On An Offa Bus: Encounters and thoughts on a border land

On An Offa Bus:
Encounters and thoughts on a border land

Is there something special about Border folk, and something particularly special about the Wales/England border? Swansea born Gareth Wheatley thinks so.

Now living in Wrexham and having noticed the singular nature of people living on both sides of the border Gareth hopped on a bus and travelled through the Marches, observing and documenting. The result - On and Offa Bus: Encounters and thoughts on a border land.

You don’t have to go as far as Bleached Bones, Arizona to meet eccentrics, a journey through the shadowy borderlands between England and Wales will do just the same.

Throughout the book, the underlying theme is the question of whether a marcher or border person truly exists, with no particular allegiance to either Wales or England? Do those who dwell on either side of Offa’s Dyke have a passionate patriotism for their own country and countrymen? Does the duality of the region create an area that is particularly attractive to eccentrics?

Gareth has produced a highly entertaining, humorous and informative account of ten bus journeys backwards and forwards across the Welsh/English border country where he, with a sharp eye for detail, records the conversations he has had with the residents of both countries.

He travels the length of the border, from Prestatyn to Sedbury, calling in at the Marches towns of Whitchurch, Oswestry, Llanfyllin, Shrewsbury, Montgomery, Kington, Knighton, Bishops Castle, Newtown, Leominster, Hereford, and Ross-on-Wye, on the way.

On the English Bridge in Shrewsbury, the pale-faced man with the furrowed brow spoke in a strange and halting kind of way. They call me ... Barry. Was this his real name or was it the title of the Supreme Leader of a dubious cult? I asked him if he had been born and brought up in the town. I wasn’t actually born here … not in the sense you mean.

On An Offa Bus will be published on Nov 10th. ISBN 978-1-84494-061-5

Details can be found at www.bridgebooks.co.uk