The year is 1955, the place Kenya. A group of four British eccentrics set out to drive from Nairobi to London, via the Sahara desert, in a Morris Traveller. Under the leadership of Alan Cooper, a down-onhis-luck coffee grower, the group was made up of a worldly field biologist who recorded the whole trip on her 8mm cine camera, a genteel schoolmistress in search of romance, and a 17-year-old boy whose mother insisted that the trip would make a man of him. Ill-prepared and foolish, their journey turns into a nightmare in the heart of Cameroon's desert, where their car continually breaks down and supplies begin to run out. This true story of disaster and survival captures the essence of adventure travel, making compelling holiday reading for the explorer within.

'Trek', by Paul Stewart is published by Corgi, /12

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