Greece on My Wheels. Edward Enfield (2003)

An affectionate and humorous account of a tour of the Peloponnese and the Ionian coast of mainland Greece by Harry Enfield’s dad

Summerdale 1849531684 318pp £7.99

Edward Enfield was, he writes, approaching 70 when he purchased a Raleigh Pioneer Elite hybrid bike with an over-abundance of gears. He had always believed six to be enough for anyone, but this had 21, and his judgement of the machine very nicely captures the way he looks at things: “…although you can pay vast amounts more for other bicycles, there is very little extra they can possibly do.”

He also bought a sleeping bag and a bivvy bag, or – according to him – a “body bag”, which he hoped would provide extra protection when sleeping out on the top of a mountain. And if he died of the cold, yes, it would serve very nicely as a body bag.

Thus equipped, he headed for Greece, prominent in his affections ever since he studied Classics at Oxford, and from the outset it is clear that he is not intending to do anything heroic. Indeed, any cyclist can read this book without feeling in the least bit challenged: Mr Enfield (it seems appropriate to refer to him as “Mr”) expected to average 8 mile an hour, and to cover 32 miles a day.

He begins his account with this gem: “Greece, like marriage, shouldn’t be entered into lightly, but in the fear of God – which is also something you may experience in Greece.”

There is, at the very least, a smile a page which does, of course make this a thoroughly enjoyable book to read. Or, perhaps, to potter through, much as the author potters through Greece.

His sense of humour – wry, ironic and somewhat oblique – sometimes gets him into trouble, as it does when he finds himself waiting for a ferry along with a middle-aged couple of American cyclists. Boarding is slow and tedious, and hoping to brighten things up, he remarks that with any luck a fight will break out, and give them something to watch.
“This they regarded as the remark of a criminal lunatic, and they sheered off hastily…”

As the account meanders agreeably along, it becomes increasingly apparent that Mr Enfield is widely-read; it’s not that he is showing off, but rather, by including passages from the works of others, he intends to elucidate his text, and sometimes to substantiate his own judgments.

Introducing the two-and-a-half page bibliography, he explains that there is a huge literature about 19th century Greece, adding “I have drawn on a small miscellaneous collection of my own, assembled in a fairly haphazard way over the years.” Haphazard, perhaps, but presumably driven by the fascination with the country and its people, born doubtless during his days as a scholar of the classics.

He states, in his preface, that he has not written a guide but rather a travel book, but actually it is both. It is a guide to the extent that much of it is about his day-to-day hunting down of hotels and tavernas; and when he has found them, what they were like.

He describes his various hosts and hostesses and the facilities he finds and the meals he is served and the atmosphere he eats them in with a mixture of wonder, bemusement, detail and that dry, languid humour which is never far below the surface.

His manner is sometimes advisory, so should the reader chose to follow his route he suggests that they look out for such-and-such an establishment, and provides an indication of prices. So yes, Greece on My Wheels is at least part guide book, and that part of it shares the handicap of every other guide book in that things change. Most notably – and most fatally – what’s changed in Greece since Mr Enfield’s cycle tour is the country’s ill-fated entry into the Euro. When he was there, the currency was still the drachma, and it is in drachmas that he quotes the prices he paid.

And what other changes might there have been? One must wonder how many of those tavernas and hotels he visited are still in business – and if in business, whose hands they are now in.

This little drawback aside, Mr Enfield’s account is characterful, charming and very entertaining.

STB March 12