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Remembered Today:

Walking The Line, by Nick and Fiona Jenkins


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Some of you will have seen our thread about walking the entire Western Front, which we did in April and May this year. Many of you were very complimentary about the blog we wrote along the way.

Stephen O'Shea, who wrote the classic Back To The Front, said: "I had trouble keeping up with you. Not only are you champion walkers, but you're also champion writers."

He added: "You pulled it off. The sheer piling up of incremental oddity, couched in no-nonsense prose, gave us blog followers a steady diet of subdued weirdness. A very pleasant sensation every morning."

Well, now we have edited and revised what we wrote during our 1,000km walk and added in some new information, including some words once written by Fiona's Somme veteran grandfather as a postscript.

It's available in paperback (also in Kindle edition, and from other Amazon sites around the world) at:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Walking+The+Line+Jenkins&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3AWalking+The+Line+Jenkins 

 

I hope some of you will enjoy reading it!

20180731_161641.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • Admin

Reading it on my iPad via the kindle app. More information than in the blog, which I followed daily. As some one who likes to go off the beaten track when visiting the battlefields, it's enjoyable. We followed you more or less in late June, riding our motorbike from Calais to the Vosges. Obviously we could do a lot of miles in one day. The day we went from near Noyon to the Argonne seemed endless, with the huge military camps that we had to get round. Just nothing but wheat fields and the odd ruined village. 

As an aside, I would have liked to have known the names of the hotels, chambre d'hotes where you stayed, as I'm always  looking out for ideas of places to stay. 

 

Michelle 

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Thanks, Michelle...happy to pass on the names of where we stayed. Most were great, one or two slightly less so! Anywhere in particular?

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Really any of the places from Auchonvillers onwards. I have my favourite 1915 places and I'm not a regular 1916 Somme visitor nor the Salient, so I'm not needing any recommendations for those areas. 

 

Thanks 

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This is a very good book, which I enjoyed very much.

 

I have absolute respect for something like this, as it's something that I would have liked to do but haven't had the commitment to do so. Whilst reading the book, I felt as if I was actually there with you, seeing what you saw and feeling the pain ... ! I particularly enjoyed the writing format, going from single person to third person (times two) as again it emphasised the partnership between the two of you.

 

I have been to quite a few of the places that you visited, although mostly these are the well known places and I've visited very few places in the French sector. The book has reminded me that I really need to put that right and get my act together to visit (for example) Verdun .. and also the Historial de la Grande Guerre at Peronne (although I understand that this wasn't really in the French sector).

 

I also enjoyed the comparisons between the various wars that have been fought over the whole area over the centuries. The connections made between the Napoleonic Wars, the Franco Prussian War, the First World War and the Second World War were very good, and reminded me that things can't be treated in isolation as one action is often the cause of another, and some times the cause of more than one. 

 

So, well done on your achievement, and thanks for an excellent book.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Bought it !! 

 

You've done what I'm dreaming of doing one day... looking forward to this dropping into my mailbox! 

 

M.

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  • 1 month later...

Just finished reading ... main part yesterday evening, last 20 pages with my sandwich at lunch...

I SO want to do this too!!!!

It's a great read, especially as one knows most of the places, and you keep thinking ... "I have to bo back there".... and "I remember that place" !!! - and those cute baby sheep in Vimy you pictured in the book... and then there's other places ...

So great read and again, well done to both of you!!!

I'm a marcher (crazy, some say completely nuts...) but I'm not sure I could do that now, like that!!

 

I also noticed you found out about our national Belgian sport called "cyclo-tourisme"... when hordes of retired men and women get on their bikes on the WE and roam the West-Flemish countryside ... and don't you dare WALKING in their way ... we (the marchers) also call them "Cyclo-Terrorists" ...

 

Regards,

 

Marilyne

 

PS: think this is the great - uncle of the ones you pictured??? It's from 2013... LOL

735128060_Vimy-Arras157.JPG.06c4cd019a129effd1d9a1db5a283636.JPG

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