The Journeying Moon by Ernle Bradford

‘Life does not come again; if you have not lived during the days that were given to you, once only, then write it down as lost …’

Ernle Bradford was 21 years old when he read Chekhov's words - and they haunted him forever. It was them that later prompted him and his wife to sell their flat and furniture, leave their jobs, and, four months later, sail off in a ten-ton Dutch cutter, the Mother Goose. The Journeying Moon tells of their voyage through the French canals to Southern Italy and Greece, and a peaceful existence off the beaten track.

Ernle Bradford writes charmingly and evocatively of his Mediterranean adventures; of the people of Malta who were convinced he was from MI5; of his brushes with the Mafia on Sicily; of his experiences as ‘assistant naval adviser’ on a film unit in Palermo; and of the caves of Levanzo, which boast the southernmost examples of prehistoric European art. The Journeying Moon is a vivid and powerful record of true adventure by a true adventurer.

Praise for The Journeying Moon:

‘It has real poetry to it; a poetry of sea and sun, of departure and landfall’ - Times Literary Supplement