A Stroll Through the ‘Axis of Evil’

John Pilkington

John Pilkington is an old friend of the Society, and has been called ‘one of Britain’s greatest tellers of travellers’ tales’. In the 1980s and 1990s, after crossing the Himalayas on foot, he retraced the Silk Road across Asia and became one of the first Westerners to explore the Central Asian republics after the break-up of the Soviet Union.  More recently he has mapped the source of the Mekong and walked the 1,600 mile Royal Road of the Incas through the Andes of Ecuador and Peru, one of only five people in modern times to do so.

His Radio 4 programmes have won him several appearances on Pick of the Week and one on Pick of the Year. But it’s for his thought-provoking talks and spellbinding photos that people know him best.  He is a holder of the Royal Geographical Society’s Ness Award for popularising geography and the wider understanding of the world.

Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran are in the news for all the wrong reasons. In his latest talk, starting in Beirut, John unravels a picture quite different from the news stories as he follows a winding route via the Euphrates, Kurdistan and the Valleys of the Assassins to finish on the Persian Gulf.  He met a spectacular variety of people and to his surprise found families and whole communities working together to survive the harsh climate and political strife.