People often asked me how I came to be doing this. There are four main issues that inspired the challenge.
1) I have always wanted to do the Trans-Siberian Railway’s Trans-Mongolian route. When I was a child, I was always told that things that went missing “would probably end up in Outer Mongolia”. I can’t wait to see this place! I am also fascinated by the tales of Marco Polo and Genghis Khan and I want to see the Great Wall of China, the Gobi Desert, the Kremlin and the Pearl Of Siberia.
2) I am a writer! Although currently working as a journalist, I have written poetry, stories and prose all my life and my BA (Hons) degree is in Creative Writing and Publishing with Political Studies, though my HND is in Journalism. When I saw an advert in the autumn 2006 Mslexia looking for women writers to travel China and write a book, I was fascinated and was one of 11 from across the UK to get involved. By autumn 2007 there were still eight interested and five met in the most central home, which was in Derbyshire. Unfortunately by January 2008, all but Nikki Bennett-Willetts and myself had dropped out and we decided we wanted to do the Trans-Siberian.
3) I have been a supporter of the Earl Mountbatten Hospice since the mid-1990s and have regularly done Walk The Wight. A number of my friends have been cared for in their final days by the hospice team.
4) In 2007, my colleague on the next desk at the newspaper was Jeremy Price, who thought it was a great laugh that this group of lady writers was going off across China to write a book together. He said one morning: “What you all need is a challenge to keep you all writing”, and we both laughed. I didn’t think any more about it until after his death in October 2007 (at the hospice) and after the others had dropped out. Nikki and I felt it would be impractical for just two of us to write a book, so we decided we should work on our own writing projects. I have done similar writing challenges in the past and decided to do the Trans-Siberian Writing Challenge in memory of Jeremy. I am always sensitive to how people feel about me doing things, but I happy to say his wife said I should tell people how he has inspired me, while his sister and parents have sponsored me!
