscript. Books of this kind require reflection, leisure and quiet. The only people to have seen any of the manuscript are my partner, a couple of close friends and my fellow members of Severn Valley Authors (http://severnvalleyauthors.blogspot.com/).

Far from hindering me in the execution, Robert Ronsson, author of Olympic Mind Games, was moved to write the following letter to a literary agent after reading a couple of early chapters:

'I'm taking the unusual (and, I admit, impertinent) step of suggesting you look at the work of somebody else. His name is Chris Smith. Chris lives in the same town as me and asked me to critique the opening ofhis book. I've read three chapters and I am really excited about it. Chris drives articulated trucks for a living and his book describes three trips to Kazakhstan in the early nineties shortly after the break up of the Soviet Union. What makes the book unique and compelling is that Chris intersperses his travel writing with musings, sometimes serious, sometimes humourous, on philosophy, life and the human condition with particular reference to the writings of Karl Marx. The book's title is Karl Marx and Careful Driving. Chris, who graduated from Nottingham University with a degree in French, has a nearly complete manuscript but, because he's working full-time (and he's a bit of a perfectionist), he reckons he needs another two years to complete the intricate job of shuffling the parts together to make a cohesive piece. If he had an advance he could take a break from driving and finish it in months rather than years. You may like to look at Chris's first book, which he published himself. It's called 'Why don't you fly?' and is an account of his solo bike ride from Worcestershire to Beijing. You can look it up on Amazon. I know you are inundated with submissions but I bet not many come from third parties who have no interest in the manuscript or the writer other than the thrill generated by reading something innovative and exciting. Would you be interested in seeing a submission?'

Nothing came of the enquiry but Rob's reaction has given me a great deal of encouragement. At the beginning of 2010 I am pondering whether to divide the book into two or three separate volumes (one volume per trip), firstly to reduce its size to something more manageable for the average reader, and secondly to get at least part of it off to publishers within the next couple of years; I don't want to repeat the experience of Rousseau, who never completed his Political Institutions. The only section published was The Social Contract, but it sufficed to establish him as one of the greatest and most original thinkers of the Enlightenment.

Karl Marx and Careful Driving won't have the impact of Rousseau's A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality or Marx's Communist Manifesto but it might establish my reputation as an 'innovative and exciting writer.' At any rate I believe the book has the potential to end up as a cult best-seller along the lines of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

No-one finds real success by aiming low. I am aiming so high that even failure will have in it an echo of glory.

Inhabiting a different planet

'The journey from university graduate to pilot of a Volvo F12 on its way to Kazakhstan hasn't been accomplished by avoiding pain. I wanted to make these journeys because the human spirit yearns to be tested. Only by subjecting myself to a series of such tests and only by rising to these challenges will I discover who I am, or rather what I can become.'

When I wake up I tend to talk to my long-suffering partner about whatever happens to be on my mind. This morning I spoke to her about a dream in which I was back driving the Volvo truck that stars in Karl Marx and Careful Driving. K123 YOF was stolen while I was in a cafe somewhere in northern Italy and my boss, who improbably happened to be wobbling around northern Italy on his bicycle, was so furious with me he could hardly speak.

More usually I talk to her about a great idea I've just had about Karl Marx and Careful Driving, or one of the frequent problems I encounter in the book's construction. It helps of course that Linda is writing her own novel, intriguingly entitled A Head Full of Budgerigars and subtitled The Memories of No-one in Particular.

'It was nice that Charlotte couldn't bring herself to believe that I'm a truck driver,' I said, abandoning that disturbing dream and moving on to last night's meeting of the Severn Valley Authors (http://severnvalleyauthors.blogspot.com/)
'In the mind of a seventeen-year-old all truck drivers are hairy arsed blokes covered in tatoos and they don't generally wake up their partners at four in the morning to discuss Plato's Ideal State or Karl Marx's theories of alienation,' Linda pointed out.
'That's a preconception held by virtually everyone, not just seventeen-year-olds. I inhabit a different planet to most of the guys at work.'
'I don't think its just the guys at work. You inhabit a different planet to most people.'
'Most writers do. We create a separate world with our imaginations and then we write about it.'
'You're probably right. I know I live in a different world to most people.'

Yesterday evening's meeting, held at our place, was the last before Christmas so Linda and I provided wine and mince pies instead of the usual coffee and biscuits. We critiqued the re-written first chapter of A Head Full of Budgerigars. The chances of a work of fiction written by 'no-one in particular' being accepted in a market in which publishers and the media are in thrall to the cult of celebrity are minute, but Linda's descriptive writing is superb. Take the following:

The garden was a jungle. A machete and a pioneering spirit were needed to thwart the enthusiasm of the brambles, nettles and waist-high grasses. During the summer months little pockets had been conquered, neat little handkerchiefs of lettuce, radishes and beans, patches of indomitable courgettes and blotchy tomatoes. The gardens that ran the length of the old miners' cottages had manicured lawns and bird baths, dahlias and garden furniture with sun shades. Some had immaculate vegetable plots that made her feel ashamed of her efforts.

The cottage gardens germinated gossip. The rumours spread like weeds along the terrace, through the runner beans and over the rhubarb, gathering momentum and spice as they brushed past the aubergines and lollo rosso. No doubt they whispered about the garden at Number Eight which was a graveyard for broken mowers, clapped-out strimmers and handle-less spades.

