Over The Hills And Far Away

Candida Lycett Green has a love for the open road, of travelling at a saunter, of casting an eye on England through the back door. This horseback amble is the story of her journeys round England which, in the shadow of her breast cancer, is also a memoir of her family and her life.

---

From her early childhood, when her eccentric mother would take her on trips around the country in a horse-cart or on horseback, Candida Lycett Green has retained a love for the open road, of travelling at a saunter, of casting an eye on England through the back door. Framed by a recent journey on horseback from Yorkshire to the Scottish borders, this lifelong odyssey dips back into similar journeys in her past, revealing an idyllic childhood in the bohemian Betjeman household, with moonlit rides over the Downs, and wild picnics on Cornish beaches; a charmed youth in the swinging 60s, participating in the founding of Private Eye and travelling overland to India with her husband Rupert Lycett Green; and a subsequent journey undertaken with her own children and friends along the forgotten paths and bridleways of England. Blending lyrical impressions of landscape with echoes of her father's writing, this horseback amble combines the poetic with the down-to-earth, stately homes with humble farms, soaring churches with winding country lanes. Candid's recent fight with breast cancer poignantly underpins this personal story.