Eric Newby

Early life Newby was born in Barnes, London, and grew up near Hammersmith Bridge, London. His father, George, was a partner in a firm of wholesale dressmakers, and his mother, (Minnie) Hilda (née Pomeroy) had been a dress model at Harrods. Newby was educated at St Paul's School; after leaving school he worked for two years at the Dorland advertising agency until 1938 when, at the age of 18, he apprenticed aboard the Finnish windjammer Moshulu and took part in the "grain race" from Australia to Europe by way of Cape Horn. This voyage was subsequently described in The Last Grain Race and pictorially documented in Learning the Ropes.

Military career During the Second World War, Newby was commissioned in the Black Watch in 1940. As a junior officer in the Rajput Regiment of the British Indian Army, he studied for six months of 1941 in Fatehgarh, India, for the Lower Standard Urdu Examination that was required to command Indian troops abroad. After passing the examination he was posted to North Africa. for his part in the raid. and other British prisoners after the Italian Armistice of 3 September 1943, he was helped to hide in the Apennine countryside by a Slovene anti-fascist woman, Vanda Škof (later Wanda Skof), who married him after the war and became a companion on his travels. These experiences were described in his memoir Love and War in the Apennines, which focuses on how he was helped by ordinary Italians. A film, In Love and War, was made in 2001 based on the book, starring Callum Blue as Newby and Barbora Bobuľová as Wanda. He was free until January 1944, when he was recaptured. From 1964 to 1973, Newby was Travel Editor for The Observer newspaper.

Later life and recognition

In 1967, Newby and his wife began restoring a dilapidated farmhouse in the foothills of the Apuan Alps in Italy.

Selected bibliography The Last Grain Race (1956) = Tempêtes en mers du sud A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush (1958) = Un petit tour dans l'Hindu Something Wholesale: My Life and Times in the Rag Trade (1962) Slowly Down the Ganges (1966) = Au fil des fleuves Time off in Southern Italy: The Observer Guide to Resorts and Hotels (ed.) (1966) My Favorite Stories of Travel (ed.) (1967) Grain Race: Pictures of Life before the Mast in a Windjammer (1968) Wonders of Britain: A Personal Choice of 480 with Diana Petry (1968) Wonders of Ireland: A Personal Choice of 484 with Diana Petry (1969) Love and War in the Apennines (1971) When the Snow Comes, They Will Take You Away ("Love and War in the Apennines" 1971 USA edition by Charles Scribner's Sons) The Mitchell Beazley World Atlas of Exploration (1975) Great Ascents: A Narrative History of Mountaineering (1977) The Big Red Train Ride (1978) A Traveller's Life (1982) On the Shores of the Mediterranean (1984) A Book of Travellers' Tales (ed.) (1985) Round Ireland in Low Gear (1987) What the Traveller Saw (1989) A Small Place in Italy (1994) A Merry Dance Around the World: The Best of Eric Newby (1995) Learning the Ropes: An Apprentice in the Last of the Windjammers (1999) Departures and Arrivals (1999) A Book of Lands and Peoples (2003)