Vagabond (eBook)

The journey starts when author and long-rider Jeremy James buys two horses from gypsies at a fair in southern Bulgaria. He and his long-suffering friend Chumpie then set off on horseback, winding northwards to Berlin, and on the way they encounter a marvellous array of local characters from all walks of life as they ride from Bulgaria to Berlin, via Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland.     On a low budget, they are sustained by local fire-water, indigestible food and the forceful personalities of their horses who steal, run away, misbehave or suddenly comply at will and add a whole new dimension to the experience of travel. After five long months, they finally reach their destination. It has taken Jeremy through an Eastern Europe full of surprises, which, with the collapse of communism, has almost disappeared today.

Born in Kenya in 1949, educated at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester and University of Wales, Jeremy James spent most of his early life working with horses and cattle in Africa and the Middle East. In 1987, he wrote his first book, Saddletramp, the story of his horseback adventure from Turkey to Wales, which was followed in 1991 by Vagabond. In the early 1990s he was Turkish correspondent for several broadsheets and magazines, and in 1992 was commissioned by the International League for the Protection of Horses to write about their work in Debt of Honour. In 2005 he wrote The Byerley Turk, the extraordinary true story of the founding sire of the modern racehorse. Jeremy lives in Shropshire where he now writes full-time for his living.

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The journey starts when author and long-rider Jeremy James buys two horses from gypsies at a fair in southern Bulgaria. He and his long-suffering friend Chumpie then set off on horseback, winding northwards to Berlin, and on the way they encounter a marvellous array of local characters from all walks of life as they ride from Bulgaria to Berlin, via Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland. On a low budget, they are sustained by local fire-water, indigestible food and the forceful personalities of their horses who steal, run away, misbehave or suddenly comply at will and add a whole new dimension to the experience of travel. After five long months, they finally reach their destination. It has taken Jeremy through an Eastern Europe full of surprises, which, with the collapse of communism, has almost disappeared today.