As those who correspond with me know, I can be very slow to follow-up on the messages and suggestions that so many of you send me, but on the whole I do tend to catch-up eventually. Jennie Harrison Bunning, who is in charge of Marketing and Publicity at the always brilliant Slightly Foxed – a quarterly magazine for book-lovers who don’t feel entirely at home in the here-today-and-gone-tomorrow world of overnight publishing sensations and over-hyped new books – got in touch just one month ago to tell me about a great cause that they are supporting, and as it is Paddy (and Nick Hunt) related, I’m happy to bring it to your attention, and to ask for your support.

Jennie wrote:

Dear Tom

Congratulations on your very good website pertaining to all things PLF! It’s a brilliant tribute, and filled with really useful and interesting content.

I’m writing to let you know about an upcoming Paddy-related adventure that I hope you’ll find of interest. On 1 May 2017 Katy Macmillan-Scott is embarking on a 600-mile journey by foot across Europe, in memory of her best friend Harriet Clarke and to raise awareness for Never Too Young, Bowel Cancer UK’s campaign for the under 50s. Her route will follow the first leg of Paddy’s 1933 journey, from the Hook of Holland to Budapest.

We all very much enjoyed Nick Hunt’s book about his experience of walking in Paddy’s footsteps and I believe Katy has been in touch with Nick who’s been encouraging. It’s the same trip but will perhaps be rather different through the eyes of a ‘lady adventurer’, as such! You can find out more about her walk here: https://www.adventuresforharriet.co.uk/

At Slightly Foxed we’re going to be supporting Katy by donating proceeds from book sales, and by sharing news of her journey through our news and social media channels. She’s an incredibly inspiring young woman and has already almost doubled her fund-raising goal of £1000, which is brilliant.

Just to give you a quick overview of what we’re doing.

· We’re donating 10% of the sale price of all books listed on our online shop here: https://foxedquarterly.com/products/adventures-for-harriet-a-literary-hike-from-rotterdam-to-istanbul/

· On Friday 24 March we ran this full-length article on A Time of Gifts in our newsletter to subscribers

· While Katy is away (1 – 20 May) we’re going to be sharing a daily extract from A Time of Gifts and other books, interspersed with Katy’s diary entries, original archive images and photos from her trip, on our blog and through social media channels.

· We’ll be using the tag #adventuresforharriet and #literaryadventure (among others) and will start to post fairly regularly from now on. Our Instagram and Twitter handles are @FoxedQuarterly and we’re on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/FoxedQuarterly/

Would there be an opportunity in an upcoming newsletter for you to share news of Katy’s adventure with your subscribers? And might you be able to share news in any other way, or temporarily encourage sales of the books though our channels to raise more money? We’d be happy to supply Andrew Merrills’s article for you to use.

It would be wonderful if we could coordinate efforts to help raise awareness of Katy’s walk, and bring a new generation of readers to the great PLF at the same time.

I hope to hear from you soon.

With all good wishes

Jennie

Clearly the issue of cancer is one that offers a challenge to us all, but the fact that Harriet could die from bowel cancer at the very young age of just 32 is a great tragedy. Read more on Katy’s website or donate directly via her Just Giving site here. I hope to keep you updated over the coming weeks.