Nomad Letters

The remarkable story of a friendship spanning six decades between two individuals whose careers could hardly have followed more contrasting courses beyond the Land of Hope and Glory: that of Graham Haigh, the expedition-mounting adventurer, who went on to make the Middle East and South-East Asia his professional stamping grounds, and that of Martin Thiebaut whose francophone roots led him to Belgium then Luxembourg and to rub shoulders with a stimulating mix of nationalities. But given that this dual epistolary autobiography was conceived as a tribute to the author's lifelong friend, the focus is on Graham and his richly varied experiences. Not least among these, in view of a more than passing interest in pop music and the lure of the open road, was Graham's encounter back in the 1960s with Roy Orbison on the Sussex coast, where the singer had come to collect a bespoke Harley-Davidson. When, many years later, Graham exchanged handshakes with a Kuwaiti billionaire, the memory of that warm greeting with the man who sang 'You Got It' trumped pressing the flesh with a Forbes list magnate.