Get Booked – Miriam Lancewood & Laurie King, Wilder Journeys 130223

Hello, I'm Hazel Butterfield and this is Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio Station., and we have another cracking show in store for you today. Later on in the show, we're going to be talking about Wilder Journeys, which is to be released on the 14th of March, edited by Laurie King and Miriam Lanswood. Wilder Journeys is about true stories of nature, adventure, and connection driven by dissatisfaction with their environments, the authors featured here have chosen to break free from the shackles of society and go on extreme journeys to connect to the essence of their animal nature. From American explorer Angela Maxwell, the woman who walked around the world covering more than 20,000 miles across 14 countries, and the Bushmen who helped her to Hamza Yassin, currently on BBC Strictly, on the trials and tribulations of filming on a remote peninsula and the insights that gave him into life in the wild. The authors here share the wisdom they gained on their wild journeys and follow the call of the wild from environmental writer Laurie King and best-selling author Miriam Lanswood as they present a collection of international true life stories and poems from adventurers, nature lovers, and nomads. The book itself is stunningly beautiful, a really nice collection of short prose, poems, and stories that are so brutally honest and just help you understand the power of nature. I'm hugely looking forward to chatting to both of them later on in the show. Laurie King is a freelance writer who has written about nature connection and sustainability for magazines including Resurgence and Ecologist, the Sustainable Food Trust, Stir to Action, and the Bristol Cable. Miriam Lanswood is an internationally best-selling author and modern nomad. Her book Woman in the Wilderness sold 60,000 copies internationally and has been published in 6 languages. She has spoken on panels worldwide and been featured on TV, including Ben Fogel's New Lives in the Wild. You can find out more about the project at wilder.journeys. Come and join us for the next hour, get involved, and if you want to catch up on previous shows, you can at womensradiostation.com/shows/getbooked and on our SoundCloud. Make sure you tune in next week to Get Booked, where we're going to be talking to the author Christiana Spence. She's going to be chatting to us about her new book, The Fear. What is fear? What are we afraid of and why? And how do states of fearfulness shape our personalities, relationships, and entire societies? Fusing autobiographical writing about motherhood, heartbreak, death, and trauma alongside reflections on terrorism, gender, and our wider culture, The Fear seeks to answer these questions. From gaslighting to political violence, and from scapegoating to psychoanalysis, The Fear stares deep into the abyss, searching for the demons horrors and spectres that destabilise and haunt us all, and finding out how these fears and the ways that we respond to them shape us as people and societies. From the personal to the political, The Fear is an attempt to work out how we can find freedom even in the face of endemic threat, manipulation and power plays. It shows that rather than being merely a destructive force, fear can be the start of transformation, the trigger of resistance rather than defeat. Definitely not one to miss. That is Christiana Spence and The Fear. Right now, as promised on Get Booked, we're going to be looking at the book Wilder Journeys with today's guests Laurie King and Miriam Lanswood. Now, many of us feel the need to escape the chaos and incessant noise of life, and what better place to do that than in nature? There's forest bathing, digital detoxes in a countryside setting, silent retreats, and even good old camping. They're all great ways that we're trying to embed nature in our lives. However, these are short-term quick fixes, and Wilder Journeys follow this notion to intense levels of nature absorption that results in a variety of profound connections that the contributors have experienced and share with us. Nature is stunning, and too many of us take it for granted and see very little of it, opting to swoon over nature posts on Instagram. But let's delve into the incredible journeys of those that did it #IRL. Uh, here are today's guests, Laurie and Miriam. Thank you for joining us on Get Booked. Oh, thanks, Hazel. Well, thank you for having us. You are very, very welcome. Congratulations on the book, and I must say it looks fantastic. It's kind of getting you already in that vibe of absorbing in color and something that kind of feels very wilderness-esque. You must be very proud of the end product. Yeah, it looks fantastic. Really happy. We wanted to go for the kind of travel poster vibe, and I think it works really well. It definitely does. It's one of those books I'm definitely putting on my coffee table. And I think the best way to get cracking today is if— Laurie, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and your involvement in the WilderJourney project? Yeah, sure. So, um, I came up with the idea for WilderJourneys about a year and a half ago. I kind of downloaded it overnight. Um, and woke up with the idea. But it was really inspired, um, from going on several solo nature connection journeys where I was in nature for prolonged periods of time on my own. And during that time, I realized that it was such a powerful healing tool and also was really good for finding out about myself. And I, um, during that time had met many people that had been on sort of long, prolonged adventures in nature, um, such as Roz Savage, who's one of the authors, who rode across all three oceans solo, and another woman that had walked around the world for 11 years called Fiona Campbell. And that is dedication, isn't it? That is dedication. And if I had so much rich experiences just from, you know, a week here and there, or a couple of days here and there, what on earth will these women have, um, have discovered about themselves and about their connection with nature? And I really wanted to find that out. So I approached many, many, um, people that had— that were in my sort of awareness of who had been on big adventures, such as Miriam, um, and said, hey, I've got this idea, are you up for collaborating? And, um, I was just amazed by the amount of yeses, actually. But, you know, I'm I've done some freelance writing, but I've never had a book published