David Shaw-Parker is a masterful narrator. This is an intriguing story and a fascinating time. I sometimes had a hard time following it. I should have had my atlas by my side. ( )

I only recently came across a mention of this author – in a book on trains by Ludovic Kennedy (A Book of Railway Journeys http://www.librarything.com/work/book/94274899) - and was immediately attracted by his “voice” (prose and writing style) in the extracts from his various journeys. This brother of the James Bond author claims that he was “the brother to which nothing ever happens”. Given his various careers in the Guards Regiment, his war experiences in helping to create the British equivalent of the Nazi “Werewolves’, his explorations in Brazil and his extensive travels as a Times (of London) journalist this cannot be taken as just a shy, modest, British understatement, It is a transparent lie! In fact so many adventures did Peter have in his life that there are statements that his brother’s Bond character was based partly on him.

This declaiming modesty – more than partly humorous – is laid out in the preface to this book, clearly stating Fleming’s acknowledgement of his limitations as a “China Watcher” for The Times:”The author of this book is twenty-six years old. He has spent, altogether, about seven months in China. He does not speak Chinese”. Despite this modest disclaimer it is a brilliant book, despite the rather acidic review I found in The Asian Review by Paul French.

I would like to be able to communicate how much I enjoyed this book, his human observations, wit and slightly ‘Bertie Wooster’ views and encourage you to read this wonderfully engaging author. He continues this self-mocking humour even in death. He travelled widely in far places; Wrote, and was widely read. Soldiered, saw some of danger's faces, Came home to Nettlebed. The squire lies here, his journeys ended –Dust, and a name on a stone –Content, amid the lands he tended, To keep this rendezvous alone.so reads Peter Flemings own authored epitaph on his tomb-stone in his home town, forever a “piece of England” he held dear.

And note that one is still alone, keeping own own’s company.

ONE'S COMPANY
He's the brother of Ian Fleming. He says that nothing ever happened to him, so he could be called the »uneventfull brother«. Which is as far from the truth as possible. His first book was Brazilian Adventure. One's Company is an account of his travels in China in 1933; he travelled with Trans Siberian Railway, stopped in Japanese Manchukou, met Pu Yi, the last emperor, chased bandits with Japanese army through the mountains, went into »red« China, met Chang Kai - shek, the Kuonmintang leader, travelled along roads that were »in the building«, and ended up in Canton. His prose is dry humor, verry »personal«, always funny, the descriptions short but smart. Like this: »Public opinion in England is sharply divided on the subject of Russia. On the one hand you have the crusty majority, who believe it to be a hell on earth; on the other you have the half-baked minority who believe it to be a terrestrial paradise in the making. Both cling to their opinions with the tenacity, respectively, of the die-hard and the fanatic. Both are hopelessly wrong.«
If you are interested in China, and especially in times that were the build up for present, than this is a fast, fun reading. ( )

Well worth re-reading as the China-will-conquer-all hysteria rises to fever pitch. Read in conjunction with MacCartney at Kashgar and Foreign Devils on the Silk Road ( )