''One Man and His Bog'' (subtitled: ''The Reluctant Rambler's Guide to Walking the Pennine Way'') is a 1986

travelogue Travelogue may refer to: Genres * Travel literature, a record of the experiences of an author travelling * Travel documentary A travel documentary is a documentary film, television program, or online series that describes travel in general or t ...

book written by

Barry Pilton Barry Pilton (born 1946 in Croydon, Surrey) is a travel writer, radio and television comedy scriptwriter and novelist. He was educated in Dulwich College and King's College London. In 1967-8 he taught English in Paris and from 1969 worked as a jo ...

and published by

Corgi The Welsh Corgi ( or Corgi, plural Corgis, or occasionally the etymologically consistent Corgwn; ) is a small type of herding dog that originated in Wales. The name ''corgi'' is derived from the Welsh words and (which is mutated to ), meani ...

which started life as a series of talks on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

.book foreword It gives a light-hearted account of his walking the full length of the

Pennine Way The Pennine Way is a National Trail in England, with a small section in Scotland. The trail stretches for from Edale, in the northern Derbyshire Peak District, north through the Yorkshire Dales and Northumberland National Park and ends at Kir ...

in 21 days, from

Edale Edale is a village and civil parish in the Peak District, Derbyshire, England, whose population was 353 at the 2011 Census. Edale, with an area of , is in the Borough of High Peak. Edale is best known to walkers as the start, or southern end, ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

Kirk Yetholm Kirk Yetholm ('kirk yet-ham') is a village in the Scottish Borders region of Scotland, southeast of Kelso and less than west of the border. The first mention is of its church in the 13th century. Its sister town is Town Yetholm which lies ...

in the

Scottish Borders The Scottish Borders ( sco, the Mairches, 'the Marches'; gd, Crìochan na h-Alba) is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Midlothian, South Lanarkshire, West Lothi ...

. The book has a foreword by

Mike Harding Mike Harding (born 23 October 1944) is an English singer, songwriter, comedian, author, poet, broadcaster and multi-instrumentalist. Harding has also been a photographer, traveller, filmmaker and playwright. Early life and education Harding's ...

and illustrations by

Gray Jolliffe Graham Jolliffe (born 1937, St Germans, Cornwall, UK) is a British illustrator and cartoonist. His work includes Chloe & Co in the ''Daily Mail'', and the ''Wicked Willie'' character that first appeared in the book, ''Man's Best Friend'' in 1 ...

. The book opens with an author's note: "If this book should in some small way encourage people to take up walking themselves, then the author suggests they read the book again more carefully". It includes humorous tales of the people he met on the route, his overnight stops primarily at

Youth Hostels A hostel is a form of low-cost, short-term shared sociable lodging where guests can rent a bed (furniture), bed, usually a bunk bed in a dormitory, with shared use of a lounge and sometimes a kitchen. Room, Rooms can be mixed or single-sex and ha ...

and the toll it took on his body. A

glossary A glossary (from grc, γλῶσσα, ''glossa''; language, speech, wording) also known as a vocabulary or clavis, is an alphabetical list of Term (language), terms in a particular domain of knowledge with the definitions for those terms. Tradi ...

of "Difficult Technical Terms" is also included, for example "Compass – instrument for establishing you are lost". The book's title refers to that of the well-known television series ''

One Man and His Dog ''One Man and His Dog'' is a BBC television series in the United Kingdom featuring sheepdog trials, originally presented by Phil Drabble, with commentary by Eric Halsall and, later, by Ray Ollerenshaw. It was first aired on 17 February 1976 and ...

'', which features

sheepdog trials A sheepdog trial (also herding event, stock dog trial or simply dog trial) — is a competition or test for working abilities of Herding dog, herding breeds dogs. It is a type of List of dog sports, dog sport that emerged in the 1860s in New Zeala ...

, often in the Pennines and other upland areas.

''One Man and His Log''

In 1988 Barry Pilton wrote a follow-up book, ''One Man and His

Log Log most often refers to: * Trunk (botany), the stem and main wooden axis of a tree, called logs when cut ** Logging, cutting down trees for logs ** Firewood, logs used for fuel ** Lumber or timber, converted from wood logs * Logarithm, in mathe ...

'' (subtitled ''The Cautionary and True Tale of Five Buffoons and a Barge'') also illustrated by

, recounting a journey along the

Canal du Nivernais The Canal du Nivernais links the Loire with the Seine, following approximately the course of the river Yonne in a south to north direction. It first climbs northeast and north to cross the Morvan watershed, then roughly follows the course of the ...

from

Corbigny Corbigny () is a commune in the Nièvre department in central France. Geography Corbigny is located at the western end of the Morvan hills and is one of the five entry points of Parc naturel régional du Morvan. The river Anguison, a tributary o ...

to Clamecy in central France.

References

{{reflist 1986 non-fiction books British travel books English non-fiction books Books about England Youth hostelling Hiking books