Constance
New member
Millar is the sort of man who makes you realise what a sheltered life you've led. I'm reading 'Isabel and the Sea', an account of his journey through France and the Med to Greece in the immediate aftermath of a war in which he acquitted himself superbly, fighting with the Maquis. Written in his thirties, its attitudes and expression resemble a 60-year-old, maybe that's what war does to you. He wrongly assumes his readers share his somewhat privileged social background, but I forgive him that for his ability to hold interest, and the skill and resourcefulness shown by him and his wife in handling their substantial old boat and the trials of the voyage. 'Oyster River' recounts their summer of '63 aboard the well-known yawl Amokura in Morbihan. Full of anecdote and also recommended. So many travel writers have nothing much to say beyond the minutiae of their experience of travelling, not so Millar whose life experience enables him to make far more of each encounter than I could. He died last year at 94. Both books available from Dovecote Press, with which I have no connection at all other than as a satisfied reader.