Description

From the bestselling author of Diary of an MP’s Wife comes a beautiful discovery of Britain’s great coastal path

In Edgeland, the political diarist Sasha Swire escapes the confines of Westminster to walk the northern stretch of the South West Coast Path. Starting at Minehead in Somerset, she follows the well-trodden path to Land’s End in Cornwall, walking it in sections over a decade-long period, returning each year like a migratory bird.

The result is an immersive, beguiling and literary exploration of one of the most enigmatic, beautiful and popular coastlines on earth. It is also a contemplative and very personal response to a story about our English shore from pre-Celtic times to the present day; of the upheaval of rocks; of astonishing botany; of pilgrimage and customs; of the exploitation of resources and of dangers to come.

Swire identifies how important edges are to us as she walks, not only in how we see our world but in our attitude to it. She observes that the outside limits, the borders, the line where two surfaces of a solid meet actively, encourage not only flora and fauna but people to gather, create, generate resistance and build new ways of living and working.

She discovers that the path is not only a walk through Britain’s windswept and wave-battered western fringes but a tale about how we and nature have, through extraordinary resilience and relentless spirit, learnt to tame the various forces that are stacked against us. That we live at the edge of the possible.

Publisher Review

A meditation on language and journeys – knowing, alert to the politics and history of landscape – to the mundane within the transcendental. A real achievement – unexpectedly moving with every beat and turn of its taut, precise prose * Rory Stewart * Beautifully written… In the contemplative, Paul Theroux-like exploration of our most stunning coastline, Swire escapes the stifling Lilliputian world of Westminster to follow the path from Minehead in Somerset to Land’s End in Cornwall… A lively mix of history, botany, philosophy, poetry and personal family memories — Celia Walden * Daily Telegraph * Swire is an amiable companion, who ingeniously evokes the landscapes, famous people who lived here and, especially, the flora and fauna — Simon Worrall * Guardian * A glorious historical ramble along a favourite coastline * Robin Hanbury-Tenison * Swire, brought up in Cornwall, has given free rein to her considerable literary talents and pondered places and prospects with fascinating details and soulful observations * Rory Knight Bruce * Such range and surprise – every turn she makes on the South-West Coast Path, Sasha Swire turns up another story, another glimpse of history or archaeology or local lore. Edgeland is itself like the best days out on the cliffs – deeply rewarding and enjoyable * Philip Marsden *