He Travels Fastest who Travels Alone

He Travels Fastest who Travels Alone - Kipling

I would never have written a book if I hadn't dealt with my chronic inability to be alone.

My Proper Nan Silcox would use that Kipling quote when any of her grandchildren complained of being lonely.

'Lonely indeed! Have you lost your library card? Lonely having tea with Miss Bates? Lonely on wanders with the Pickwick Club? Lonely winning the Horse of the Year Show with Rupert Campbell-Black? And furthermore, let's remember that the banding together mentality is all lovely when it leads to The Huddersfield Choral, or the Massed Bands of the Coldstream Guards or those monkeys with the typewriters who are one day going to finish Timon of Athens - but not when it means the Gestapo, Big Brother or the Bethesda WI.'

She would draw herself up by the handbag. 'You make the best of your solitary circumstances, now, Iestyn. Better to live by choice in a bedsit than by force in a leper colony.'

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