The Story of...the making of...

The story of...the making of...

Many of you will have followed the twists and turns on the way to the publication of my book 'Letters to Kyrgyzstan' a collection of illustrated columns. Some may even be fed up hearing about it, while it may well have passed others by unnoticed. What most of you will not know is that, until I was approached,

I had no intention of publishing a book.

At the risk of repeating myself let's go right back to the very beginning. I have no idea why an article about mountain biking in Kyrgyzstan specially appealed to me, after all in the outdoor magazine I read regularly there were plenty of exotic and unusual destinations to choose from. Maybe destiny - but no, I don't believe in destiny. Anyway the idea slipped slowly to the back of my mind until several years later it was rekindled by the smallest possible advertisement in a cycling magazine. The tour advertised was neither too difficult or too easy. It combined culture, nature and physical effort and, added to that, it was affordable! We were a little worried about travelling in a group with a guide/translator even though we ourselves had been tour guides for many years. That problem was solved, however, when we were joined by two friends. So, in effect, we took our own group with us.

Our arrival at Manas Airport, Bishkek, coincided exactly with a solar eclipse. Now what are the chances of that? This should have been enough to get one of us made Emperor of all Kyrgyzstan but I guess as we were shuffling through customs at the time the moment passed. It must have been a good omen though. Our trip was all we had anticipated and much more. Kyrgyzstan is a fascinating and beautiful country and the Kyrgyz people are charming, friendly and hospitable. Our guide was an important part of a truly memorable experience. Before, during and after the tour we had time to get to know many of the other people involved in this small indigenous travel company. Most were young women, either students or recently graduated. They were intelligent, eager and above all they wanted to play a part in developing their new nation. Okay, it didn't escape me that they were also very attractive young women! However it was their refreshing idealism that was particularly appealing. It was a pleasure to be around them. I wanted to do something in return. As most of the guides were studying English I decided to write a monthly column. To provide some intelligent, up to date, informative and hopefully amusing texts for them to use, discuss and pass on.

We are still in contact with several of those we met on that trip. Some have become close friends. We have been back for a more physically demanding mountain bike tour. We have assisted and promoted Kyrgyzstan in various ways, including helping at travel fairs here in Europe. And..after a hesitant start the readership of the columns has grown, no longer restricted to Kyrgyz students and non- native English speakers, they are now spread and read in many parts of the world.

When, on the strength of some cartoons I had provided for a friend's book, a publisher asked if I would like to publish a book of my own work. It seemed too good to be true. I was cautious at first. It was too easy, it is notoriously difficult to get a book published. On the other hand I didn't have much to loose. The columns were already written and for the most part I would be using existing illustrations.

Well OK then – why not?

After a couple of years of delays, broken promises and missed publication dates the first books did arrive on Christmas Eve 2013 – hurrah! ….However the first mistake was on the cover, my name was spelled wrongly, inside it was far worse, some of the columns had lost all meaning as whole chunks of texts had 'wandered' into the wrong story!

The books were withdrawn from sale. The publisher acknowledged all the mistakes and then promptly ceased business before they could be corrected and reprinted. ' Letters to Kyrgyzstan' was left in a publishing limbo. Yes, it had been too good to be true. Luckily I had not lost a great deal of money but I had wasted a whole lot of time and effort and had used up some good will along the line.

I pretty much decided to abandon the project.

So, you can imagine, it came as a great surprise, when friends in Bishkek contacted me a short while ago announcing that they had found a printer and they wanted to finance and publish the book. Even more surprising when the whole thing was agreed, initiated and finished in just a few weeks.

Writers of columns frequently begin with an observation and then go all around the houses before eventually returning to their starting point. Well, it's much the same with this collection of columns. The original inspiration was Kyrgyzstan, it was written and illustrated in The Netherlands, passed on to an English publisher and a German printer before ending up right back where it all started.....in Bishkek!