'The long and dusty road': Comex travel cultures and Commonwealth citizenship on the Asian Highway

Cultural Geographies

Volumn 18, Issue 3, 2011, Pages 363-383

  Craggs, Ruth ^a  

^a ST MARY'S UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Asian Highway; Citizenship; Comex; Commonwealth; The road; Travel culture

Indexed keywords

CITIZENSHIP; COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS; CULTURAL IDENTITY; POST-COLONIALISM;

INDIA;

EID: 79959901643     PISSN: 14744740     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1474474010382074     Document Type: Article

References (165)

1. L. Gregory, Together Unafraid (London: Robert Hale, 1979), pp.13-14.
2. The second expedition in 1967 was made up of 320 members, the third in 1969, 500. http://www.xor.org. uk/comex/comex3background.htm
3. M. Crinson, Modern Architecture and the End of Empire (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003).
4. A. Ramamurthy, 'Images of Industrialization in Empire and Commonwealth during the Shift to Neo-colonialism', in S. Faulkner and A. Ramamurthy (eds) Visual Culture and Decolonisation in Britain (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 43-69.
5. P. Gordon Walker, The Commonwealth (London: Secker and Warburg, 1962).
6. D. Ingram, Commonwealth for a Colour-blind World (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1965).
7. J. Duncan and D. Gregory, Writes of Passage: Reading Travel Writing (London: Routledge, 1999).
8. F. Driver, Geography Militant (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001).
9. M. Bell, R. Butlin and M. Heffernan (eds) Geography and Imperialism 1820-1940 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995).
10. A. Godlewska and N. Smith, Geography and Empire (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994).
11. See for example D. Lambert and A. Lester (eds) Colonial Lives Across the British Empire: Imperial Careering in the long Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
12. A. Blunt, Travel, Gender and Imperialism: Mary Kingsley and West Africa (London: The Guilford Press, 1994).
13. M-L. Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992).
14. H-M. Teo, 'Wandering in the Wake of Empire: British Travel and Tourism in a Postimperial World', in S. Ward (ed.) British Culture and the End of Empire (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), pp. 163-79.
15. R. Phillips, 'Decolonizing Geographies of Travel: Reading James/Jan Morris', Social and Cultural Geographies, 2(1), 2001, pp. 5-24.
16. Teo, 'Wandering in the Wake of Empire'.
17. P. Fussell, Abroad: British Literary Travelling between the Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).
18. Teo, 'Wandering in the Wake of Empire'.
19. Duncan and Gregory, Writes of Travel.
20. A. Behdad, Belated Travellers: Orientalism in the Ages of Colonial Dissolution (London: Duke University Press, 1994).
21. P. Holland and G. Huggan, 'Varieties of Nostalgia in Contemporary Travel Writing', in G. Hooper and T. Youngs (eds) Perspectives on Travel Writing: Studies in European Cultural Transition (Volume 19) (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004).
22. M. Hunter, 'British Travel Writing and Imperial Authority', in K. Seigel (ed.) Issues in Travel Writing: Empire, Spectacle and Displacement (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2002).
23. Britain still held many colonies in 1965; however, the process of formal decolonization was by and large accepted in Britain by this point.
24. Blunt, Travel, Gender and Imperialism.
25. Driver, Geography Militant.
26. P. Ashmore, 'Placing Ideas and Ideas of Place: Ways of Knowing the British Empire's Resources, 1914-1930' (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sheffield, 2009).
27. R. Powell, 'Becoming a Geographical Scientist: Oral Histories of Arctic Fieldwork', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 33(4), 2008, pp. 548-65.
28. D. Matless, J. Oldfield and A. Swain, 'Geographically Touring the Eastern Bloc: British Geography, Travel Cultures and the Cold War', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 33(3), 2008, pp. 354-75.
