The Kingdom by the Sea

Blurb

The Kingdom by the Sea is a written account of a three-month-long journey taken by novelist Paul Theroux round the United Kingdom in the summer of 1982. Starting his journey in London, he takes a train to Margate on the English coast. He then travels roughly clockwise round the British coastline, mainly by train, getting as far north as Cape Wrath. He ends his journey in Southend. 1982 was the summer of the Falklands War and the year when Prince William was born.
Theroux's 1982 walk around the perimeter of Britain shows Thatcher's Britain at its low ebb with unemployment and run-down guest houses.
As usual, he avoids sight-seeing in the form of castles and museums, preferring chance to provide him with insightful encounters. In his leather jacket and oily hiking boots, Theroux marches over scrub and weeds, attempting to use branch-lines and green buses, amazed to find many services curtailed by the prevailing economy. Hoping to stick to a semi-continuous footpath around the coastline, he encounters fully clothed sunbathers and a woman who unexpectedly appears nude in his room whilst he is sleeping.