Product Description

Why not? After all, no-one had ever done it before. It would be one of the longest of all overland journeys-half-way round the world, from the English Channel to Singapore. They knew that several expeditions had already tried it. Some had got as far as the deserts of Persia; a few had even reached the plains of India. But no-one had managed to go on from there: over the jungle-clad mountains of Assam and across northern Burma to Thailand and Malaya. Over the last 3,000 miles it seemed there were "just too many rivers and too few roads". But no-one really knew... In fact, their problems began much earlier than that. As mere undergraduates, they had no money, no cars, no nothing. But with a cool audacity, which was to become characteristic, they set to work-wheedling and cajoling. First, they coaxed the BBC to come up with some film for a possible TV series. Then they gently "persuaded" Rover to lend them two factory-fresh Land Rovers. A publisher was even sweet-talked into giving them an advance on a book. By the time they were ready to go, their sponsors (more than 80 of them) ranged from whiskey distillers to the makers of collapsible buckets. In late 1955, they set off. Seven months and 12,000 miles later, two very weary Land Rovers, escorted by police outriders, rolled into Singapore-to flash-bulbs and champagne. Now, fifty years on, their bestselling book, First Overland, is republished-with a foreword by Sir David Attenborough. After all, it was he who gave them that film.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21699 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-27
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
An altogether delightful book... written with humour and beguiling gusto. --Times Literary Supplement

I think that this is the best travel book I have ever read. --The Motor

Fifty years on, their journey and its telling have become both an epic and a classic. --Sir David Attenborough

Customer Reviews

Well I Never!
My connection with this book is a long one as I first read it in the 1960's and I was pleased to see it back in print. One of the sponsors the trip was Brooke Bond and my late father-in-law was the Indian based representive of the company and looked after the group when they were in Delhi - their exploits are recorded in the book which includes an hilarious TV performance on Indian TV.
In 1994 I brought the whole group together at Magdelene College Cambridge for a celebratory dinner at which it was intended for my father-in-law to meet up with them after 40 years but sadly he died just before the dinner took place. We pressed ahead and it was very interesting to meet all of the travellers who had not been together for many,many years. The book for me is the most evocative "road" book ever and is a prototype for many of the books on motorised travel that have appeared since. The period they travelled in (1954-5) was the last knockings of the Empire and traces of the Second World War were in one case at least an important part of making the journey work. The only other book of similar importance, in my opinion, of the long distance traveller is Ted Simon's "Jupiter's Travels" a journey he undertook in 1975 by Triumph motorbike. But this is a truly great travelling book and should be read by anyone with the travelling bug.

Half way round the world.
I loved reading this book and will buy it for my family and friends for Christmas. In an age when travel means airports and starbucks, it was so refreshing to read of travellers who crossed all the borders and mountains that separate us from Singapore and the Pacific. There were mountains and rivers of which I had not even heard. One minute they were following the crusaders and the conquests of Alexandra the great, the next they were removing fan belts to ford the wide rivers beyond India. I also loved the honest account of a bunch of bright Oxbridge Graduates couped up in two landrovers for almost a year; it made big brother look pretty tame and uniteresting. Read this from any background and you'll enjoy it. But beware, you might get itchy feet....
David Melville

The Last Great Adventure
For me, First Overland marks the end of the era of great human adventure, when the number of untested and unconquered journeys was dwindling fast. By the '60s, for anything to be considered an adventure, it required some element of space travel, so First Overland is notable in that it chronicles a wonderful journey of 6 resourceful men to get from London to Singapore - by road when they had it, and by unpaved paths, desert and jungle when there was no road to be had.

The 5 surviving members (Henry, the mechanic of the group, passed away several years ago according to Attenborough's forward) are traveling (by plane!) to Singapore to mark the 50th anniversary of their arrival on March 6 1956: when you read 'First Overland', the tone that Slessor captures makes it feel so immediate, yet the reader is struck by his insights into the coming upheaval in the Middle East (and now Burma / Myanmar) that make this overland trip impossible in our modern times.

A classic travel book, highly recommended!