Scottish book of the week

Riding Route 94: An Accidental Journey Through the Story of Britain David McKie, Pimpernel Press, £9.99.

On previous journeys through Britain, David McKie headed for places he had heard of and was eager to see. But how representative a picture of the country could that provide? And what, he wondered, might happen if he left it to chance?

And so the author decided to travel only where he was taken by buses with the number 94, stopping off along the way to visit unexpected places.

These buses take him across the isle of Mull, to the furthest reaches of Cornwall, through the post-industrial landscape of Middlesbrough, and to a whole mix of destinations, some privileged, some bereft and some in between. One of the rides even features the 94 from St Andrews to Newburgh.

On his travels, McKie finds similar themes emerging: Why do some communities thrive and grow while others seem set on a course of inevitable decline?

What kind of urban landscape have we inherited from the post-war planners, whose best intentions all too often took little account of how people actually want to live?

And how much are our opportunities and expectations shaped by the communities we are born into?

As McKie says in his introduction, this is not a book about buses; it’s a book about where they take you.

“I have called it an accidental journey though the story of Britain because I wanted to avoid being able to choose where I visited,” he explains.

Dense type makes the book a little hard on the eyes and it would have been an added bonus if some photographs of the places the author visits were included.

Minor gripes aside, this is a fascinating, informative, entertaining and often poignant account of our islands seen from a different viewpoint.