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A research daytrip to Coventry

16/11/2016

I'm going to Coventry tomorrow.

Because it's the headquarters of the Camping and Caravanning Club of Great Britain.

Which kindly replied to my recent enquiry asking whether they had any more photos of their founder, Thomas Hiram Holding, in addition to the one on their history page on their website.

As Holding was a pioneer of camping in the 1800s and wrote a book in 1897 called Cycle and Camp about the first camping trip by bicycle.

Which I'm turning into a graphic novel.

And I can't wait to see more reference photos and other material from that first trip which will help make my work better. The CCC has an archivist who works there on Tuesdays, and he's already made me a copy of one of Holding's publications from that time which I'm missing.

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I'm making a true-story graphic novel...

Touring and camping with a bicycle is a common activity today, but it was not so easy in the late 19th century when cycles were heavy steel with just one gear, roads were unpaved, batteries and nylon and zippers didn't exist, and even outdoor activities were undertaken in woolen three-piece suits!

Travel back in time to meet the master tailor Thomas Hiram Holding, a keen cyclist and camping enthusiast. He combined these two pastimes in 1897 when he invented a lightweight portable tent and embarked on a pioneering cycle-camping tour with three friends in Ireland.

This graphic novel is a faithful adaptation of Holding's own book Cycle and Camp, bringing to life a time of horse-drawn mailcars, kitchens with peat fires for cooking, and farmhouses shared with cattle. Part travelogue round rural west Ireland and part how-to manual - including sewing ones own tent - his adventure is re-told entirely in his own idiosyncratic and rather opinionated words.

Holding’s fervent wish that anyone could now enjoy a holiday in the country without exorbitant cost proved so popular that he started a cycle-camping organisation, an organisation that became today’s Camping and Caravanning Club.

A research daytrip to Coventry

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Michi Mathias illustration & comics