29. N. Thomas, 'Embodying Imperial Spectacle: Lady Curzon, Vicereine of India 1899 to 1905', cultural geographies, 14(3), 2007, pp. 369-400.
30. H. Callaway, 'Dressing for Dinner in the Bush: Rituals of Self Definition and British Imperial Authority', in R. Barnes and J.B. Eicher (eds) Dress and Gender: Making and Meaning in Cultural Contexts (Oxford: Berg Press, 1993), pp. 232-47.
31. M. Heffernan, '"A Dream as Frail as those of Ancient Time": The In-credible Geographies of Timbuctoo', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 19(2), 2001, pp. 203-25.
32. D. Matless, 'Visual Culture and Geographical Citizenship: England in the 1940s', Journal of Historical Geography, 22(4), 1996, pp. 424-39.
33. D. Matless, Landscape and Englishness (London: Reaktion Books, 1998).
34. Phillips, 'Decolonizing Geography', p. 7.
35. L.H. McMillin, 'Enlightenment Travels: The Making of Epiphany in Tibet', in Duncan and Gregory, Writes of Passage, pp. 49-69, p. 49.
36. R. MacLean, Magic Bus: On the Hippie Train from Istanbul to India (London: Penguin, 2006).
37. K. Lackey, Road Frames: The American Highway Narrative (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997).
38. On the car, see for example P. Merriman, '"Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre": Assembling and Governing the Motorway Driver in Late 1950s Britain', Sociological Review, 54, 2006, pp. 75-92.
39. on the coach: T. Edensor and J. Holloway, 'Rhythmanalysing the Coach Tour: The Ring of Kerry, Ireland', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 33, 2008, pp. 483-501.
40. For other forms of transport see L. Budd, 'Producing Airspace: The Contested Geographies of Nottingham East Midlands Airport' (Unpublished PhD thesis, Loughborough University, 2007)
41. D. Cosgrove, 'Contested Global Visions: One-World, Whole-Earth, and Apollo Space Photographs', Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 84(2), 1994, pp. 270-94.
42. J. Foster 'Northward, Upward: Stories of Train Travel, and the Journey towards White South African Nationhood, 1895-1950', Journal of Historical Geography, 31, 2005, pp. 296-315.
43. For women's experiences of different forms of mobility see S. Smith, Moving Lives: Twentieth Century Women's Travel Writing (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001).
44. L. Gregory, Crying Drums: The Story of Comex, the Commonwealth Expedition (London: Allen and Unwin, 1972).
45. Gregory, Together Unafraid.
46. L. Gregory, Journey of a Lifetime (Plymouth: Northcote House, 1997).
47. P. Richardson, Reports from Beyond (Edinburgh: Ultima Thule Press, 2008).
48. J. Holman, Next Week the Moon: An Expedition to India (Bognor Regis: John Holman, 2009).
49. Interview with Patrick Richardson, Comex 2.
50. Interview with Martin Bennett, Comex 3.
51. The diary account is that of the Yorkshire Contingent of Comex 3 and the film was made by members of the Bristol Contingent of the same expedition. Comex film courtesy of Stephen Stewart. Although the film was originally to be shown on the BBC, this never materialized.
52. On diaries see J. Ryan, '"Our Home on the Ocean": Lady Brassey and the Voyages of the Sunbeam, 1878-86', Journal of Historical Geography, 32, 2006, pp. 579-604.
53. On home-made films see H. Norris Nicholson, 'In Amateur Hands: Framing Time and Space in Home Movies', History Workshop Journal, 43, 1997, pp. 198-212.
54. H. Norris Nicholson, 'Telling Travellers' Tales: The World through Home Movies, 1935-1967', in T. Cresswell and D. Dixon (eds) Engaging Film: Travel, Mobility and Identity (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), pp. 47-67.
55. Thank you to Martin Bennett for sharing his images and memories with me.
56. P. Holland and J. Spense (eds) Family Snaps: The meanings of Domestic Photography (London: Virago, 1991).
57. P. Holland and E. Sandon, '"Can Whiskey Come Too": Records of Family and Friendship in 1960s Malawi', in S. Faulkner and A. Ramamurthy (eds) Visual Culture and Decolonisation in Britain, pp. 153-87.
