About the Author
Prior to his Greek odyssey, Harry served as an Army officer for 12 years with tours in Northern Ireland and Bosnia. His subsequent business career included work in the oil and mine industries, and as a consultant in the Middle East. He has also produced theatre on the London Fringe, sat on the Olivier Awards Panel, and been a theatre reviewer for Arts Council. He has written for the Sunday Telegraph, The Spectator, Sunday Times Travel Magazine, Irish Independent, Country Life and various other travel and theatre publications. He lives in London with an errant Jack Russell, Sam, and is busy planning his next trip.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
It had up until that moment been a dream of a day. I was stuck on a cliff.
Actually it was more precarious than that; I was stuck on top of an old dry stonewall on top of a cliff, surrounded by the most vicious thorn bushes. The choices before me were not great: to my right, a twenty foot drop to the ground and, to my left, a 300 foot drop into the sea, assuming, that is, I cleared the rocks at the bottom. “Left and down” was not the preferred option. Then, without warning, the stone I was standing on, gently and rather elegantly at first, gave way, dictating that my legs and consequently the rest of me should follow. As I plunged seaward, this, I thought to myself, is definitely not what should be happening to me, which, as I crashed at some speed through gorse, over rock and shale, it most certainly was.
The trouble started that morning when I bought a copy of the Bleasdales’ excellent map of Paxos. Everyone should have a copy. It is voluminous like the main sail on a tall ship, running to a level of detail I have rarely seen before. However what was remarkable for such an informative map is that the bit of Paxos I now found myself on was delineated by nothing other than a patch of nondescript shading.
That afternoon I had decided to walk back to Gaïos along the cliff tops. I followed a path to a survey point until it petered into a trail which in turn vanished, leaving me stranded in an inescapable web of balloon-bursting spiked branches. By walking on the tops of the terracing that every now and again surfaced from the undergrowth, I overcame the path issue but the stones too gave up the battle just when I thought I was on a roll. On my first fall, I simply disappeared like a stage apparition through a trap door. I climbed back onto the wall, because off it I could neither see over it nor beyond it save thorn thickets. I looked as if I had been stuck in a revolving door with Zorro. Buoyed with that hypoxic optimism you get in these situations, I had gone way past the turn round moment – that was hours ago. Increasingly it seemed my dream of a day was turning into a nightmare, which is about when I fell off the wall for the second time.
The map, folded into a neat cushion-like pad that showed my particular corner of Paxos (such a lovely island I reminded myself as I flew through the air) was to prove the ultimate in air bags as I plunged downward headfirst. I know I let out a little scream. Noone would hear me, so it seemed safe to drop my inhibitions a bit and indulge in some minor theatricals. When I recovered my poise, the map had a dramatic hole in it, about where my eyes would have been. Balancing on gorse roots, themselves clinging for dear life to the bare rock, I drew breath and examined a ripped arm and gashed thigh. Everything was just fine, my sunglasses were still on.
Another fall like that, however, and I could be lost for days. Who would miss me? I imagined the BBC World Service hissing about the globe, the last bars of Lillibolero fading out as the newsreader announced, “The search for the missing Englishman, Harry Bucknall, continues today. Mr Bucknall, in his early forties was last seen on the Greek island of Paxos a week ago and apart from a piece of torn clothing found near an old building site, no sign has been found of him”. The Hellenic Coast Guard would be scrambled and after weeks of searching, finally stumble over me, ready-buried under a pile of crumbled wall, camouflaged by thorn and half-eaten by ants. A futile end to a short-lived dream.
Why, at that moment, I prayed to Saint Spyrídon of Corfu remains a mystery. He is nothing to do with Paxos. The plea wasn’t grand you understand, just something about promising to dedicate a book to him if I ever got out of this place. This place of dreams. Bad dreams.
Then, suddenly, inspiration: using my map and rucksack I would leapfrog my way off the cliff. Saint Spyridon to the rescue. In no time at all, I found myself in an old farmyard, never mind that I looked as if I had survived an intimate moment with Sweeney Todd.
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