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Jeremy James |
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Jeremy James was born in the highlands of
Kenya, and educated in a series of shenzi schools in the Africa bush, before
attending
at The Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. After
graduation he returned to Africa to work but ended up accompanying a camel
caravan across part of that continent. This discovery of nomadic travel
prompted Jeremy to journey on horseback from Turkey to Wales in 1987. With the
collapse of communism in 1990, he set out to explore Eastern Europe on
horseback. Due to his extensive travels in this part of the world, the
International League for the Protection of Horses commissioned Jeremy to assist
in rescuing the Lipizzaner horses caught in the Balkan conflict.
With the collapse of the Iron Curtain, Jeremy
became aware that many of the horse breeds of Eurasia were being bought for
slaughter in the Western European meat trade. Determined to reveal the abuses
involved in the long distance transport of live horses across
Europe, Jeremy documented this horrific trade, often working under
cover at great
personal peril. He now lives in Wales with the two horses who accompanied him
on his journeys and writes.
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Saddletramp
Jeremy James
ISBN 159048066X
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Saddletramp
is the story of Jeremy James’ journey from Turkey to Wales by horse,
which took him eight and a half months through some of the most
spectacular countryside in Asia Minor and Europe.
Jeremy arrived in Turkey in the winter of 1987, spending some time looking
for a horse before finding Ahmed Paşa, an untried, old and wormy Arab
stallion who had never before been ridden.
The two of them set out across Turkey on an unplanned route with an
inaccurate compass, unreadable map and the unfailing aid of villagers who
seemed to have as little sense of direction as he had.
He found himself in difficulties often, once having to swim a
mile-wide river estuary with Ahmed Paşa, and on another occasion
having to scramble down a cliff face together.
They regularly slept out, sharing meals, bugs and discomfort.
Unable to take his beloved horse out of Turkey he then went to Greece
where he bought Maria, a three-year-old unbroken filly, property of the
local knackerman. Again,
foiled by bureaucracy, he left Maria with friends at the Greek border and
bought Gonzo, his third horse, in Italy.
They travelled haphazardly up through Umbria and Tuscany, then over the
Alps and into the French wine harvest, where both of them sampled the
local drink, and suffered the consequences.
They arrived in Britain in November.
By turns thoughtful and sensitive, he paints a remarkable picture of rural
life, taking the reader through the extremes of climate he met, the four
seasons and four countries he passed through.
Jeremy’s descriptions of the places he found himself in with his horses
will captivate readers and leave them with the scent of leather, horses,
and the lingering taste of vin du paradis.
Go
to Amazon.co.uk
or Barnes
& Noble.
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Vagabond
Jeremy James
ISBN 1590480651
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Having bought two horses from gypsies at a fair in southern
Bulgaria, Jeremy James set out with Chumpie, the first of his travelling
companions, to ride to Romania. Travelling
on horseback gives you a different perspective from any other form of
transport because, as Jeremy says, ‘if you go by train or car, the world
rushes past you, and you don’t even get to smell it.
But if you travel on a horse you feel the world as you move through
it, every step, every scent, every breeze, every dimple in the ground, and
it’s always fresh. I’d
sooner go with a horse than leg it because the horse drives you into
village life: he’s a point of reference, something to focus on.”
Encountering a marvellous gallery of characters, Jeremy reveals the
humorous side of Eastern European low-life, from gypsies to farmhands from
Bulgaria to Berlin, by way of Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland and
East Germany.
This is the story of five months’ effort to get along with little
vocabulary, not much money, fiery booze, indigestible food, two more
travelling companions—André Bubear in Romania, then Gavin
Douglas in Czechoslovakia—and a pair of highly entertaining horses who
steal, run away, carry on conversations, plot, kick, bite, hoard food,
carry hitch-hikers and jog along at the centre of a marvellously readable
tale. Jeremy finds himself
frequently at odds, but irrevocably attached to his horses, conferring on
one a knighthood, much to the annoyance of the other.
Vagabond is a refreshing, witty and often surprising view of Eastern
Europe and the collapse of communism, literally straight from the
horse’s mouth.
Go
to Amazon.co.uk
or
Barnes & Noble.
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