before. But it seemed that the idea was one that people were really investing in and were writing chapters without knowing if it was going to be published. And Miriam was so keen and wrote her chapter in amazing quick time and also helped me link up with a few of the other authors. And I thought, Miriam has some really good knowledge and wisdom to share. And so, um, I invited her to be co-editor, and we, we collated the volume together, which has been a really amazing experience, and we've, we've made a really nice friendship. I love that, and I completely understand how so many people wanted to get involved, because those that have gone that step further in nature, it's a little bit like another level of our psyche has been opened up, and it's a little bit like a drug, and people just want to tell as many people as possible so that they're not missing out on what potentially is a free way of having a better understanding of the world around us. And I, I completely understand. I mean, it's that thing, isn't it, when, when your friends go off on backpacking and all they want to do is talk about it when they got back, when they get back, because they've just experienced a variety of the world that we just don't get day in, day out, living and doing our 9-to-5s and being in a, a corporate world, or even just the employment world, it, it kind of stops us from experiencing the incredible world out there. Definitely, yeah. There's, um, there's a kind of added layer of magic, uh, to life when you connect with nature in that way. Yeah, yeah. And I think it's lovely that people try and share that and they want to make sure that they're not just keeping it for themselves. They want people to realize just how much more there is out there in the world and how much better it can make us feel. And Myriam, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your place in Wilder Journeys? I think my story started in 2010 when my husband and I left civilization and moved into the wilderness for 7 years in New Zealand. When I wrote a book called A Woman in the Wilderness, um, it got published in New Zealand, later in Holland, and translated. I got invited to writers' festivals, and there I met some of the authors that are now in this book. And that was really handy for, you know, when you meet people in person, more likely they want to commit to such a thing. So, yeah, my writing experience and just happened to meet those people has been really good for Wildwood Journeys. And that ability to be able to share as well. I must say, the collection of short prose, stories, poems, there's such a variety. And the people that you've managed to contribute, Lemnisisse, the Olympian poet laureate, is it? That's how you pronounce it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I met him in Australia. We had a nice little click and kept in contact ever since. Wow. So when the book came out, I said, hey, Len, would you like to write a poem? He said, sure. And the next day he sent one. So yeah, it was really nice. He was like, yeah, I just wrote this award-winning poem in just over a cup of coffee. Yeah, maybe it goes so quick, I don't know. And well, I must— it did spark a lot within me because I'm one of these people that I love to travel. I travel with my kids all the time, but but I'm all or nothing. I'm either backpacking or I'm staying in 5-star accommodation, and there's kind of nowhere in between. And I, I've done my fair share of going here, there, and everywhere. Um, I do remember, and this is what I love about books like this, they kind of remind you of the journeys that you've had and how profound they were for you, kind of encouraging us to delve back into that as well. And I do remember backpacking when I was 18 with my 76-year-old grandma and we'd kind of gone on this trip into the jungle in Thailand. It took us about 3.5 hours on this little rowing boat with the tiniest bit of an outboard in the back. And at the end of the day, some of the people that were— had planned the trip, they said, oh, Hazel, if you want, you can, you can stay overnight if you want. We've got some more people coming tomorrow. You can go back with them. I was like, oh, okay. My grandma decided to go back to camp. Anyway, I stayed there for 5 days because there just kept on being more trips and there kept on being no more reason to, to go back home. And my grandma's very self-sufficient. At 76, she's probably more adventurous than most people have ever come across. And you were just staying on a floating bamboo raft in the middle of the jungle. And at nighttime, it was kind of too dangerous to go to the toilets that they had vaguely on shore. And you you know, if you wanted to pee, you had to jump in the river with the, with the water snakes and whatnot. And it was completely back to basics, and it really was just you ate whatever was on offer. And I remember coming back and really struggling with having to get back into routine and normality and conformity. And that was only 5 days. Imagine these people who— well, and, and, you know, and yourself, Miriam, have done this for months and years and experience that kind of freedom. Yes. Yeah, indeed. And I think also that surviving or just spending time out in nature gives you a sort of confidence that is not based on comparison. Like in school, they teach kids, are you good at mathematics? And it gives the kids some pride and confidence, right? But it's based on comparison. If it goes to another class, it might lose the confidence. So out in nature, you survive a storm, maybe, or you walk in the dark, or you find an animal to hunt, or you walk through the snow, or whatever, something challenging. And afterwards you think, wow, I did that, that's amazing. And that gives us sort of inner strength. And I think that's very important. Well, it's, it's learning life skills and appreciating nature, which forms so much of the world we live in, but we can get lost lost in the concrete jungles. I mean, there's some people that have never even left cities or are absolutely in awe when they see something like a deer in real life. And it's just, you know, people do have constraints. But there's— I must say, one of my favorite things to do at the moment is to just listen to nature. We're so used to having earbuds in. I mean, That's— it feels sacrilege. Can you imagine 20, 30 years ago even, that people would think that in 2023 people weren't even listening to nature because they were listening to a