Broke Through Britain - One Man's Penniless Odyssey by Peter Mortimer
Published by Mainstream Publishing (1999)
ISBN-10: 1-84018-163-X
Price: £7.99
During the summer of 1998, Peter Mortimer set off on the 500-mile journey from Plymouth to Edinburgh, accompanied only by his King Charles spaniel. He had no money and had no transport or pre-arranged accommodation. Bereft of the basics necessary for human existence, such as food and shelter, he was dependent for his survival on his own wits, the generosity of others and good fortune.
Broke through Britain is a record of both the physical and the mental demands such an undertaking placed on Mortimer, and it offers a humourous, poignant and oblique slant on our national characteristics at the dawn of a new millennium. Peter Mortimer gives a vivid account of life lived on the fringes of society in a country where there is an ever-increasing gulf between the rich and the poor. It is a genuine adventure into the unknown - not in some remote, hostile land, but here on our own doorstep. He may even have landed on yours.
I picked this up at the local library and dipped into it. I just had to borrow it. I thoroughly enjoyed it and could certainly sympathise with Peter's foot problems! His writing is so fluid and keeps dragging you in to his world. I recommend this highly.
