Zen and the Art of Donkey Maintenance

(Paperback)

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I looked again at the folded map of Europe in my hand. Then I crossed the road to the Continental booking office and bought a ticket for Salzburg in Austria. Return" asked the clerk. Definitely not," I told him. In December 1966, the New Year looked exciting for fifty-five-year-old Robert Crisp. As a man whose youth was spent in constant adventure, leading a calm, domestic life in England had become a burden from which he needed to break free. Named by Wisden as "One of the most extraordinary men ever to play Test cricket," Crisp served as a soldier in the Second World War in Greece and North Africa for which he was decorated for bravery, later becoming a writer and journalist. With his marriage over and his sons old enough to fend for themselves, Crisp decided to start a new life. With sixty pounds in his pocket, his wartime disability pension of ten pounds a month, and a plan to write about his adventures under a pseudonym, his journey began. Through twenty columns filed from abroad over years of rustic living and travel, Crisp, as Peter White, shared his experiences of hitch-hiking through Yugoslavia, settling in a beach shack in Greece where he attempted to cultivate the stubborn land, and a nearly fatal solo boat trip around Corfu. As the first year of his dream life came to a close, he found out that the stomach pain he had been suffering was not a side effect of too much Greek wine, but cancer. With a prediction of only one year to live, he set off on a trek around Crete, his only companion a donkey with plenty of personality. Robert Crisps account of his travels, originally serialised in the Sunday Express, is an honest, funny, touching account of this charming rogues journey through a foreign land and culture in search of inner peace and happiness.

Reviews

You have to buy this book! Its the perfect antidote to the cares of the world and an opportunity to indulge all latent escapist desires -- Robin Hanbury-Tenison * Country Life *

Author Bio

Robert Crisp was an extraordinary man: a Test cricketer described by Wisden as "one of the most extraordinary men to play Test cricket"; a decorated soldier (DSO, MC); a journalist who founded the South African newspaper, Drum, and wrote for The East Anglian Daily Times and The Sunday Express; an author, a mink farmer, an adventurer, a charmer. In short, a man of many talents.