58. P. Holland and E. Sandon, 'Can Whiskey Come Too?', p. 176.
59. There are two Comex websites: http://www.comex40.org.uk/ and http://www.comex.org.uk/.
60. Duncan and Gregory, Writes of Passage, p. 4.
61. Gregory, quoting Prince Phillip, Journey of a Lifetime, p. 105.
62. L. Gregory, Journey of a Lifetime.
63. M.A. Marshall, 'Confidential memo on Comex 2', 29 November 1966, National Archives: DO 196/81.
64. K. Dodds, D. Lambert and B. Robison, 'Loyalty and Royalty: Gibraltar, the 1953-54 Royal Tour and Geopolitics of the Iberian Peninsula', Twentieth Century British History, 18(3), 2007, pp. 365-90.
65. Harper, '"Personal Contact is Worth a Ton of Text-Books": Educational Tours of the Empire, 1926-39', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 32(3), 2004, pp. 48-76.
66. K. Pickles, 'Exhibiting Canada: The 1928 English Schoolgirl Tour of Canada', Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 7(1), 2000, pp. 81-96.
67. 'Editorial', Cambridge Expeditions Journal (1967-8), p. 4. Thank you to Heike Jöns for this reference.
68. M. Dickson, A World Elsewhere: Voluntary Service Overseas (London: Dennis Dobson, 1964), p. 33.
69. J. Chadwick, 'The Commonwealth-a very lively corpse', Commonwealth Journal, 11(1), 1969, pp. 18-21, p. 19.
70. Gregory, Crying Drums, p. 19.
71. W. Webster, Englishness and Empire 1939-1965 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
72. Gregory, Journey of a Lifetime, p. 3.
73. Gregory, quoted in 'The Times Diary', The Times (7 February 1977), p. 14.
74. On road travel, transcendentalism and the pastoral, see K. Lackey, Road Frames.
75. Gregory, interviewed in the Comex film, 1969 (1 minute, 43 seconds).
76. Gregory, Crying Drums, p. 159.
77. The Yorkshire Contingent: http://www.xor.org.uk/comex/comex3diarye.htm.
78. The Lancaster Contingent: J. Holman, Next Week the Moon.
79. Gregory, Crying Drums.
80. Email correspondence with Martin Bennett. See Smith, Moving Lives for the masculine construction of motoring.
81. Interview with Patrick Richardson (25 October 2008). This gender and class bias is not commented upon or explained further in either Gregory's accounts, or those of other Comexers.
82. Email correspondence with Martin Bennett.
83. Email correspondence with Martin Bennett.
84. Email correspondence with Martin Bennett.
85. Gregory, Together Unafraid.
86. Interview with Patrick Richardson, Comex 2.
87. MacLean, Magic Bus, p. 6.
88. J. Jackson and E. Crampton, The Asian Highway: The Complete Overland Guide from Europe to Australia (Brighton: Angus and Robertson, 1979).
89. Jackson and Crampton, The Asian Highway, p. 7.
90. Gregory, Crying Drums, p. 236.
91. 'The long and dusty road' is a phrase used repeatedly in Gregory's accounts of Comex.
92. L. Gregory, 'Fifth Adventurous Contingent to Travel the Asian Highway', Commonwealth Journal, 16(3), 1972, pp. 65-69, p. 67.
93. Gregory, Journey of a Lifetime, p. 114.
94. Gregory, 'Fifth Adventurous Contingent', p. 66.
95. For the road as a contact zone in a different context see D. Swanton, 'Flesh, Metal, Road: Tracing the Machinic Geographies of Race', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space doi: 10.1068/d9507
96. Gregory, Together Unafraid, p. 13.
97. Gregory, 'Fifth Adventurous Contingent', p. 66.
98. D. Massey, 'A Global Sense of Place', Marxism Today, 35, 1991, pp. 24-9.
99. Gregory, Crying Drums, p. 18.
100. Gregory, Crying Drums, p. 22.
101. J. Urry, Sociology Beyond Societies (London: Routledge, 2000).
102. This vision of motor travel is disputed in Edensor and Holloway 'Rhythmanalising the Coach Tour'
103. and Merriman, 'Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre'.
104. Gregory, 'Fifth Adventurous Contingent', p. 68.
105. Gregory, Together Unafraid, p. 15.
106. M. Rendell, 'Youth and Empire', United Empire, 29, 1928, pp. 685-6, p. 686.
107. Gregory, Crying Drums, p. 18.
108. http://www.comex.org.uk/
109. P. Holland and E. Sandon, 'Can Whiskey Come Too?'.
110. Interview with two male Comexers on the Comex film, 1969 (13 minutes and 20 seconds; 15 minutes and 20 seconds; 8 minutes and 25 seconds).
