The first time I got lost on purpose, I was nine years old. Wonderful, well-meaning parents encouraged curiosity - yes, of course you can play the bassoon; no, no that's not how you milk a goat - and in the process, they made me the smartest idiot in the village.
Like any normal child, I had questions about the world in general. But I was also greatly intrigued by the Second World War in particular, no doubt due to watching endless re-runs of The Eagle Has Landed. That’s where the map-habit began. Finding Studley Constable. Trouble was, I hadn't quite realised youth and inappropriate clothing are significant barriers to big adventures. The unsanctioned expedition lasted perhaps an hour at most, but my parents' palpitations still endure to this day. However, the die was cast and I've been getting lost on purpose ever since.
At the moment, North Norfolk is the place I call home. It is an English county that gifts great podunkery to the world, and I love it dearly. Slow You Down is a philosophy by which to live life on the huh, and there's more than enough World War Two-ery hereabouts to keep me busy. Still, little compares to digging out the big boots; packing must-haves into a small bag; following a vague idea for a while and then, for example, hiking through Odin's wrath to the top of a thunderstruck Norwegian hill where, bombed as it was by B-24 Liberators flying from the village you lived in as a child, all the disconnected discussions about a heavy-water factory actually start to make sense.
It took 40 years to join those dots. It's the Catherine-wheeling, dotted lines that bring me greatest joy now, moving as they do through time and space to join this or that to the other, pulling the past into the present. For me, getting lost on purpose means chasing the 'also-stories' that underpin our better-known history (I am loathe to call them rabbit-holes. A ferret, I am not.)
By day now, I’m an itinerant writer; by night I am an imminent-author. Less dangerous than Bomber Command, hopefully more on target. There’s a lot of mapmakers’ research going on - much of which I’ll write about here.
When I'm not on tour, you’ll find me here in the county, usually working with words, mostly under the guise of Rentaquill. The day-job involves anonymity; pragmatism; meliorism; eschewing logorrhoea or making the complex simple for people who prefer not to hold the pen - and it is here that I should show my hand: I do warm to a rich lexicon. When it comes to choosing les mots juste for strong narratives written under my own name, I applaud the ethos of the late, great Leonard John Kensell Setright: it won’t always be challenging, but if some of the writing polarises a few of the readers, then so be it.
Call it verbosity or prolixity at your peril. Call it anything but intellectual spuriousness, we live a short life, it seems such a shame to abbreviate the language we use to describe it. Say ‘sesquipedalist’, instead. When one starts writing a book, one is told to temper this approach to language, for fear of alienating The Reader - and I do listen to good advice. Here though, in this Substack, you'll find me spewing forth with gay alliterative abandon into the gallimaufry of views on life, language, culture and echoes of the past I've found loitering in the present. It is a sybaritic and perpetual work in progress.
Much like me.
