There was no more perfect book to read in the early months of lockdown than Full Tilt, Dervla Murphy’s famous account of her solo bicycle ride from Ireland to India.
I bought a battered copy with a 1980s cover on eBay and used it as a prompt to dream of travel when travel itself was not possible. Murphy, who died a week ago at the age of 90, at her home in Lismore in Ireland, undertook her most well-known journey in 1963, fulfilling an ambition she had held since she was 10. She arrived in India in July 1963. I think of Murphy often. The reasons are largely sentimental, which, you can only surmise from her writing, she would have detested. She is one of the least sentimental writers I have ever read and her straightforwardness is part of her brilliance.
