One Man's Europe

Written in 1970, One Man's Europe is a series of personal reflections on the twenty-two trips, made to a changing European mainland, by the author over a period of two decades. It is full of contemporary and modern photographs, gentle humour and stops for plates of food.

It colourfully describes a world before mass-tourism, but ultimately it is a search for context and identity, as well as for whatever passes for fish and chips wherever he is...

For a period of almost twenty years, Gordon Nicholas, a quiet bookseller from the beautiful city of Bath, travelled around post-war Europe, in search of an understanding of why Europe was the way it was and a context in which to make sense of the world around him, and the world war that he had just lived through. It was the challenge of mountain climbing in the Alps that inspired the first trip, but that was just the start of it.

It was a simpler time back then, a time when a packet of cigarettes or a pair of nylon stockings could be exchanged for a flight across the Channel, a time when a silk tie was enough for the local police force to give you a personal guided tour of the town complete with lunch, but it was also a time when the great cities of Paris, Rome & Vienna were still struggling to recover from great conflict and violence was breaking out as colonists returned from collapsing empires. But times were changing as Gordon was to witness first-hand.

By the mid-fifties the lives of the people of Europe were improving dramatically; and the world exploded into the 'Space Age'. But almost immediately the brotherhood of European states was split in two by a new 'Iron Curtain'. Tens of thousands of miles of barbed wire were erected along newly made up borders, communities and families were divided and Berlin, Vienna and the Danube were split into two. The future seemed to have turned its back on history.

This delightful travelogue, records the slow maturing of both post-war Europe and perhaps the author himself as it attempts to answer the age-old question, "Why do we travel?"

Gordon Nicholas

Gordon Nicholas was born in Bristol in 1923 and was brought up on his uncle’s farms and in their biplanes. He served in the Somerset Light Infantry Signals division during the Second World War, & founded the Bristol Astronomical Society, before being released from active service in 1947.

Despite having a collapsed lung and being of relatively poor health, he developed a passion for mountain climbing and travelled Europe for nearly twenty years in search of adventure. He was the manager of Seawright’s bookshop in Bath for many years, and a regular speaker at the Guildhall. Gordon did lots of work informally for the Admiralty in Bath, including working as an editor on the famous publication “Jane’s Fighting Ships” and was involved in many projects behind the scenes.

After the bookshop closed he went to work for the MOD at Fox Hill, where he was a project and team leader in the Goddess programme, which used computer aided design to minimise the sound of warships passing through the water.

Find out more about Gordon, here.