End of the Road Trivia Quiz

Laurence Edward Alan Lee (1914-1997) was an English author and poet from Gloucestershire, who wrote under the name Laurie Lee. The middle of his trilogy of memoirs, "As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning", is the work referred to here. His travels in this volume took him from Gloucestershire to London to Galicia in Spain. From there he walked and journeyed over much of Spain, getting as far south as Gibraltar before venturing along the Mediterranean coast of Andalusia, eventually stopping in Almunecar (Castillo in the early editions of the book). This is where he found himself at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, and from where he and other British nationals were evacuated by ship. This book is sandwiched by "Cider with Rosie", set in England, and "A Moment of War", describing his return to Spain in 1937.

The photo is one of my own, of an old tower on the coast of Andalusia, closer to Almeria than to Almunecar.

Dorothy Gale and her little dog Toto were only two of the travellers on the yellow brick road to the Emerald City in L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" (1900). They were joined along the way by the Scarecrow, a Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion, each of them seeking some favour from the Wizard who resided in the Emerald City, which they eventually reached after a series of adventures. Baum went on to write a number of other books set in Oz, though the first is best known, possibly because of the enduring popularity of the 1939 movie starring Judy Garland as Dorothy.

The photo of emeralds was meant to make you think of the Emerald City.

John in this case is John Steinbeck, and Charley is the standard poodle who accompanied him on the journey that resulted in the memoir "Travels with Charley: In Search of America" (1962). Their route took them from New York on a sweeping tour around the USA in a camper named Rocinante. Charley's presence served as an ice breaker when meeting strangers along the way, as well as providing company for Steinbeck, who was not in the best of health at the time. When they eventually returned to New York it is reported that they got lost (as they had often during the trip), before eventually getting home.

The image of Times Square, c.1963, represents their return.

Sammy Hartland is the ten year old protagonist of the novel "Sammy Going South" (1961) by W.H. Canaway. After his parents were killed in the bombing of the Suez Canal in 1956, Sammy set out to join his aunt in Durban, which he knew was somewhere south of his starting point of Port Said. What he probably didn't know is that it was over 6000 kilometres (3700+ miles) away. The novel followed his adventures along the way, before his successful reunion in South Africa with his aunt.

The film made in 1963 starred Fergus McClelland as Sammy and Edward G. Robinson as one of the people he met on his travels. The US title of the film was "A Boy Ten Feet Tall". The image here is a straightforward sign indicating the end of Sammy's road.

"A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail" (1998) marked the reunion of friends Bill Bryson (the author) with his earlier travelling companion, Stephen Katz (real name Matt Angerer) in an attempt to walk the distance of the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. Though they didn't make the full distance in one attempt, they did manage a large part of it in smaller chunks. If I may be allowed to comment, I personally found their earlier adventures, in Europe, told in "Neither Here nor There" to be vastly more entertaining, though both are worth a read.

The image is of one of the marker signs, pointing north, on the Trail.

The book in this case is John Steinbeck's major novel of the Great Depression, "The Grapes of Wrath". The story followed the Joad family, including newly released ex-convict Tom, as they were forced to leave their Oklahoma home and head westward with legions of others, to seek work and a better life in California. Steinbeck intermixed more general chapters with that narrative so that he could explore the broader story of this great upheaval as well. The Joads eventually reached California, where jobs picking fruit could be had, though the "better life" would prove elusive.

The picture of peaches represents the fruit picking jobs that were available to the Joads at the end of their journey.

"The Stand" (the 1978 edition) was my introduction to the works of Stephen King. Although I was repulsed on every page by the descriptions of the effects of the Captain Trips pandemic, I couldn't put the book down. I suspect the expanded later version would have the same effect, though my comments here stem from the original.

Nick Andros, Stu Redman and Mother Abagail were survivors of the dread disease, who came together from different parts of the USA, with others, to form a group of "good" survivors based in Boulder, Colorado. For some the story ended there, while others lived on, to battle the forces of evil gathered in Las Vegas.

The boulders in the river in the photo are symbolic of Boulder.

Piscine Patel, better known as Pi, was a young man who found himself adrift on a life raft with a tiger named Richard Parker, according to the 2001 novel "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. The tale told by Pi was of a shipwreck whilst he and his parents, and some animals from their zoo, were emigrating from Pondicherry (India) to Canada. Pi and the tiger co-existed warily whilst they drifted across the Pacific, encountered an island overrun by meerkats, and eventually washed ashore on the coast of Mexico. Or did they? Pi later told an alternate version to some unbelievers, and we were left to draw our own conclusions.

The image is of the Pacific coast of Mexico.

John Sidney Howard, aged 70, is the titular character of Nevil Shute's "Pied Piper" (1942). Howard had taken a fishing holiday in France, even though the Second World War had already begun. The end of the Phoney War and German advance into France caught him still there. A young couple asked him to take their two children with him to England, and he agreed. Later on their journey across France, three more children joined his band, by various means, but just before they could escape, Howard was arrested. A twist of fate added one more child to the group, Howard was released and the whole party crossed by boat from Brittany to Plymouth and safety.

The image is of some small boats docked in Plymouth harbour.

"The Long Walk" (1979) by Stephen King, was originally published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. The story told of a competition for young men, held annually in a not too distant future dystopian version of the USA, which started in Maine and ended only when a single walker remained. Of the hundred who began the walk, only that one would win a prize - anything he wanted. There were no runners-up prizes, because the only way a walker could leave the race was by dying - of exhaustion; shot for walking too slowly; shot while trying to run away; insane. Sixteen year old Ray Garraty emerged as the winner, but it is unclear as to whether or not he actually survived (at least to this reader).

The image of a cemetery illustrates the end of the road for at least 99 of the Long Walk participants.