Last Days of the Bus Club by Chris Stewart
| Last Days of the Bus Club by Chris Stewart | |
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| Category: Humour | |
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Reviewer: John Lloyd
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| Summary: Not the most earth-changing travel book, particularly as the travel element is very, very low, but this is a welcome return for fans of Stewart. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 240 | Date: June 2014 |
| Publisher: Sort of Books | |
| ISBN: 9781908745439 | |
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I could well have been a near-neighbour of Chris Stewart. Not, of course, near his current primary occupancy, an ecological farmstead just beyond the turning off from the back end of nowhere in the most rural of corners of southern Spain, but back when he lived in the south-east of England, being Genesis' first ever drummer, and building bridges in the North Downs. The fact I learnt the latter from this book shows up several of the features of this warm-hearted 'travelogue' – the fact that Stewart is never shy about portraying family details and history – given a good map and a prevailing wind one could find where he lives and descend on the farm, if one wished; and that while this might be on the travel shelves, the narrative is so fragmented it actually moves a lot more than any of the characters do.
Calling this the fourth book in the trilogy does kind of make sense, although those punctuation marks I used earlier are perhaps more relevant. Yes, he gets to see several other corners of Spain, and yes there is travel by proxy as his daughter moves out, and works back in the UK for a season. But the whole ethos of the books has been his rustic life, restoring, managing and just plain coping with a farm, a strong-willed and stronger-hearted wife, animals, and more. This is present only in small bites here – the wife as a figurehead for his readers, the farm getting organic accreditation.
If anything one is almost more aware of Stewart's life as an author. On three occasions he has to give public speeches – which do indeed form a narrative arc for proceedings, he is forced to sign copies of books for someone else's largesse, and he refers to himself as a jobbing writer, or some such phrasing, several times. This comes out in the chapters being pretty much interchangeable – one doesn't get that much of a passing of time, and instead they could just as easily be read as separate essays, and not a cohesive whole.
But the strengths of the writing, when those essays take full flight, are very nice indeed. Like a CD or something, one is bound to find instant favourites, and mine are the comedic problems caused by judging a tuna-cooking competition and the less humorous yet very dramatic events relating to a flood. I managed to share this volume with someone else before finishing my write-up, and she found others more to her liking. Like a nice lengthy album, there is enough for everyone.
So while there is nothing earth-shattering (or earth-covering) about these pages, they are winsome in regard to their humour, their approach to life and their clarity as popular journalistic reportage. No, the book has nothing to completely hang itself on, but there is little to begrudge it, as the series has always managed to convey a sense of place from that particular corner of Spain. It was a surprise to see this book on the shelves – Peter Mayle certainly seems to have moved on from his very similar books regarding Provence, in favour of crime fiction – but I certainly enjoyed one more taste of Stewart's rusticity.
I must thank the publishers for my review copy.
There was more mileage to the author's previous book, and his only one not in this series - Three Ways to Capsize a Boat: An Optimist Afloat.
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