Broadcaster Ray Hadley will launch Chance it! – a hard cover coffee table book – in Goulburn on 22 August. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and NSW Premier Chris Minns wrote the book’s forward. Image: Melissa Parker, Jordan Web & Graphic Design.
Cartoonist Warren Brown often recaptures the funny, ironic or surprising aspects of ordinary and extraordinary events.
So he well knows people who experience the same event can come away with a different view.
He is about to launch a new book he co-authored with editor-at-large from the Daily Telegraph Matthew Benns and Goulburn mechanic Tony Jordan about their journey from London to Melbourne in a vintage Bean 14.
Benns, who has chased stories all over the world and written bestsellers, including The Men Who Killed Qantas, covers the rollicking highlights of their adventure.
“I was pressed against him for five months in the car and it is interesting to see what his take on it was,” Brown said. “He saw some things differently to me even though I was there; no doubt if I had of written it, he would be the same.”
The trio have called their latest book Chance it!, a saying borrowed from inspirational adventurer Francis Birtles who used bicycles and motorcars to pioneer overland routes and set speed records in the early 20th century.
Whenever the outlook looked dubious for world crossings Birtles would roll out his motto: Chance it.
So too did the latest Bean occupants and their trusty mechanic Jordan who writes about preparing the Bean and keeping it in peak running order.
Brown recounted heading toward the Middle East through the Baulkans when Iran launched 200 missiles into Israel.
“The Middle East was starting to unravel as we were heading towards it and we got into Egypt, put the car on a ship from Athens to Alexandria as Birtles did,” he said. “Then he drove down to Cairo which we did as well. He went up into places you just can’t go into anymore. He went into what is now Gaza and into Syria and on into Iraq. We weren’t prepared to do that, obviously,” he said.
Brown said they had multiple contingency plans in case of political upheavals, dangerous weather or other unforeseen events while pushing through a narrow window of time to escape the full brunt of a European winter or Arabian summer or Asian monsoon.
Chance it! will be launched at the Goulburn Performing Arts Centre on Saturday 22 August. Brown, Benns and Jordan will join broadcaster Ray Hadley on stage. They hope to share the stage with the cartoonist’s undefeated Bean. A sizzle reel previewing a documentary on the trip will also be screened.
A man thought to be Percy Stollery creates a passage for the Sundowner, possibly in India or Burma. Photo: National Museum of Australia.
This is the sixth book Brown has written or co-written, which include Francis Birtles, Lasseter’s Gold and Back to the Track.
He is full of praise for James Mills-Hicks of Ice Cold Publishing, for embracing their ideas for Chance it!, a coffee table book.
“None of the big publishers produce coffee table books anymore,” he said. “Our journey is very visually driven. I always had this idea that the book should be like a boys’ own annual but for grown-ups.
“I’ve still got annuals from the 60s, 70s and 80s from when I was a boy and one of the things I loved about them, when you turned the page there was always something new,” he said.
Brown was keen for an historical grounding for the book, including the connection to Birtles and Bean cars. He says in documentary terms, that’s the gee-whiz factor. “We’re trying to give the readers something where they can say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know that.’”
He said Birtles’ car in the National Museum Australia in Canberra was one of a collection of 21 cars, each with its own story of national significance. Birtles’ Bean is one of the three most important cars. In order, these are: Birtles’ Bean, Queen Elizabeth II’s Daimler for her 1954 visit to Australia and Lindy and Michael Chamberlain’s 1977 yellow Torana.
“The museum’s curators said the reason those three cars are so valuable is because in their day, they were ‘world cars,’” he said. “The whole world knew about those things.”
Included in the book is a letter King Charles wrote to the adventurers that was read out at Australia House, London, precisely where Birtles had started his journey in 1927.
Chance it! launch – Goulburn Performing Arts Centre on Saturday 22 August. Drinks at 5 pm and canapes at 5:30 pm. Money raised will go to the Southern Tablelands Community Foundation and Royal Flying Doctor Service. To book click here.