podcast? Unless it's Get Booked as a podcast, that's okay. But you know, Hazel, that's actually— I've written a poem that has been published in Wilder Journeys, and it's about that very thing you're talking about. It was about an experience I had in May when I was taken by a friend to a woodland near where I live, and there were nightingales there, which were about 50 years ago quite a common bird in the UK, but unfortunately they're now quite endangered. And I was listening to it sing, I was just like, wow, this is one of the most beautiful sounds in the world. And strangely enough, I kind of compared the sound of that bird to a machine. I was like, wow, it sounds almost mechanical. And then I was thinking, well, it's only because I'm so familiar with machine sounds and more familiar with machine sounds that I make that comparison, where really I should be comparing the machine sound to the birdsong, which should come first. But it seems to be so backwards in the way we are living now. Yeah, I mean, was it your poem or was it a different one that basically said that there are youth today that actually genuinely do not know what they're missing? Um, that wasn't mine, but yeah, that's definitely an aspect that's talked about in the book quite a lot. Yeah, yeah. Well, what I want to talk about is, because I've got— there were so many different elements that I took from this book that I loved, but I'd love to know from both of you which you found was the most profound contribution in Wilder Journeys. Oh, for me, that was Angela Maxwell, who spent 6 and a half years walking around the world. Yeah, she wrote a chapter about being in the Australian Outback. Yeah. When I finished the chapter, I was just about to pack my bags. It was so inspiring, and I think, why am I not walking around the world? Yeah. Do you know what? I felt the same when I read that one because she had to put an element of trust in the person that she met as well in that journey. But it's that element of when you can trust them, if you go that little step further, sometimes it can be absolutely magical. But no, I must say that was one of my favorites as well. I did also, um, really like the listening about Hamza Yatin's and My Eagle Brother, where we don't realize sometimes when we see a fantastic picture that some of the most amazing pictures of wildlife have taken 9 months to actually achieve. And I loved the detail and the absorption in the whole project that he went into in the book. I thought that was incredible. And, and what about you, Laurie? Oh, it's such a hard question. There's so many. Such a hard question. Um, but I think for me, Miriam's was the first chapter that came through, and It inspired me so much to learn survival and bushcraft skills, so much so that I've actually signed up for like a wilderness course this year, which is going to be teaching bushcraft as well as psychological approaches to combine the two into kind of wilderness therapy. Because I feel like that is, in the UK especially, where we have such limited access to wild spaces, that's something that people really, really need. Um, and also David Malan's chapter about setting up the surf school in California for people of color. That was, that was, it was quite a different chapter because it was more socially aware than the others, um, maybe slightly less wild, but it was about a really important movement and the Black Lives Matter movement, um, and also how people can be separated from kind of wilder journeys and outdoor activities just by their circumstances or their race, and how connecting people with that can be profoundly life-changing and empowering. Um, so yeah, I— there's a whole spectrum of stories from those that are kind of, you know, one or two people living in the wilderness for many years to ones that are actually, um, the authors going out and encouraging others to engage with the wilder world. Did you— have you actually popped on to colourthewater.org? Yes, yeah, yeah, I've seen the website and I follow them on Instagram. Me too. I was looking at all the pictures and it just— it looks fantastic. But also, sometimes, until these things are brought to us in books like this, we don't realize that people of color have not necessarily been given the opportunity or the correct space to be able to appreciate surfing. And I think, I think what he's done is brilliant. And it— the way that he's brought it round to make it something that's, um, a positive political movement, it was brilliant. Um, yeah, I love that too. I must say, another one that got me Googling like no one's business was Carl Bushby in Becoming a Caiman. Oh gosh, yeah. And I was like, especially when, you know, there were people chasing him down the river to try and help him because they thought that he had fallen into the river in, in, in the rainforest, when in fact, no, he was just riding the waves to find, you know, transport that's not transport to get from A to B. But being that close to caimans— and for listeners who don't know what a caiman is, it's basically the cross between a crocodile and an alligator, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. So yeah, so I was— and I actually started Googling the different parts of the river as I was reading it to find— to kind of visualize what he was up to, because although he described it perfectly, sometimes I was kind of in a little bit of a state of disbelief. Yeah, absolutely. His chapter is sort of next-level danger because it's not the dangerous animals that live in the jungle. It's also, you know, there was a war happening there, the drug war, and it was a very, very dangerous place. So he had to be the epitome of stealth and strength, and he had to hide. And one of his disguises was to basically float down the river on bottles and things, making a raft and floating with the caiman down the river. Yeah, an absolutely amazing story. And yeah, I think that's the Darién Gap that he talks about is one of the most dangerous places in the world, or at least was at that time when he was walking through. He was quite— it's not that anybody listening could suddenly just say, oh, that sounds fun, I might go do it. He did spend about 15 years as not a Marine, but something on that level, didn't he? So he was, he was definitely well equipped, as well equipped as he could be to embark on such an adventure. Yeah, he's, um, an ex-paratrooper, so, um, he did have that kind of training. And yeah, I said, I mean, many, many of the