The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Rachel Joyce

I bought this for my Kindle a year or more ago but hadn't done more than read the first chapter until last week, when was one of the books featured on BBC Radio 4's A Good Read. And so as soon as I finished The Budapest Protocol, I turned to this and started it again - and read on and on. It is such a simple story - one morning Arthur Fry, aged 65, retired for six months from his work at a local brewery and living in Kingsbridge, Devon, with his wife Maureen, receives a letter in a pink envelope. It is from a former work colleague whom he has not seen for 20 years, but is now dying from cancer in a Hospice in Berwick-on-Tweed. Harold decides that he must write and, after some difficulty in wording his letter, sets off to post it. And doesn't stop. While not being dressed or shod for a long-distance walk, some 468 miles according to my Google Maps Route Map, Harold keeps on walking - he is wearing yachting shoes, casual trousers, a collar and tie and alight jacket. He suffers blisters and infections, and meets all manner of strangers - and most of them confirm his belief in the inherent goodness of people. When he feels that he is running down his retirement savings, he becomes a rough sleeper - in sheds, barns and anywhere else he can sleep for free without breaking in or causing damage, And as he walks he sends postcards home to Maureen who had no idea why his short stroll to the Pillar Boc was taking him so long until his first telephone call. And a chance conversation with a girl in a petrol station convinces him that by walking to Berwick and believing in the power of faith (although he has no religious belief) and by letting his old colleague to stay alive for him, the cancer can be cured.
I have always enjoyed accounts of walking journeys, ever since I first read David Grayson's The Friendly Road. And no matter where the jorney is set, or the reasons for it, there is always, for me, a sense of liberation in setting out, with or without a planned route and a certain destinatiom, unassisted (or restricted) by a car, and so able to vary the terrain, stroll through woods, and particularly meet strangers - whether just to say "hello" or "Good morning, it's a fine day," in the passing, or to perhaps have company for the distance and time both are heading in the same direction.
I'm not really interested in cars or motoring - as my parents' generation often referred to what we might now call 'going for a run' in the car and prefer cycling or walking - though necessity and practicality mean that I do much less of either. But they are my preference and I have done a numberof Corbetts and a couple of Munros along the way. I've stayed in Youth Hostels in Scotland and Ireland and encountered many interesting and fascinating people. Someone once said to me that a stranger is just a friend you haven't met yet, and I suppost that most of us have also found ourselves in a similar situation to Harold, in that the passage of time has meant that a friend, or colleague, becomes a stranger bu circumstance. Like Harold, I'm not on Facebook and though I made contact with a few old schoolfriends through Friernds' Reunited, when I changed jobs, or moved house, I left behind many acquaintances and some good friends, and I've never been good at maintaining long-distance relationships. So the Pilgrimage of Harold Fry spoke to me and struck a deep chord. 
And I'm not going to spoil things by giving any more information. It is a life-affirming story, well told, with humour, compassion and great heart. Harold and his wife and their neigjhbour Rex and the former colleague in Berwick, are believably real people and they all have back-stories that give them weight and substance. Definitely a Good Read for me.