Wheels within Wheels : The Makings of a Traveller
Publisher: Eland Publishing Ltd
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A first-hand account of the life of travel writer Dervla Murphy, in which she tells of her early years in Lismore, Co. Waterford, in her rather unusual household. Her father was the county librarian and her mother a chronic invalid. An only child, Dervla was allowed from the age of seven to freely roam on her own. At ten, she cycled ten miles to a local mountain, climbed it, then lost herself on the way down, and was forced to stay out all night—much to the distress of her parents.
Living in a house that was crumbling around their ears, she reveals how her family hid a Republican who was later hanged, how she tested herself (with hot water) to increase her pain threshold, and how she avoided an insane and shrieking maid who was convinced that Dervla's parents were fried eggs. She also recounts how she helped another maid give birth under the kitchen table.
An early love of books and writing led her to enter a competition arranged by a local newspaper, where she won first prize for five weeks in a row—a glimpse of the remarkable writer she would become.
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