Along the Enchanted Way

Synopsis: When William Blacker first crossed the snow-bound passes of northern Romania, he stumbled upon an almost medieval world. There, for many years he lived side by side with the country people, a life ruled by the slow cycle of the seasons, far away from the frantic rush of the modern world. In spring as the pear trees blossomed he ploughed with horses, in summer he scythed the hay meadows and in the freezing winters gathered wood by sleigh from the forest. From sheepfolds harried by wolves, to courting expeditions in the snow, he experienced the traditional way of life to the full, and became accepted into a community who treated him as one of their own. But Blacker was also intrigued by the Gypsies, those dark, foot-loose strangers of spell-binding allure who he saw passing through the village. Locals warned him to stay clear but he fell in love and there followed a bitter struggle. Change is now coming to rural Romania, and William Blacker's adventures will soon be part of its history. From his early carefree days tramping the hills of Transylvania, to the book's poignant ending, Along the Enchanted Way transports us back to a magical country world most of us thought had vanished long ago.

Review: I'm not much of a traveller but I do like reading about it. William doesn't just travel through Romania, he falls in love with it and that's what makes this particular book enchanting. He's a man with wanderlust, a bit of a free spirit, a man who hates city life and treading on pavements.

We join William as he heads out of London towards Berlin just after the fall of the wall, from there he heads eastwards through Dresden, Prague, Bohemia, Slovakia and Hungary and several days later reaches the Romanian frontier. It's a tumultuous time in Romania, the country has ceased to be under communist rule, after the execution of Ceauşescu, and it's still in some disarray. William is a sort of happy go lucky traveller and so he's not particularly equipped to deal with the freezing conditions or the scarcity of food but amazingly it's not long before he's invited into the home of some local peasant people and given a bowl of soup and a hunk of bread to help him on his way. This is by no means an isolated incident, William finds the generosity of the local people staggering. He is welcomed into homes, given shelter and sent to the front of bread queues .. payment is refused .. he is their honoured guest (and yet they don't know him from Adam.) I have to admit that if a stranger knocked on my door asking for refreshments (as William sometimes did) I would be extremely suspicious and wouldn't let them in. It made me sad to think of it.This visit is only a short one, but Romania has cast a spell over William and he spends the next few years trying to free himself of ties and obligations which will enable him to return and in 1996 he succeeds.

The Romanian people continue to live as they have done for centuries, they farm the land, produce their own food, bottle and preserve, make their own exquisite tools, clothes, shoes and never travel much further than their local doorstep. But they're not inward thinking, they're inquisitive and ask William many questions about life in England (not really understanding why we all don't keep cows!) In Maramureş he meets an elderly couple Mihai and Maria and starts a friendship which is to last until the end of their days, more than a friendship in fact for Mihai and Maria come to look on William as the son they never had, sharing their home with him, teaching him the local customs, working with him on the land, making him clothes and shoes. William continued to travel and Mihai would always wave him off with tears in his eyes and eagerly await his return. As William says of the Romanian people .. 'they knew the great secret of being happy with little. Is there something of a sham about the modern world - are we, in the western world, for all our wealth and washing machines, any happier than these people - emphatically no.'

But you know boys will be boys and men will be men, and the day that William sets eyes on Natalia, a gypsy girl from Halma, is the day when rational thought jumps out of the window. Natalia is beautiful (and there's a photo to prove it) with her dark hair, flashing eyes and fiery temper and it's not long before William is in a whole heap of trouble. He decides that the trouble is worth the risk and, after some haphazard correspondence between them, he leaves on a visit that will keep him away from Maramureş for some time. Life with the gypsies is every bit as tumultuous as you would imagine, they have a completely different work ethic to the ordinary Romanians. They live in the moment, and put pleasure before toil, it doesn't occur to them to save for a rainy day so during winter they have very little food and have to beg or borrow it. William finds that the local people, who were once so fond of him, turn away from him once they realise that he has disregarded their ominous warnings about consorting with the gypsies. But thankfully not Mihai and Maria, for one thing they're not judgmental and for another they love William .. they would love for him to meet a nice Romanian girl (and there are several excrutiating attempts at this) but whatever he decides is fine with them.

William for his part soon learns some harrowing tales from the gypsies, shocking accounts of hostility, corruption and police brutality and it's not long before he experiences it first hand. Ultimately though, although he is incredibly fond of them, life with the gypsies doesn't suit (and really, you could have told him long before that it would never work out ... they were just too different) and William decides to leave. He now spends his time divided between England and Romania (for he still has one very precious reason for returning often.) He's been active too in campaigning for the preservation of the ancient Saxon villages and their buildings and churches (in fact he did a lot of repair work himself whilst there).. so much so that he's managed to persuade Prince Charles to come on board.

Sometimes progress can be a sad thing. TV comes to Romania, tarmac roads are installed, girls give up their national dress for trousers and plastic packaging begins to clog the streams. Naturally the younger people, mesmerised by TV adverts, are inclined to think that the grass is greener and they try to seek their fortune elsewhere .. sometimes with disastrous and harrowing results. Of course they would look at our lives of modern conveniences and 3D cinema's and be envious but they wouldn't necessarily notice how buried in the rat race we are, how strung up we are by our own possessions and debt and how pure and free their lives are in comparison.

I spent the last few pages in tears ... again, just reading about the last time William (or Willy as they called him) saw Mihai and how Mihai, as ill and bent over as he was, walked on and on waving until he couldn't see him any more .. Mihai died soon after and when William attended the funeral there was a letter from Mihai to William read out by the priest which practically had me in floods ... everyone should have a Mihai in their lives.