My favourite book

Flood Tide by John Ridgway – Completed (for the 6th time) 4 May 2015

This is undoubtedly my favourite book bar none. I have now read it 6 times (though its 16 years since I last read it on a 16 hour flight aboard an RAF Tristar from Mount Pleasant Falkland Islands to Brize Norton). It is this book (along with the Ridgway’s later ‘Then We Sailed Away’) that has inspired the 2nd part of my life including my decision to leave the RAF in 2001 in order to follow my own path. Though my life possesses little of the adventure that is recorded here some key concepts that I have taken from this book are Self-Reliance; Positive Thinking; ‘Being is better than having ‘ and don’t be afraid to borrow from the future.
Written in 1988, during a then record breaking 203 day non-stop circumnavigation (beating the previous record by 30 days), the book tells the story of how the Ridgway’s settled in Ardmore and of the first 20 years the John Ridgeway School of Adventure. This however is not simply an autobiographical work as it is Ardmore itself and the dwindling community of crofters then living there that are the real stars. This cast changes as the older generations of crofters die or move away but life is brought to the community by the new influx of people to support the Adventure School in particular Lance and Ada Bell and the various instructors on the annual courses. The book has a wide cast of characters.

Ridgway tells of how the Adventure school s set up with the help of Rod Liddon and his wife in 1968/9 from where it moves to the early courses that are run and the Liddon’s departure. In addition to the running of the Adventure School a living was extracted from the land by Ridgway and his neighbours crofting activities ranging from peat-cutting to fishing to setting up one of the earliest Salmon farms in the Highlands and eventually to the acquisition of a flock of sheep.

The story of the adventure school courses and of the crofting life is complemented by the stories of the winter adventures that Ridgway carried out in order to ‘recharge the batteries’. These trips are covered in other books by the author however sufficient details are here to provide a taster for each of the trips recounted which are:

1970 First expedition to the furthest source to mouth of Amazon. On this expedition John met Elvin Berg (who would be burned alive by Shining Path terrorists in 1985)
1972 First crossing Gran Campo Nevado Ice-cap, Patagonia, Southern Chile.
1973 English Rose V, 32-foot sloop. Winter family sailing voyage Ardmore to the Spanish Sahara to give Rebecca Ridgway an adventure prior to leaving for boarding school
1977/78 English Rose VI, 57-foot ketch Whitbread Round World Race.
1979 John and Marie Christine’s Himalayan journey in Nepal
1980 John and Marie Christine’s preparation for and running of the New York Marathon
1983/4 With Andy Briggs, in English Rose VI, a then record 203-day non-stop sailing circumnavigation of World
1985 Peruvian expedition into the Shining Path infested Apurimac Valley. Planned to celebrate Rebecca's completion of school on this expedition led to the discovery of Elvin Berg's fate and the discovery of his 6 year old daughter Elizabeth who would be adopted and taken to Ardmore by the Ridgways.

It is now 27 years since I first read this book and it has lost none of its appeal . It is the only book I have read 6 times and there is a reason for that – in short it is a fascinating and inspirational tale. Although it is well complemented by the 1996 ‘Then We Sailed Away’ it is a shame that John Ridgway has not written a sequel as this book draws you into the lives of those mentioned and it would be nice, though perhaps painful, to discover what happened to the residents at Ardmore as the book closes in 1988. I do know that John and Marie Christine retired in 2003 and that Rebecca now runs the adventure school but its hard to believe that the hyperactive Mr Ridgway has simply sat with his feet up and slippers on for the last 12 years!