The Big Issue

Off the rails with a romantic vagabond

o you remember your first train trip? I do. I was five years old in the tow of my grandmother on a three-day journey through the Canadian Rockies in coaches pulled by a steam engine. It was a short hop to a lifetime of wishing to be “elsewhere”. A song that decade bred my wanderlust. American hit reached number one on the UK chart in 1963 in a recording by Frank Ifield. Its lyrics rationalised my behaviour: “And I guess the sound of the outward

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Big Issue

The Big Issue9 min readCrime & Violence
The Dispatch
Civil servants tasked with delivering the government’s plans to criminalise homelessness have “low morale” and are tired of “crackpot Tory ideas”, a government insider working on the Criminal Justice Bill has told The Big Issue. The controversial bil
The Big Issue3 min read
Is Foraging A Way To Feel Fully Human?
To me, greens are found in the supermarket, prepackaged with a price tag. Foraging has never occurred to me. But reading foraging aficionado Andy Hamilton’s new book, The First-Time Forager, I wondered if I’ve been missing out on something spectacula
The Big Issue3 min read
Film
Would it work if it was Subbuteo? That was a question that bubbled up in my mind even as I was being happily swept along by the ravishing new film from Italian sensualist Luca Guadagnino, the acclaimed director who pierced both hearts and peaches wit

Related Books & Audiobooks