A long, soggy romp to London

June 2024

“The Worst Journey in the Midlands”

by Sam Llewellyn. Macmillan Publishers. 1994. 192 pps. $8.36.

Reviewed by Randy Randall

I recently read “The Worst Journey in the Midlands” by Sam Llewellyn on the recommendation of Nim Marsh, the former editor of Points East and someone I consider a friend. He said it was a fun read, and he was right. While I wouldn’t necessarily describe “The Worst Journey” as lighthearted, there are definitely humorous passages and comical events.

For reasons known only to himself, Llewellyn decided in September 1982 to row across Britain from Welshpool in Wales to London by way of the Severn River, the English canal system and the Thames. For a suitable boat he finds a derelict wooden clinker-built dinghy of ancient origins named Magdalen. The boat had lain in the bushes neglected and unprotected apparently for eons, but that was the boat that was available, and the first part of the story details how he struggled to make the boat watertight and seaworthy. We learn the only reason the boat has any shape at all is because, in Llewellyn’s words, “the termites were holding hands.”

Somewhat in desperation at how far-gone Magdalen is, Sam calls in a boatbuilder friend to render life support. They decide to lay new planking over old and fill all the cracks with copious amounts of something called plastic putty. Magdalen floats but leaks like the proverbial basket. Undaunted, Llewellyn loads the boat up with assorted provisions and some random camping gear and sets off, leaving his wife and two boys behind. It turns out that the October of 1982, when Llewellyn decided to undertake his journey, was one of the wettest on record. It rained almost every day. If it wasn’t raining, the rivers were overflowing or the locks were knocking him about. This results in a three-hundred-mile slog down the Severn River and into the mostly abandoned canals of the midlands and ultimately into the Thames.

Along the way Sam treats us to descriptions of the wildlife and fauna and the decrepit condition of most of the canals. He tells horror stories about negotiating the myriad locks and the fearsome long, dark tunnels. He’s soaked most of the time, either from the constant rain or from continually bailing out Magdalen. Along the way he runs into a rogues’ gallery of fishermen, narrow boaters, lock keepers and naysayers. When he’s famished and can’t sleep, he seeks out local pubs and gathers sketchy river intelligence from locals. Eventually he discovers that the best way to make real progress despite the awful weather is to beg a tow from passing narrow boats. And so, by dint of rowing until his bottom is so sore he can’t sit, or letting the current carry the boat along, or by hitching rides with friendly boats, he makes it to London and he and the boat arrive in one piece.

Llewellyn is a prolific English writer. He has written books for both children and adults and he is the owner and editor of “The Marine Quarterly,” a much loved and very English journal of all things nautical. He’s also an avid sailor and a bit of a masochist. Maybe “adventure seeker” is a better term? People, of course, asked him why he undertook such an unlikely journey. Like mountain climbers of old, he replied “because it was there.” Actually, I think he thought such an unusual trek by boat across the middle of England would be the making of a good story, and so it was.

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