Not the Terry Pratchett one! (Feet of Clay - Ffyona Campbell)

Member Name: themoomin

Product:	Feet of Clay - Ffyona Campbell
Date:	04/09/01 (414 review reads)
Rating:

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It’s 3,200 miles from Sydney to Perth. Ffyona Campbell walked every step of the way at the age of just 21, breaking the men’s speed record as she did so. Feet of Clay is the story of that walk, and of a young woman’s emotional journey.

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Born in 1967, Naval tradition was a strong influence on the family and had a huge impact on her upbringing. During her childhood and early teens the Campbells moved home no less than 24 times – which resulted in Ffyona being a pupil at 15 schools. A permanent base and long-lasting friendships were never part of her early life, but along with the praise and approval of her Father were the very things she craved.

After leaving school at 16, she raised the necessary sponsorship to enable her to walk from John O’Groats to Lands End. On completion of that first walk she called her Father to tell him she made it. His response was typical –‘when are you going to stop swanning around and get a job?’

So she decided that she was going to walk around the world . . . .
That should show him!

Two years after her British walk she trekked from New York to Los Angeles, on the next leg of her journey. We join her in Sydney, as she begins her monumental walk from one side of Australia to the other, raising money as she walks for the charity SportAid ’88 and sponsored by, among others, Scholl, Adidas, and James Capel.

* * * * *

The book takes the form of a detailed diary, with an entry for each day of the walk – 95 in all. At the beginning of each week is a map of the route, showing each leg of the journey. The story is complemented by a small selection of photographs (including a couple of shots of her feet!), which bring the characters and places to life.

The only person Ffyona travels with is her back-up driver David. Alternately the focus of her frustrations and fantasies, he syringes her blisters (of w
hich there are many!), organises interviews, makes vast quantities of avocadoes on toast, tells jokes, and farts! Their 'partnership' is a working one, although you get the distinct feeling she would like it to be something more. Although they go through so much together, they spend a great deal of time bickering – really rubbing each other up the wrong way. This constant sparring, interspersed with occasional periods of acceptance gives the whole story a slightly sour feel, especially when you find out in the epilogue that they never resolve their differences and are no longer in touch. It didn’t ruin the tale for me, but makes for difficult reading. As in all relationships of course it takes two to tango, and David is more than capable of sticking up for himself and giving as good as he gets. Nevertheless I kept wanting to grab this girl by the shoulders and shake her – ‘be nice to him, it’s not his fault you’re angry with your family!’

And that’s the whole thing about this book – you probably won’t like Ffyona Campbell. If you’re anything like me, you won’t understand her. She comes across as self-absorbed, inherently selfish, and at the same time determined and wilful. She can act like a spoilt child , but can show incredible tenderness, like the time she rescues an injured baby Kookaburra from the roadside, or when she sees a young Roo that has been hit by a truck, dying at the side of the road. She swears like a trooper – mostly at David or at the truckies who pull over to see if she needs a lift, and hates giving interviews, often being so stroppy with the reporters that you wonder why they bother. She smokes secretly, but never when reporters are present, and she dreams of gooseberry fool. She grouses, whines, and moans her way across the continent, repeating the mantra ‘across Australia, around the world’ to anyone who asks.

But there is
a lot of good to be found in this book, if you can see beyond the blisters. It is an incredible story – and some of the descriptions of the actual road travelled will just make you want to go there and experience it for yourself. Although she walks on the main Highways (even in 1988 it would have been foolhardy and dangerous to take off through the bush), surrounded by roadkill, plagued by flies and fumes, she manages to put across the sense of space, of the vast continent stretching out in front of her. She writes with a frankness that is refreshing, and doesn’t spare the reader any details. So we hear in graphic close-up of her experiences of diahorrea, shin splints, flies up her nose, and of course those blisters. She describes the huge amount of roadkill matter-of-factly – ‘Three dead roos lay in the middle of the road like wet cardboard, all in a row. Mummy Roo, Daddy Roo and Baby Roo. Bam! Bam! Bam!’, but later on she questions why people go out to hunt and shoot Roos when there are many dying on the roadside that would welcome a bullet to end their pain. The beauty and desolation of the landscape does not escape her, and though her words you can almost picture the scene as she walks it, step by painful step.

On her journey she meets many inspirational characters, who sometimes travel with her for a short while, or just pass in a burst of shared joy at the wonder of it all. She meets Japanese roller-skater Bon Sato, skating from Perth to Sydney. Of him she says: ‘His courage was far beyond my comprehension; although we shared the same stretch of road, ruled by the same elements of discomfort, there was a silent strength in him that I knew I could never share’. Another traveller whose path she crosses is Roger Scott, trekking from Darwin to Eyre. She really feels like he understands her – what she is going through and why she is doing it. Her vulnerability shows through particularly at this point in th
e story, and it is obvious that despite all her tough words and mood swings she is in fact human. By the end of the book she has grown in maturity, and is ready to resolve the problems with her family. It is as if the walk gave her the space she needed to work things through, and to accept herself.

Well I think I’ve written quite enough already. There is much more to this story than I can explain in a short review, and probably a lot more to it that has gone untold, for whatever reason. As an autobiographical piece of writing I found it interesting and hard to put down, and as a travel guide it will probably make you want to pack in your job, pack your bags, and head off for the great unknown. Just don’t forget to take plenty of syringes for those blisters . . . .


ISBN 0-7493-0807-9
Autobiography/Travel
First published 1991
My edition Mandarin 1996
Published price (UK) 5.99
I picked it up in Oxfam for 1.99 - bargain!

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