The Marches

As a big fan of Rory Stewart on the UK politics podcast, The Rest is Politics, I swooped on The Marches when it turned up in a street library. The subtitle, Border Walks With My Father, is a bit misleading: in the first section, Rory walks along Hadrian's Wall while his 94 year old father takes a car and meets him at intervals for a meal and a chat; in the second section, Rory takes a much longer walk through the country on either side of the Scotland/England border, trying to discern whether there is a distinct 'border' identity, and how much people there are influenced by national identity imposed by being on either side of the line (in fish and chip shops, the favoured fish switches abruptly from cod to haddock!) This time, Stewart senior is only present in daily ruminative emails.

I found the final section of The Marches the most moving. It's a detailed account of Brian Stewart's death and funeral, and it manages to sum up and complete the rather muddled previous sections, where Rory in fact fails to find the 'border identity' or sense of local history that he's seeking. He contrasts his conversations with the Scots and English of this area with his previous walks through countries like Afghanistan, where each village along the way has a fierce and distinct individual history and identity (maybe too fierce). 

I don't always agree with Rory -- he's hugely sceptical about rewilding, for example, and much prefers cows -- but he is always stimulating and congenial company, and his close relationship with his father is really touching.