Camping on the Wye

Description

During their university holidays in the late 1880s, S.K. Baker and three of his University College friends clad in stripy blazers and boaters spent time sailing and camping on the River Wye. Baker, a keen artist and diarist, recorded their travels in watercolour in two small leather bound books. The result is an entirely charming, funny account along the lines of the legendary Three Men in a Boat with which the notebooks are entirely contemporaneous although the protagonists are younger and possibly naughtier. Baker records their evenings in the pub, their encounters with girls, (both ashore and afloat), nude swimming and culinary disasters, while recording lovingly the landscape and the boats on which they sailed. The notebook is published as a facsimile with an introduction by Michael Goffe, the son of one of Baker's fellow students (GG in the text), to whom it was gifted.

S. K. Baker was a student at University College, London in the late 1880s but little is known of his later life. Michael Goffe, the owner of the books, is a descendant of one of S.K. Baker's fellow travellers (GG in the book).

What a delight it is. Along the same lines as Three Men in a Boat, it is a wonderful record of what must have been a magical period in the lives of four friends. * Cotswold Life * An enjoyable and entertaining read. Baker writes beautifully about the joys of being outdoors. Each stage of their journey is accompanied by his charming watercolours, depicting a lost way of rural life. * BBC Countryfile * A charming facsimile. Full of humour, personal observation of animals, camping disasters, local hostelries and, of course, people encountered along the way. A charming peek into a lost leisurely era. * Let's Talk *