At the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards in March we awarded Hilary Bradt with the Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing Award. The previous year’s recipient of this award, Dervla Murphy, sent this message to Hilary from her home in Ireland for us to read out at the awards;
“When we first met in an Andean hut in 1979 I had one of those instant reactions- a kindred spirit. During the subsequent decades Hilary, as both a traveller and writer, has provided invaluable guidance and encouragement to generations of young travellers uninterested in beaten tracks. Congratulations of your award Hilary.”
Here Hilary Bradt pays tribute to a great travel writer and a special friend for 40 years.
-by Hilary Bradt
On May 5 I received an email from Dervla’s friend and PR, Steph Allen, with this message: “I’ve just spoken to Dervla who is not at all well. She has heart failure and believes that she is (in her own words) on her way out. I asked if there was anyone she’d like me to let know and she asked if I could send you a message to say thank you for everything you have done for her over the years”. This unwarranted thoughtfulness and generosity personifies this extraordinary woman who died on May 22, and who I first met in 1979 in an Ecuadorian hostal (the sort with no hot water, $3 a night, with rooms clustered around a courtyard). She was returning from Peru, which would (eventually) result in Eight Feet in the Andes and George and I were researching our guide to Backpacking in Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador – the third in our fledgling backpacking series. I, like so many other young travellers, had been inspired by Dervla’s early books, in my case Full Tilt and In Ethiopia with a Mule, and was awe-struck to meet such a famous writer. The awe was diluted by a shared bottle of local rum, but the admiration grew steadily throughout our 44-year friendship.
Continue reading Remembering Dervla Murphy
