The perils of part-time book reviewing

Welcome to the world of the part-time book reviewer. Where a complimentary review is inevitably followed by a PR keen to push more of their product your way. And so I agreed to receive a copy of The Journey That Never Was: Around The World In A Mini In The Early 1960s. With a title like that, though, I was already hooked.

The premise seemed a truly fascinating one from the press release which promised "the true story of Jeanne and Jane who in 1961 (in their early twenties) set off from England in a Mini to drive to Australia." An incredible journey indeed. Shame it's so mundanely retold.

You wonder why then why it was released by Mereo Books, the fiction imprint of Memoirs Publishing. For Jeanne de Ferranti's "literary" style certainly won't appeal for lovers of a good yarn. In truth, I struggled to work out who the target audience is.

And then came sentences of the like of "Florence had long been a centre of Europe trade and finance and was considered to be the birthplace of the Renaissance. " Followed by "Rome is considered to be the birthplace of western civilization and in the first century became the seat of the papacy ". Who doesn't know this? Ah, schoolchildren of a certain age. Perhaps this is meant as a textbook?

I did, however, learn something new from Jeanne de Ferranti. And that's that the prayer beads so beloved of Catholics were actually first used by Arabs. Ordinarily, this knowledge would have seriously underwhelmed me as everybody knows Christianity has spread through the appropriation of pre-existing pagan rituals, but given the standard of De Ferranti's previous revelations; I'm momentarily stunned.

The book's faults don't lie solely with Jeanne de Ferranti. Her editor should shoulder the blame too. Granted, The Journey That Never Was was born of De Ferranti revisiting her diary, photos and letters home from the time; more than a half century on.

Chris Newton, who De Ferranti praises for "his patient editing", is far too timid. The book's length of over 300 pages involves more faithful reproduction of the diary than is strictly necessary.To the extent, that on page 228, I get quite excited reading that Jeanne was "now quite prepared to go home" before realizing that this is a false ending by the weight of the unread pages in my right hand. Newton should have been more ruthless, cutting out needless passages like the time the author tells us of visiting a family home to leave flowers, only to discover the family are out. He uses nail scissors to trim text when a bloody, great scimitar would have been more appropriate.

And then there are the sloppy comparisons. Apparently, Melbourne was like the Midlands' seaside towns Jeanne and companion Jane knew and didn't exactly love. Having grown up in Nottingham, the city which is further away from the sea on the UK, I can non-exclusively confirm that said towns are rather thin on the ground. Unless the author's keen to depict the Victorian capital as an Australian version of Skegness.

The title itself is confusing, Apparently, it stems from De Ferranti's disapproving parents wanting to forget about their little girl's jaunt around the world. Yet their Jeanne writes early on about how her father encouraged her in her dream to reach Australia by Mini.

And these parents also part-funded De Ferranti's trip, as she attests in her usual update of having to visit banks in new locales. What's more, they travel to Ceylon with her brother to celebrate Christmas with Jeanne and Jane. Here, Jeanne's mother has a problem with the "dark faces".

De Ferranti herself comes across as snooty, especially when slating the "dark-skinned" rural Indians who are curious to find a couple of newcomers in their midst. So is Jeanne writing as her 1960s' self, from a well-to-do background? One which disapproved of her working as a hotel maid as she'd be living like one of the servants they employed at home. Has she become her mother? 

The digested read of De Ferranti would go as follows: "Hands. Hands that help. Hands that grope. Hands that wield a knife." The latter pair of hands form part of the one genuine page-turning extract from the whole book.

It seems a little odd then that this is the only episode in which two single white females travelling in the 1960s feared for their safety. Either, they were incredibly lucky. Or the fact they were able to call on the privileged families of those they'd previously met in their snobby circles offered them a comfort zone unavailable to less affluent explorers.

Travelling through Europe, Asia, Australasia, and Americas North and Central did not seem to curb De Ferranti's enthusiasm for adventure. Indeed, she went on to become Britain's first-ever helicopter pilot. Hmm, could there be a book in that? Perhaps. If so, it will need to be better edited if De Ferranti ever wants to truly convey how undoubtedly wonderful her life has been.

In order to write this review, I received a free copy of The Journey That Never Was: Around The World In A Mini In The Early 1960s.