Pedal for Your Life By Christopher Portway A remarkable true story that weaves together the author's recollections of capture and escape in Nazi-occupied Europe with an account of a cycle journey undertaken with his son through the same countries fifty years later. ISBN-13: 9780718829469 Specifications: 216x138mm, 192pp, Hardback Price: £17.50 • US$37.50 Publication: September 1996 Order this Title Now

About this Book

To mark his 70th year, travel writer Christopher Portway, together with his son Paul, undertook a 2000-mile bicycle journey between the Baltic and the Black Sea. Christopher describes their journey delightfully, his expert eye and knowledge painting the scenery and filling in the history of the countries they pass through. Camping in their tiny bivouac but occasionally accepting the spontaneous hospitality of kind hosts, the pair were to see for themselves how the long-suffering peoples of eastern Europe are adjusting to their new-found but fragile freedom from communism.

But this is more than the narrative of a remarkable and eventful journey. For Christopher it was also a pilgrimage down memory lane, since he is no stranger to eastern Europe. Interwoven with the narrative is the story of an incredible saga of adventure, romance, drama, and the stubborn determination of an earlier era.

Taken prisoner by the Germans in World War Two he was put to work in a Polish coal mine. Escaping on foot, jumping goods trains and ensconced in a first class compartment of a passenger train, he attempted to reach the Russian Front but was caught by the Gestapo to be sent to the transit cage of Auschwitz. On his second escape following the hideous occurrences of the mass migration away from the advancing Russians (the 'Death March') he was offered succour by a Czechoslovakian family - and fell in love with the 19-year-old daughter. Later recaptured but escaping yet again, Christopher ended the war with the American Third Army.

The flashbacks continue, following renewed contact with Anna after the War, with his almost superhuman attempts to gain entry to communist Czechoslovakia, by then virtually impregnable behind the Iron Curtain. Cutting his way through triple electrified fences and negotiating a minefield, he was ambushed and given a 104-year prison sentence, but released after four months and an international incident, and pronounced persona non grata by the Czechoslovakian authorities.

During his subsequent five-year private war against the communist regime, Christopher’s further attempts - some successful - to breach the Iron Curtain and meet Anna resulted in arrest and expulsion, whilst Anna herself was being increasingly harassed by the secret police. Finally, divested of her nationality and possessions, she was permitted to emigrate to Britain. The reunited couple married 12 years after they had first met.

The Czechoslovakian regime’s revenge then fell upon Anna’s family; but her younger sister and brother-in-law managed to escape to Yugoslavia. Joined by Christopher, they mounted three assaults on the Yugoslav-Italian border, finally escaping to the West.

Almost 50 years later, cycling through little-known regions of east Poland, east Slovakia, north-east Hungary and Transylvania, the author revisits the locations of his often hair-raising earlier exploits, a saga which involved not only the Czech secret police and the KGB but also the UN, the CIA and the British intelligence services. Brilliantly merged, his two tales highlight the fascinating contrast between life now and life in what seems a much earlier age, full of adventure, romance, and danger.

Read the Foreword by Joanna Lumley here.

Reviews and Comments

"...dramatic story of escape, recapture, and escape is also a love story... As well as detailing a contemporary journey which will impress any traveller and cyclist the book is an evocative real-life trip down memory lane."
Jeannine Williamson, Evening Argus

"A clever publishing device - printing in alternate typeface melds past and present so that you are never confused; the pleasures, discoveries and frustrations he and his son enjoyed on their contemporary cycle ride come equally to life with history in colourful medieval cities and searing recollection....many thought provoking pages... wry, funny, informative, highly observant and - oh yes - this book is also a non-fictional love story. The story of... Anna and the daunting setbacks Christopher overcame to find her again is tenderly interwoven."
Margaret Hides, Magic Carpet Ride

"...fascinating combination of travel writing, wartime memories as a soldier and prisoner of war, and post-war romance behind the Iron Curtain."
Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Newsletter

About the Author

Christopher Portway was born in rural Essex and currently lives in Brighton. Married, he has a son and a daughter. He is a member of the British Guild of Travel Writers and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. For his Baltic to the Black Sea journey he was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship. His eventful life continues, with numerous world travels, many of an expeditionary nature, some of which are recounted in his earlier books.