Have You Met Bill Bryson
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Posted by Mike Gerrard Sep 16, 2006 |
Tell people you're a travel writer and there are certain things they say: how do you get a job like that? Can you pack me in your luggage? Fellow travel writers told me they often got asked if they'd ever met Bill Bryson, but no-one had ever asked me that. So I had to smile at the weekend when someone at a party asked me: have you met Bill Bryson? Mind you, it's hard to avoid Bill Bryson in the UK lately, with his new book out. He's been in the papers, on TV, reading extracts on the radio. And the book, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid about his childhood in Des Moines, Iowa, is wonderful.
The funny thing is, I'm one of the few people I know who can say: Yes, I have met Bill Bryson. I interviewed him for a literary magazine I once published. Bill Bryson's second book, Neither Here Nor There, had just come out, and I was flattered he'd agreed to give me some time. I went up to meet him at his then home in the Yorkshire Dales, in the lovely village of Kirkby Malham. He said I'd recognise his house as it was the only one with a basketball hoop in the yard.
And yes, he was nice, and yes, he was funny, very funny. I was charmed by his hospitality, and his genuine concern that I had enough material for my interview. I spent all morning with him, and ours was a pokey little magazine that sold a massive few hundred copies. 'Have you had enough coffee?' he asked. 'Have you got enough material? Do ring me if you need to. And I'll be in the village pub tonight if you want to talk some more.' A nice guy.
I still remember several of his anecdotes. One of them gave me the title for my interview. He said a new travel agent had opened in his nearest small town, and he phoned them to say he needed to get to a place called Hammerfest in Norway, which will mean something if you've read his second book, Neither here Nor There. A few days later they rang him back, with this message: 'You can't get there from here, Mr Bryson.' In his dry manner he told me: 'Not long after they went out of business... and I'm not altogether surprised.'
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Read a blog about that other great travel writer Bruce Chatwin.
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