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a change of route, and lunch plans

8/1/2024

That beautiful gaol building no longer exists but I found some old photos and it seemed worth the effort of drawing it...

Needed another footnote here. I'm not sure if Holding has mis-typed 'praties' as 'prates' or if that's his own jokey shortened form of the word. But even if I'd changed his spelling to the former, that's not going to be immediately understood, is it?

And look! They managed to get some buttermilk this time!

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the Round Tower and Castlebar

24/12/2023

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I don't like to add footnotes unless really necessary as it feels condescending to explain things people already know... but in the end I realised I needed one for the first panel on page 35. Non-British and even younger Brits in my small sample didn't get what that sentence meant, so I've just added a note about public houses.

Holding himself had a few footnotes in his own text - something about history of the CTC (Cyclists Touring Club), the source for his tent poles being a fishing rod maker in Cheltenham, that sort of thing.

But perhaps he only added these as footnotes because he was typing on a typewriter? Maybe I can and should just include them in the relevant panels, and avoid any confusion that way between min and his!

Mine are being added in purple to differentiate, but I don't think it does the job. Alternatively I could use numbers for mine, and asterisks for his? There aren't very many of either his or mine, anyway...

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... and arriving at the Round Tower of Turlough

9/12/2023

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That station opened only three years before Holding and company cycled past it, and closed in 1963. It's now a house, which I found a photo of but from a different angle. Luckily I'd also managed to come across an old black and white photo of it as a station.

It's this kind of silly research into things that arguably don't even matter that's making this project take so long! Trouble is, I enjoy it too much.

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Leaving Bellavary

28/11/2023

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Asking directions and distances in Ireland...

7/11/2023

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And it turns out there's another complication, to do with English miles and Irish miles, which I didn't realise until very recently!

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Buttermilk, again

13/10/2023

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Speaking of buttermilk, as we last were two posts ago, back in August (what?? where does the time go?!), the conversation continues, and concludes with Holding's theory on why English people so often are not allowed any...

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Gaps and tin-openers

25/9/2023

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TH Holding has a lot to say about all sorts of subjects besides just bicycles and tents.

Here, as they go into a field to have their first lunch on the road after obtaining baked potatoes and jugs of water and buttermilk from a cottage, he comments at length about gaps in hedgerows, and about tin-openers. It was a lot of fun looking up the various kinds of tin-openers which were in use in the late 1890s.

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The trouble with buying buttermilk

1/8/2023

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Being eternally agreeable...

13/6/2023

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A little more about getting along, then it's back on the bikes. Though crossing the "wonderful" Moy river leads Holding into thoughts about international trade, of course.

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Getting along

17/5/2023

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After all his detailed explanation of what's wrong with Bantam bicycles on a cycling tour over the past few pages, Holding is now careful to point out that disagreements and "grumbling" have no place on any sort of expedition.

"May not patience and forbearance stifle every cross feeling?"

This was a rather difficult page to figure out, and I'm not sure I've done it justice yet but will leave it here for now in the interests of keeping the momentum going!

We'll be back on the road very soon, heading for Castlebar via Ballylahon...

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What's this all about??

I'm making a true-story graphic novel called
Two Shilings a Day.
Read synopsis here.

Touring and camping with a bicycle is a common activity today but imagine the first time this was attempted, 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 woollen three-piece suits!

Thomas Hiram Holding, an experienced cyclist and camping enthusiast, combined these two pastimes in 1897 when he designed 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, from a time of horse-drawn mailcars, kitchens with peat fires, and farmhouses shared with cattle. Part travelogue round rural west Ireland and
part how-to manual - including sewing ones own tent - I'm showing his adventure using entirely his own idiosyncratic 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 change of route, and lunch plans

the Round Tower and Castlebar

... and arriving at the Round Tower of Turlough

Leaving Bellavary

Asking directions and distances in Ireland...

Buttermilk, again

Gaps and tin-openers

The trouble with buying buttermilk

Being eternally agreeable...

Getting along

What's this all about??

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Michi Mathias illustration & comics