Canoes on the Rushmere by Walter Whitmore

Thanks to Nature Travels

Title: Canoes on the Rushmere

Text: Walter Whitmore

Photography: Leslie Searle

Publisher: Ross and Cromarty 

Source book: To Love and Be Wise by Josephine Tey (Inspector Grant #4)

Walter Whitmore, a celebrated radio broadcaster from Orfordshire in the South of England, and Leslie Searle, a celebrity photographer of celebrities from California, plan a travel book together. They plan to walk from the source of the little river Rushmere until it becomes navigable by canoe, and then take to the water and journey down to the sea at Mere Harbour.

Two canoes are purchased, and because Leslie declares it is always afternoon on the Rushmere, they are named Pip and Emma, as in PM, or afternoon. Quite apart from the lack of mobile phones and easily portable cameras, what dates this book is the use of the expression ‘Pip and Emma’ for PM. It was once commonplace, but seems to have completely gone out of use and is scarcely remembered today. It also features in Agatha Christie’s A Murder is Announced in which twins who were born just after noon are nicknamed Pip and Emma.

Walter is to write the text of Canoes on the Rushmere and Leslie to photograph their journey; first with a little handheld camera and then returning to the most beautiful spots with a larger more professional camera. Determined to carry out their plan as authentically as possible, the adventurers are camping by the river.

The evening they set up camp near the village of Salcott St Mary, where Walter lives, and Leslie has been staying, the travellers visit the local pub. Halfway through the evening the pub door closes firmly behind Walter. He has left in a bit of a temper. Leslie stays late talking to friends from the village and leaves by himself. Next morning Walter wakes to find he is on his own at the campsite. 

Leslie Searle has disappeared on his way back to the camp. Has he fallen into the river and drowned? Or was he pushed? Scotland Yard, in the person of Inspector Allan Grant, is called in to investigate.

Thanks to Mature Times