BOOK REVIEW
THE LAST HURRAH and NO ONE SAID IT WOULD BE EASY
REVIWED BY Kevin Kinghan
So , not one book but two , and a bonus DVD as well ... Let me sort this out a bit ... Des Molloy wrote The Last Hurrah before his retrospective tale , No One Said It Would Be Easy , but they tie together in a very cool and quite unique way . That link means , in my humble opinion , you ought to buy both and I have a suggestion on their consumption as well .
NO ONE SAID IT WOULD BE EASY Start reading the story of Des , his travelling companion , the late , great Dick Huurdeman and their support , cameraman , able-bodied assistant , Steve ( Des ’ son ) and their epic journey in The Last Hurrah . And , as soon as you start picturing the old bangers ( to the British classic enthusiasts , sorry , not sorry ) chuffing along their unlikely path ... then put the book down . With the questions that arise fresh in your mind , start reading No One Said It would Be Easy - and read the whole thing . No One Said It would Be
Easy takes you , along with an enthusiastically naive Des and his friends , from their UK base to Canada , and from there to Uruguay , on what , even then , were old bangers . What you are entering is a trip down memory lane if your hair is grey or absent , and an insight into your parents ’ world if you are not old enough to recall a divided Europe ( current situation aside ) and a time before mobile phones , the internet and , at many borders , anything resembling travel-friendly border crossings . It was a carefree time , the 1970s – for some anyway . The journey was done with no real concept of what was needed , financially or logistically , and the book contains admissions of the flaws , a classic love story and what a positive attitude can achieve on a shoestring . The intrepid travellers skirted with financial ruin and the very real prospect of being stranded in a foreign country with no easy way out . They went to the amazing places , Mayan ruins etc , before the tourism industry became the allconsuming money machine , and the mix of all of the above reveals the unlikely romantic side of the trip . Why that particular destination ? You ’ ll have to read it for yourself , but the humble way it is portrayed adds the colour that the old black and white photographs lack . It really does hark back to a time remembered by many today , but so much has changed that younger readers may find it difficult to visualise what is pretty recent history . As such , it will dust off many memories for those who did their OE back then . It was a time when international air travel was in its infancy and communication with home-base
Chaco ’ s repair underway ( left ) and completed ( right ) 100 KIWI RIDER