I suspect that the description and the imagery contained within the quoted passage is way beyond many established authors, let alone the ghost-writers of celebrity 'autobiographies' and 'novels'. Sometimes I wonder if publishers publish the books the public wants to read, or if the public is obliged to read whatever rubbish they decide to publish. Answers on a postcard, please.

After the meeting we investigated a recently opened bar down by the river. Annie asked me about my background. I told her and Tony about the fascination with trucks and faraway places that began in early childhood and led, despite an honours degree in French, to what I saw as the entirely logical decision to combine these two passions in a career as an international truck driver. Six years of adventures on the road with Fransen Transport were followed by five years working in their office as a traffic clerk and transport manager. I reacted to redundancy in 1999 by cycling 16,500 miles from Bewdley to Beijing. When I returned home I was faced by a choice: either I could attempt to resume a career in transport management or I could get a less demanding job back on the road in order to be able to indulge more fully my passion for writing. The decision to take the second option was rewarded by the eventual publication in 2005 of my first book, 'Why Don't You Fly?' (http://www.cycleuktochina.com/)

Signing copies of 'Why Don't You Fly?' at Waterstones

A single letter or email from a reader who has been enthralled by 'Why Don't You Fly?' is worth far more to me than winning the lottery because anyone is capable of winning the lottery. Those letters and emails are the reward for hours, days, weeks, months and years of isolation, dedication, obsession and perfectionism - and, thank goodness, the occasional flash of inspiration - in front of a computer. There is no greater feeling than the knowledge that one has succeeded in bringing joy to others. It is that fabulous high that motivates any true writer or artist, not the thought of sales or royalty cheques. Only the hope that Karl Marx and Careful Driving will bring similar joy to many more readers is keeping me going.

Perhaps I do inhabit a different planet, but it's not a bad place to be.

Work-in-Progress

'A three-axle Volvo F12 tractor unit fitted with the deluxe high-roof 'Globetrotter' cab and left-hand drive, K123 YOF was purchased specifically for the ultra long-haul work to the former Soviet Union and is the first brand-new vehicle I have ever driven.'

Last night's meeting of the Severn Valley Authors (http://severnvalleyauthors.blogspot.com/) brought some interesting comments about Karl Marx and Careful Driving. After I'd read out the latest 2,000-word extract the others took it in turns to make their observations. All were agreed that Karl Marx and Careful Driving was a terrific idea that had the makings of a unique book. Tony, Annie and Linda remarked that the various layers of the narrative were beginning to gel more effectively, so my hard work over the past year hasn't been entirely wasted.

'Owing to Germany's weekend ban on freight I was hoping to find Kukuryki relatively free on a Monday morning, but the trickle of trucks that used to wait at the "freight-only" border that ineffectively divided Poland from the Soviet Union prior to its implosion has become a flow. I find myself joining the end of a line of becalmed juggernauts that stretches a mile or so back from the border.' (Photo courtesy of Jeff Johnston)

One point was repeated from the last time it was my turn to be critiqued: that there wasn't enough about the truck driving or the person driving the truck. I think that one of the problems here is that during the crossing of Western Europe the Marxism and the history is a little top-heavy, partly because there is a great deal to fit in but also because the driver / narrator is bored by the autobahns and therefore spends a great deal of his time in contemplation of other matters. Tony pointed out that unlike the narrator, it will be the first time the majority of readers have ever travelled in a big truck and also the first time many of them will have crossed Western Europe - so despite his boredom the narrator must allocate a more substantial part of the narrative to satisfying their curiosity about the truck, its driver and the landscapes of Belgium and Germany. Many of the questions raised about what it is like to drive a 38-tonne artic are actually dealt with in later sections of the book, but I'll work on transferring some of them to an earlier point in the narrative.

'As always it is a relief to be on the move again after the delays and tensions of a border crossing, the Volvo bouncing and lurching gamely over the potholed and scarred dual carriageway in the evening sunshine as, wary of radar traps but eager to regain some of the time lost in the queue, I put my foot down.' (Photo courtesy of Richard Breakwell)

Rob expressed concern the lack of human interaction thus far - but truck driving is by nature a solitary occupation. It is precisely this aspect of the job that gives the driver so much time to reflect upon history, human nature and philosophy. Furthermore Karl Marx and Careful Driving is a travel book like few others in that the narrator is at work and has a schedule to maintain. He isn't therefore at liberty to stop to interview that interesting looking chap bent over the bonnet of his broken-down Lada or to make a 200-mile detour to take in a war memorial or a church. Indeed it is the fact that the narrator is working for his living that gives him the opportunity to compare Marx's observations about nineteenth-century capitalism to the capitalism of the present day. To what extent have working conditions evolved? Which of Marx's ideas and theories retain their relevance and which have been proved wrong or rendered obsolete? I reassured my fellow authors that there is a great deal more interaction after the narrator has collected Vladimir, the short-sighted, Abba-loving Russian policeman who is to share the cab to provide armed protection for several days after he leaves Moscow. Part of the winter journey, the second section of the book, is made in convoy with two other drivers.

'When you're living the life of which you've dreamed since early childhood you care little about either the hours you work or the size of your pay packet. I am truly fortunate because what I 'do' is truly who I am: the means by which I have chosen to put food on the table and pay the bills defines me because it is the culmination of my dreams and apirations. I cannot in any way be said to be alienated by my occupation because existence has become inseparable from essence and that, I think, is the definition of fulfilment.' (Photo courtesy of Jeff Johnston)

I left the meeting feeling both reassured and worried. Presumably these are familiar feelings for authors contemplating a work-in-progress.