stories actually, um, it's not— none of the journeys are things that people could necessarily just go and do tomorrow. They do take a certain level of preparation. Like, if you, um, read Miriam's book, Women in the Wilderness, it's, um, also there was a lot of kind of preparation getting ready to go and live in the wilderness. Her and Peter didn't just go out one day to the next. They had to learn hunting skills and really calculate all of the food supplies they would need. And similar to Carl, he had to plan, you know, the safest and best way to get through the jungle and the kind of equipment that he would need. Um, and at some point in the story, he talks about discarding his equipment, and I'm just sitting there like, wow, how can you travel with less than what you were traveling with at the beginning? But he had to, for his own life, like, to be able to move quick enough. Um, and yeah, it, it is a very, um, a very crazy thing that he did, to be honest, but very, very inspiring as well. I think what we should point out to the listeners as well is that if they were ever thinking of embarking on some sort of wilderness journey, whether it is in South America or Scotland or Devon or France, anywhere, to read the book to get a varied opinion of what is required and some of the basic skills. It's quite informative, all the different extracts in this book provide a different level of information of what you need, or what you need to know, or what to watch out for, and what turn to be not so common but pitfalls when embarking on such adventures. It's a little bit like a starter pack to, to figure out what you might want to do. It's, it's such a wide variety of contributions. You must be extremely impressed with it. I kind of get the feeling there's going to be a Wilder Journeys 2. Do you think that's on the cards? You mean to say there is a Wilder Journey planned? So no, is there going to be? I have a feeling there's going to be more people coming forward and saying, right, um, I want to be in the next Wilder Journeys. I want you to tell my story or to embark on, on a new one. Or maybe people who've read the book and suddenly they want to contribute to the next book to say what, what it encourage them to do. Yes, yes, I think so. And that would be lovely to have a part 2, to have more stories. Why not? We can have 10 volumes. I think that's a great idea. And I was looking for a new challenge. Maybe I need to challenge myself so that I can be in the next book. Yes, it's a very good idea. What you mentioned before is what is the prerequisite. I think any limitation can be overcome and you can learn just about anything. Bushcraft skills. You can learn how to walk, you know, long distances. You can even learn how to swim. Angela Maxwell right now is learning how to swim long distances because she and Carl are going to swim the Caspian Sea. Can you believe it? Anyway, it just shows that you can just about learn anything, but the only thing that is absolutely needed is belief in yourself that you can do it if you just keep at it. It's that— be determined. Well, there were some people actually, I think I'm just trying to remember, I think it was Gregory Smith, he didn't have any skills whatsoever other than the fact that he was homeless, too dependent on alcohol and drugs, and really just had had enough of society because it never done him a favor in any way, shape, or form. And decided to go and live in the forest anyway. And although it, you know, it didn't end hugely well, he ended up being slightly malnourished towards the end, he would survive for a good 8 years before he had to pack it in. Yeah. Yes, indeed. Sometimes it takes a long time. And he learned so much. Yeah, that's right. I met Gregory Smith and he's one of the most beautiful people I ever met. From the inside out, you know. He was just so humble and so, um, like pure inside of him. And so that's definitely what he learned by living in the forest. Well, I do like— there was a bit right at the end of his contribution that just said, I aim to never leave people worse off once they've met me. And I love that. Yeah, yeah, really fantastic. Um, now something that I like to ask all my guests on Get Booked The show is all about trying to get the most positive mental well-being here, there, and everywhere, trying to find ways to just be the best that we can be. So I always ask my guests the 3 top tips on how you try and keep a good level of mental well-being. Maybe, Myriam, if we start with you. Yes. Have you noticed that every time you look in the mirror, you think something negative? Oh yeah, it's always a commentary on your own. You always think, ah, I don't look that good, or a wrinkle or pimple or whatever, right? The solution is throw out all the mirrors. I've done this, it works fantastic. Uh, of course, in a bush we never had mirrors. Now we live in a little cottage, we don't have mirrors either, but, um, it's just, it's no, um, distraction. You just live life and look outwardly rather than constantly in the mirror. Some people have mirrors on every door. It would drive me crazy. Yes. You know what? I love that because sometimes if I'm feeling like really positive within myself, I don't even— I don't check in the mirror before I go out just in case for some reason I have a pimple that's coming up or something like that. I'm like, oh, that's going to ruin my day. I don't want to see. I don't want to know. I'm just going to live in blissful ignorance. So I completely understand. Yeah, throw them out. Be radical, throw them out and feel better. Yeah, love it. Another thing I practice is to eat at 4 PM in the afternoon and then go to bed really early. It's easy for us because we don't have electricity and we have candlelight, and we get slowly tired when it's dark. So at 8 o'clock, I'm absolutely ready to sleep. So I sleep at 8 o'clock and I have a very good night's sleep and it gives me a lot of energy. If I don't sleep that long or that early, I feel totally different. So sleep is so important. Yeah, yeah, I really totally agree with that. I'm starting to go to bed a lot earlier at the moment as well, much to my kids' absolute disgust. But yeah, yeah, very important. And my last one is go hitchhiking. Everyone says it's so dangerous, they will murder or rape or murder you. It's not at all the case, especially in East Europe and Turkey where I was. It's an absolute delight to go hitchhiking. Of course it's dangerous, but many things are dangerous. But