The Path of Peace is the story of how Anthony Seldon set out on a 35-day pilgrimage from the French-Swiss border to the English channel (without a permanent home, a wife or job, nor any clear sense of where life was going). The route of this 1000 km journey was inspired by Alexander Douglas Gillespie, a young British solder during the First World War, who dreamed of creating a ‘Via Sacra’ so men, women and children of Europe could walk to honour the fallen.
He himself was killed in action and his vision forgotten for 100 years, until a chance discovery in the archives of an ancient English school inspired Anthony to walk and establish the route. Travelling from Champagne in France through haunting trenches, Anthony battles heat exhaustion to blisters, but is rewarded with a deeper sense of inner peace and renewed purpose on what matters most on life.
I would walk all the way from Switzerland to the English Channel. Gillepsie wanted it to be more than just a nice walk through nature. He wanted it to be a path of peace and a walk of remembrance. To find greater peace within, peace with fellow human beings and the natural world.
about the author
Anthony Seldon is an historian who has written several biographies of different Prime Ministers. He recently wrote of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson (who never showed up for an event aimed to promote Shakespeare) that ‘He had no deep interest in any classical history, language, literature or Shakespeare. His examples were always for show. At his heart, he is extraordinarily empty’.
A timely, eloquent and convincing reminder that to forget the carnage of the past, is to open the door to it happening again. If anyone needs persuading that a 1000km Western Front Way would be educational, this is the book they should read. George Alagiah
