First Overland

Tim Slessor

ISBN 10: 1805265636 / ISBN 13: 9781805265634

Published by C Hurst and Co Publishers Ltd, GB, 2026

About this Item

Decades before Race Across the World, six friends made the epic journey from London to Singapore and back in two Land Rovers.Why not? No-one had ever done it: one of the longest of all overland journeys, from the English Channel to Singapore. Several expeditions had tried. Some had reached the Persian deserts; a few, the Indian plains. But none had gone further: over the jungle-clad Assamese mountains, across northern Burma, to Thailand and Malaya. It was 1955. For the final 3,000 miles, it seemed, there were 'too many rivers and too few roads'. But no-one really knew.They were undergraduates with no money, no cars-no nothing, except cool audacity. They wheedled and cajoled, coaxing the BBC into supplying film for a possible series; 'persuading' Rover to lend them two factory-fresh off-road vehicles; sweet-talking a book publisher into offering an advance. By the time they set off, their eighty-plus sponsors ranged from whiskey distillers to collapsible bucket-makers. Seven months and 12,000 miles later, two weary, police-escorted Land Rovers rolled into Singapore to flash-bulbs and champagne. Here, their bestseller is republished, with a foreword by Sir David Attenborough. He had given them that film, after all.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781805265634

Bibliographic Details

• Title: First Overland
• Publisher: C Hurst and Co Publishers Ltd, GB
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1805265636
• ISBN 13: 9781805265634
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Why not? No-one had ever done it: one of the longest of all overland journeys, from the English Channel to Singapore. Several expeditions had tried. Some had reached the Persian deserts; a few, the Indian plains. But none had gone further: over the jungle-clad Assamese mountains, across northern Burma, to Thailand and Malaya. It was 1955. For the final 3,000 miles, it seemed, there were 'too many rivers and too few roads'. But no-one really knew...

They were undergraduates with no money, no cars--no nothing, except cool audacity. They wheedled and cajoled, coaxing the BBC into supplying film for a possible series; 'persuading' Rover to lend them two factory-fresh off-road vehicles; sweet-talking a book publisher into offering an advance. By the time they set off, their eighty-plus sponsors ranged from whiskey distillers to collapsible bucket-makers. Seven months and 12,000 miles later, two weary, police-escorted Land Rovers rolled into Singapore to flash-bulbs and champagne. Now, fifty years on, their bestseller is republished, with a foreword by Sir David Attenborough. He had given them that film, after all.

About the Author

Tim Slessor is a British filmmaker, presenter, traveler and author. He worked for the BBC making documentaries for nearly 50 years and was awarded the prestigious Peabody award for his journalism. He is also the author of More than Cowboys: Travels through the History of the American West.