you just feel so— it's like the feeling of flying. It's absolutely amazing. I would recommend it to everyone. I love that. Do you know what? It might be dangerous, but it's dangerous going out in a car and driving to the supermarket. It's dangerous going on a night out sometimes. You know, we just, we just need to, um, understand where our priorities lie and, and maybe see things a little bit clearer. I love those, they're brilliant. Thank you so much. And what about you, Laurie? Um, oh yeah, I really liked hearing those as well, Miriam. Um, so mine would be, first of all, to keep the static and the dynamic in balance. And what I mean by that is having outlets for physical activity, self-expression, and creativity as part of your dynamic self. While also making sure that you have space for rest, meditation, noticing, being in nature, and slowing down. I think in our, in our world at the moment, we can often be too focused on fast-paced, action-orientated, and forget to rest and forget to just be with nature. Yeah, life is about balance, and we do need that reminder constantly. Yeah. The second one I would say is like learn foraging or wildlife ID because That just, for me, brings the world alive. When you know what things are, you know what you can eat, you know what is poisonous, you know the calls of different birds, you know what leaves of different trees are, it makes you feel really connected to the world around you, and somehow your own stuff going on in your own head and your own life feels a little less important and significant. Thirdly, I would, um, I'd say always be truthful, even when it's difficult, because bottling things up and not expressing yourself, um, is a lot more painful in the long run. Yes, because it can eat you up, and what happens to that in your gut can mess with your whole central nervous system and your digestion and just your general well-being. And, you know, being honest and truthful, that counts to, to ourselves as well, doesn't it? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, they were brilliant. Thank you so much. Um, and something else that I like to look at as well I know that especially yourself, Myriam, that there's maybe a lack of technology and social media, but I do like to try and focus for our listeners on somebody in the public eye that my guests admire. Yeah, I know nobody who is famous except for, except for Ben Fogel, because he came to visit us twice for his series New Lives in the Wild. And it was an absolute delight to meet him because he was not afraid to show his vulnerable side, because I think he's got confidence, and he's just a very kind man and not affected by his fame. Oh, well, that's something definitely to welcome, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, it was very nice to meet him. Yeah, brilliant. And what about yourself, Laurie? I also struggled with this because I'm also not someone that as much on social media or following celebrity news, but, um, I actually chose someone from Wilder Journeys' book, and I chose Karen Dark, the Paralympic athlete. She's just come back from, um, a trip to Antarctica using her handbike to cross the country to raise awareness about climate changes, but also talking about resilience. She has no use of her lower body, and yet she still manages to cross a continent that many people don't go to, and I just think that that is so inspiring. And, um, her chapter in Wilder Journeys is also brilliant. She's, she's the one that has the osteoporosis, is, is that correct? Yeah, she's got, um, trouble with her shoulders, and that's what she talks about in the, in the chapter. But yeah, she also can't use her legs. Wow. Yeah, but there's still ways to get yourself out in nature. Yeah, it's, it's interesting. I love it that there's, there's more ways out there as well, especially with the things like the handbikes, just to make things a little bit more accessible for everybody, uh, no matter what ailments or disabilities we might have. But yeah, fantastic. Um, yeah, well, thank you so much for, for those. And is there any particular book you would like to recommend to our listeners, either of you, if you're, if you're big readers? Yes, recently I read the book by Peter Hohleben. It's called The Hidden Life of Trees. It's absolutely fascinating. He explains scientifically how trees communicate. It's a true eye-opener. Yeah, it's a really nice, scientifically done and not wishy-washy or, you know, too vague and absolutely fascinating and opened my eyes to a different— yeah, a different way to see the forest. Do you know what? There's a little bit about that in Wilder Journeys when one of the authors was talking about how he could understand what was happening in the weather system by how the trees was, you know, that would rustle, how the wind would rustle through the trees and how nature was speaking to each other and you just kind of became in tune with it. And what an incredible What a talent to have, to be able to understand nature that much. Wow, I bet it is really inspiring. Thank you. And Laurie, what about you? I would choose Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It's also a non-fiction, like Miriam's choice, but it's a beautiful depiction of what a connection to nature can look and feel like. And yeah, I also would recommend listening to it on audiobook because Robin Wall Kimmerer has got a beautiful voice and she reads it herself. Oh, really? Um, I've actually just started— I started Googling it and it came up as the second thing in Google. So yeah, I always like to take on board all of the recommendations from my guests and, and add them to the list. But thank you so much for joining us on Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio Station. