1. Eric Newby's works include A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, The Last Grain Race and A Small Place in Italy.
10 Facts About Eric Newby
1. 2.
Eric Newby's father, George, was a partner in a firm of wholesale dressmakers, and his mother, Hilda had been a dress model at Harrods.
3.
Eric Newby was educated at St Paul's School; after leaving school he worked for two years at the Dorland advertising agency until 1938 when, at the age of 18, he apprenticed aboard the Finnish windjammer Moshulu and took part in the "grain race" from Australia to Europe by way of Cape Horn.
4.
Eric Newby served in the Black Watch and the Special Boat Section, and was captured during an operation against the coast of Sicily in August 1942.
5.
Eric Newby was awarded the Military Cross in 1946 for his part in the raid.
6.
Eric Newby was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp, PG21, at Chieti, a few miles inland from Pescara on the Adriatic coast, and later to PG49 at Fontanellato, near Parma.
7.
Eric Newby was free until January 1944, when he was recaptured.
8.
From 1964 to 1973, Eric Newby was Travel Editor for The Observer newspaper.
9.
Eric Newby was awarded a CBE in 1994 and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the British Guild of Travel Writers in 2001.
10.
Eric Newby's last published book was A Book of Lands and Peoples, which appeared in 2003.