111. Foster, 'Northward, Upward', p. 305.
112. Gregory, Crying Drums, p. 31.
113. Gregory, Crying Drums, pp. 182-3.
114. Interview with Patrick Richardson.
115. Extract from the diary of the Yorkshire Contingent of Comex 3 for Friday 12 September 1969. http:// www.comex.org.
116. Extract from the diary of the Yorkshire Contingent of Comex 3 for Thursday 7 August 1969 http://www. comex.org.
117. Extract from the diary of the Yorkshire Contingent of Comex 3 for Friday 8 August 1969 http://www. comex.org.
118. Diary of the Yorkshire Contingent of Comex 3, Thursday 25 September 1969 http://www.comex.org.
119. Gregory, 'Fifth Adventurous Contingent', p. 65.
120. Gregory, 'Fifth Adventurous Contingent', p. 66.
121. Interview with Patrick Richardson.
122. Interview with Patrick Richardson; private correspondence with Martin Bennett.
123. A. Walton, quoted in Gregory, Crying Drums, p. 69.
124. Extract from the diary of the Yorkshire Contingent of Comex 3 for Thursday 14 August 1969 http://www. comex.org.
125. Gregory quoted in K. Cubitt, 'Armed with a Song and Not a Sword', The Times, 24 May 1972, p. 12.
126. E. Rowell quoted in Gregory, Crying Drums, p. 99.
127. E. Rowell quoted in Gregory, Crying Drums, p. 100.
128. Cubitt, 'Armed with a Song', p. 12.
129. Gregory, Crying Drums, p. 184.
130. Gregory, Crying Drums, p. 67.
131. Gregory quoted in Cubitt, 'Armed with a Song', p. 12.
132. Gregory, Crying Drums, p. 178.
133. Gregory, Crying Drums, p. 50.
134. Gregory, quoted in Cubitt, 'Armed with a Song', p. 12.
135. Diary of the Yorkshire Contingent of Comex 3, Sunday 10 August 1969 http://www.comex.org.
136. Diary of the Yorkshire Contingent of Comex 3, Sunday 14 September 1969 http://www.comex.org.
137. Diary of the Yorkshire Contingent of Comex 3, Wednesday 17 September 1969 http://www.comex.org.
138. Interview with male Comexer on the Comex film, 1969 (13 minutes 4 seconds).
139. Diary of the Yorkshire Contingent of Comex 3, 10 August 1969 http://www.comex.org.
140. Interview with Patrick Richardson.
141. An Indian Minister quoted in Gregory, Journey of a Lifetime, p. 212.
142. Gregory, 'Fifth Adventurous Contingent', p. 66.
143. Gregory quoted in Cubitt, 'Armed with a Song', p. 12.
144. Gregory, 'Fifth Adventurous Contingent', p. 67.
145. Gregory, Crying Drums, p. 66.
146. Gregory, 'Fifth Adventurous Contingent', p. 68.
147. Gregory, Crying Drums, p. 221.
148. For the use of other routes to encourage civilized behaviour, see D. Matless, C. Watkins and P. Merchant, 'Nature Trails: The Production of Instructive Landscapes in Britain, 1960-1972', Rural History, 21, 2010, pp. 97-131.
149. Ramamurthy 'Images of Industrialisation'.
150. D. Ingram, Partners in Adventure (London: Pan, 1950).
151. On the relations between Commonwealth and imperial discourse see, for example, P. Noxolo 'Claims: A Postcolonial Critique of "Partnership" in Britain's Development Discourse', Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 27, 2006, pp. 254-69.
152. M. Power, 'The Commonwealth, "Development" and Post-Colonial Responsibility', Geoforum, 40, 2009, pp. 4-24.
153. Crinson, Modern Architecture.
154. Interview with Patrick Richardson.
155. Interview with participant on the Comex film, 1969 (15 minutes).
156. Interview with participants on the Comex film, 1969 (7 minutes 10 seconds).
157. For example, see the autobiography of Stephen Stewart at http://www.comex.org.uk/
158. Interview with Patrick Richardson.
159. Holman Tomorrow the Moon, p. 7.
160. Email correspondence with Martin Bennett.
161. Interview with Patrick Richardson; email correspondence with Martin Bennett; Holman, Tomorrow the Moon.
162. Fussell, Abroad.
163. Maclean, Magic Bus. Of course the losses and violence suffered by those living in many of these countries are far more immediate.
164. Holman, Tomorrow the Moon, p. 4.
165. H. Lorimer, 'Telling Small Stories: Spaces of Knowledge and the Practice of Geography', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 28, 2003, pp. 197-217, p. 199.