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Wilder Journeys and chatting to you both. Just true stories of nature, adventure, and connection. And I think so many more of us are trying to find some way of connecting and understanding nature as we're realizing what part it plays in our well-being and how much we need to look after it. Even though, you know, nature has been playing its part in looking after us, I think it's, it's time we understood a little bit more and delved into it somewhat. And I think this book really helps people to understand the importance of it. So Thank you for chatting to us, and thank you for bringing us the book Wilder Journeys. I need to point out as well that people can find out more about you at— is it @wilder.journeys? Yes, on Instagram we're @wilder.journeys. We've also got a website, www.wilderjourneys.com. Um, and if anyone is available on the 9th of March at 7 PM, we're in Stamford's Bookshop having a book launch party, so All are welcome. Oh, brilliant. There you go. Well, thank you so much for joining us on the show, and I look forward to Wilder Journeys 2 when you come back on the show. Thank you, and see you in London. Fantastic. Mwah! Next up, we have a reading from today's book Wilder Journeys, read by today's guest, Miriam Lanswood. One day in a wilderness life. It was dark when I heard the first sound. I listened to a lone bellbird who slowly awakened the world. Gradually the others began to join it, and there was a beautiful morning chorus. There was no wind and the forest was still, as if everything took a moment to listen. When the music ebbed away, the first light emerged through the trees, so I silently zipped open the tent, for Pieter was still sleeping. Taking off my clothes, I quietly crawled out. My bare feet touched the mossy forest floor. I dressed while looking out at the sky. Finally, I thought. It promised to be a sunny day after 3 days of rain. A little breeze had blown up. It brought fresh, clean air, and there was no smell of moisture in the wind. In the half dark, I found my belt and bow. I tied my hunting belt with my knife around my waist, picked up my bow and quiver, and began to walk towards the top of the valley. I found my way up through the forest. There was big old trees covered in moss, flowers, and mushrooms. Little creeks and streams everywhere. The sun was now rising over the mountaintops and everything was warming up. I walked past fallen logs that seemed to be smoking. The damp was spiraling upwards to the sky. I smelled the tree ferns and their old fronds and tried to detect a scent of wild animals. Where would the goats go, I wondered? Surely not in the thick bushes I found myself in. Every sensible animal would go to the river to move freely over the big round rocks in the riverbed. I climbed down a steep bank covered in ferns and young trees, holding my bow in one hand while the other shielded my face from all the sweeping branches. When I came to the valley floor, I quickly moved into the shade, for I knew everything is more visible in the sunshine. The white rocks had been washed clean by thousands of years of pure water. My eyes fell on a shiny green stone. I picked it up and marvelled at the patterns inside. Nature creates the most perfect pieces of art, I thought. I wanted to take it home, but instead I placed the green stone onto a big boulder. I'd learned never to accumulate anything apart from bare necessities. Because we had to carry everything we owned. I followed the river upstream and only stopped when I saw a big patch of snowberries. I put my bow on the ground, kneeled, and ate as many berries as I could stomach. Where are the goats? I thought when I had finished my breakfast and set off again, following the edge of the forest. Stop thinking too much, I told myself, for animals can hear your thoughts. 'Let everything and everybody forget I am here.' Then I realized nobody in the world knew where I was, or even aware of which part of the country we were in. We had no phone, no emergency beacon, no machine of any kind, not even a clock. Nothing monitored in which valley we were. If we had died, nobody would have had any idea where to look for our bodies. This thought didn't make me afraid. Rather, rather, I felt more alert, for I could not afford an accident. I climbed up a big branch of an old tree so that the animals could not smell my scent. The wind would keep my whereabouts secret. I was in a huge river valley with forest on every side. Some tree ferns were growing in the lower valley, but it was mostly beech trees at this higher elevation. From my viewpoint in a tree, I could look into the distance. The river was meandering down the mountain. Right below me was a smooth rock face, and a bit further on was a log jam with a little pool. Behind the dam were big round boulders fallen from the mountaintops. Snowberries for breakfast had filled my stomach, but after some hours roaming, I felt hungry again. Food was on my mind all the time. What part of the animal shall I eat first? I imagined how happy Peter would be if I came back with a goat. We had not eaten meat for a week, and the wild animals were our staple food. If I failed, we would have to eat again the food supplies we had brought with us, which was rice and beans and flour to make bread. Since we had first set off in the wild a year ago, I had mostly failed as a hunter. Consequently, we had eaten beans every day. Peter did his best to make varied meals by adding many herbs and spices. But it was not easy to eat the same thing so often. Those first few months I had tramped around for countless hours without seeing any animals. On the rare occasion that I did see some in the distance, they had smelt me and disappeared without trace. I'd come back sometimes almost in tears for not seeing any sign, or for shooting and missing, or for shooting and wounding, or losing expensive arrows. I sat down around the fire, silent and empty-handed. The predecessor of success is always failure, I learned. Instead of hunting in that first winter, I had tried my best at setting traps for possums. These were small marsupials, a nocturnal animal introduced from Australia. Without natural predators, this species has quickly become a so-called pest. Most people regarded them as rats. Without knowing that possums are very nutritious and tasty too. During the past year in the wilderness, I had learned to wait, and today this skill was used again. I sat very quietly in my old tree. The one who wins in the wilderness is the one with patience, I knew. The ability to wait is the ability to hunt. The sun shining through the branches made beautiful moving patterns on the ground. A little breeze over the water turned the leaves ever so slightly. The leaves went from green to yellow and many colours in between. And all around me the scene was like a big moving kaleidoscope. Maybe there are no wild animals here. Maybe I should have gone up that other side creek, I thought. Maybe I made the wrong choice. Maybe they had smelled me already. Doubt was overshadowing my mind. I waited for 10 minutes, maybe 30, maybe an hour. Time had no relevance out here in the wilderness. It felt as if we were living in a different world. 4 days' walk from here, where the road started, was the beginning of the human world, and here in the deserted mountains was the wilderness. The two did not seem to be connected. There was no clock here. There was nothing to indicate the days of the week. There was only a natural pattern, days lengthening and seasons changing. There was nobody counting minutes, measuring time, comparing one with the other, and who created a progressing future in which things were supposed to be better than now. Two Paradise ducks flew into the valley with much commotion. Why were they calling out, I wondered? What had they seen, and why were they disturbed? Were they being chased away by another animal? I kept very still, and at first they did not see me. But when I leaned over to watch them, the branch on which I sat moved, and it wasn't long before their keen little bird eyes spotted me, and the male began a warning sign. I didn't want to tell the birds anything, that there was danger in the valley. "Don't worry," I called back in bird language. Imitating the consoling female call. After a few of my "mhm mhm," the female joined me and the male Paradise duck stopped calling. It was silent for a while. I closed my eyes. I waited. Time seemed to stop altogether. Then I finally heard something in the distance. "Meh meh." My heart missed a beat. Where was this small goat? I held my breath and waited for a second call. Upriver or out of the side branch? I climbed down the tree as quickly as I could and ran over the rock face to the river. I stood still to listen again, but nothing came. Määä, määä, I bleated, imitating the mother goat. Let me know where you are, I thought. The mother had obviously walked a little far away, from a young one who was bleating to find her. They were separated long enough for me to hear in which direction they were roaming. I climbed up the bank and struggled through the forest. The wind had brought down many trees and I had to climb over and under big logs. I was careful not to hurt myself in my haste. The bleating appeared closer and closer and my heart was in my throat. When I was around 20 meters Away from the animal, I began to move very silently. I knew which branches would break, and my feet found stones to step on. Then through the vegetation, I could see some goats climbing up a side stream. One billy was on a big rock, and 3 nannies and 4 kids were in the grass near the water. I squatted down. My hands were shaking while I nervously took an arrow out of my quiver. I clicked an arrow onto the string. I exhaled, and I felt calm. I decided on the small billy goat that was closest to me. I drew the bow and let it go in one movement. The arrow flew straight and fast into the heart of the young goat. When he fell to the ground, the others ran into the thicket. With adrenaline racing through my body, I ran to the dying goat. Young animals know when to give up, and soon the life ebbed out of him. He was black and white, little brown colouring on his back. His eyes were blue. I stroked the little creature and I felt sorry for taking his life. His coat was healthy and shiny, and for a moment he felt like a little pet goat that I would carry home. But alas, we were in the wild and we were surviving off the meat of the dead animals. I picked him up and draped him carefully over my shoulders. He was soft and innocent, but this was the law of nature. Living and dying is a cycle of the universe. With life comes death, with death comes life. I too was innocent. We had food now and the bodies would become stronger and healthier. Because he died, we survived. Wow, that was a reading from today's book Wilder Journeys, edited by today's guests Laurie King and Miriam Lanswood. True stories of nature, adventure, and connection driven by dissatisfaction with their environments. The authors featured here have chosen to break free from the shackles of society and go on extreme journeys to connect to the essence of their animal nature. I thoroughly enjoyed chatting to them both on Get Booked here today for Women's and Men's Radio Station. You can check out a little bit more about Wild Journeys at wilder.journeys.com. Thank you so much for listening to today's Get Booked with me, Hazel Butterfield, and as ever, you can get in touch with me at hazel@womensradiostation.com, or you can catch up on previous shows at womensradiostation.com/shows/getbooked. Before you go, here's a little reminder of last week's week's show, The Ladder by Michael Waterhouse. Okay, next up on Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio Station, as promised, we have the author Michael Waterhouse chatting to us about his book The Ladder that was released on the 24th of January of this year. The Ladder is such a beautifully written book about humanity, love, loss, and escape. The fluidity of narrative in which this book is written leads to a paradoxically easy reading slant to an otherwise emotionally charged story, opening the conversation around assisted suicide with an equal and unjudgmental rounded take on the subject. Uh, joining us now is Michael. Thank you for joining us on Get Booked. Well, thank you for inviting me on the show. You're very welcome, and congratulations on your publication day and being able to actually have a book release party in real life. Yeah, tremendous, and it was a good turnout. It really was. It was, it was full. You should have really got a bigger place. It's good though. I think there's been so many online parties that it's kind of— it's lost its glow. It's nice to do the real thing. Yeah, you work for quite often years on a book, and I think COVID took that away from some of the authors. And it— no, it was brilliant, and it was great to meet you. And, uh, yeah, and luckily you've done an extract of the book which we'll play out towards the end of the show as well. But let's get stuck straight into it. If you can tell our listeners a little bit about the inspiration behind writing this book? Sure. I mean, it's happened over quite a long period. I mean, first and foremost, as you say, it's a love story, but it is a love story about what happens to love when one partner, in this case Kim, develops a debilitating illness and that presents their their love with a huge challenge. It all goes back ultimately to the fact that my mother died of motor neuron disease quite a long time ago, 1993, as a matter of fact. And it was, as you can imagine, a terrible thing to witness. She, in fact, was saved the very worst of it and died of pneumonia. So she doesn't actually go through the full crippling illness that Kim does in the book. But it got me thinking about a lot of things. It got me thinking about the subject of assisted dying. We, you know, we were thinking as a family, what happens, you know, if my mother gets to a condition in which she can do nothing for herself and frankly wants to die? And It also got me thinking about wanting to write a story about it. But what I didn't want to do was to write a tub-thumping polemic about, you know, the need to reform the law. I wanted to write a novel which would be, as you say, full of humanity, have all the kind of contradictions that we human beings experience. And I didn't want to rush into it. And it's taken me 29 years, but I thought that was about the right time. So in a sense, I'm on schedule, on schedule. Well, congratulations. Yeah, I— do you know what, it's such a toughie because in the situation in, in The Ladder, Kim is a very active person, and so the fact that she loses something that she values more than some people, it's it's got an added level of cruelty, but you know, it's still a cruel disease no matter how active you are. And I love— That's true. Yeah, and I love the way that it's not just one person telling the story. It comes from both sides. You can kind of see how she loses a grasp on reality and what's happening, and even just the ability to sometimes register what's happening to yourself. And then it moves to a stage where you can't register it because you can no longer use your fingers. You can— you can't write anymore, you can't speak anymore. There's some fantastic devices out there that can help you at least say what you want to say, and it'll, it'll transcribe it into words. But it's just when you lose the ability to do that as well, it's, it's the disease that just keeps on taking, isn't it? It is. It's a very, very brutal condition. I think we all know about it a bit because Stephen Hawking, of course, had motor neurone disease, and we know that over the years we got used to hearing his voice, which of course wasn't his voice, through the agency of a computer. And as you say, there are resources available for people who lose the ability to speak, to communicate by that means. Voice banking, I think it was termed. It is called voice banking. That's quite right. As a matter of fact, Kim is advised about voice banking and doesn't quite live to the point of making use of it for reasons I won't go in. I don't want to spoil people's enjoyment of the novel. It's interesting what you say about her being active. I, you know, the imagination in a sense delivers these characters to you. And I realized that Kim had to be a very active person. She loves cycling, swimming. She, her idea, ideal holiday is going up to the Scottish Highlands and plunging around in bogs in the rain. And what was quite interesting was that I, what I didn't know until I was listening to Jim Al-Khalili's program last week on Radio 4, The Life Scientific, you know, in which he interviews eminent scientists. And he was talking to someone who's a specialist on motor neuron disease, and she has identified a correlation between people who are highly physical, physically active, and a susceptibility to getting the disease, which is absolutely counterintuitive. I think it's what you would expect. But actually, people who are professional athletes in, in some cases or like Kim, very, very active sporty people can be more susceptible. I think bizarrely as well, people who are more active are more likely to notice it sooner. Yes, of course. Yes, I think that's right. I mean, because, you know, as an active sporty person, you are that much more conscious of your body. Kim first becomes aware of something not being quite right when she goes to open up her shop one morning. She is a florist, and she— one of the important themes of the novel is that she has an absolute love of color. And so she, you know, starts this florist shop and has— it just takes enormous pleasure in the variety of colors of the flowers. Give her. But one morning she goes to the shop and she's fiddling with her keys and she realizes that she hasn't, she hasn't dropped them. She does get the lock open, but it's not quite right. And she, something intuitively tells her that something has gone wrong. But being the kind of person she is, someone who is very dismissive of fuss and, you know, tends to sort of not think about it. If you know, if she has a cold or anything like that, she, she's aware of it, but then she dismisses it. And it takes a number of incidents of that kind for her to recognize that something is happening to her. Well, and unfortunately, I mean, you go into a lot of detail— well, enough detail for us to understand. This is what I love about books as well. It helps the reader to understand a little bit more about the process and the diagnosis. And you get diagnosed with MND by a process process of elimination. And especially for, for women, um, I hope this is okay to say, and in the age of Kim, as you kind of hit 40, 42, 43, that's when there's various things to do with the menopause or different life stages where we do start being a little bit more forgetful, or we're running around doing this, that, and whatever. And sometimes we just chalk up certain deficiencies to do with hormonal changes, um, and just being run ragged. So it's a bit of a minefield. Yes, absolutely. Uh, that's a very good point you make. Um, she really— I suppose, and this is the one reason why, in a sense, I needed these dual narratives, Kim's own narrative but also her partner's Gary's narrative. It's Gary really who pushes forward the, the recognition that, that something is happening to her. They go to a New Year's Eve party and she drops a glass of wine and spills red wine all over the host's carpet, uh, and then subsequently collapses. And of course everyone thinks it's drink, um, but it's not good. Yeah. Um, and it's Gary who pushes through the idea that she needs to go and see her GP in the first instance, and then to have a number of tests. And it takes time because, as you say, you know, people don't have a ready-made set of symptoms which equal motor neuron disease. Motor neuron disease, particularly in the early stages, mimics a lot of other potential conditions. And so they only arrive at the diagnosis having said, well, it's not that, it's not that, and it's not the other.