He doesn't look a thing like Jesus

Press 'Rewind': now I'm sitting here in the middle of France, and I can really appreciate how easy it would be to disappear. And I thought that before my copies of How to Disappear Completely and Never be Found and Cover Your Tracks Without Changing Your Identity arrived through the post. Robert Louis Stevenson disappeared here for twelve days over 130 years ago, the same year in which he published The Suicide Club. With just a donkey to carry his luggage, he crossed the Cevennes before dropping into the valley and arriving at Saint-Jean-du-Gard. Today, the roads are beautiful to drive along, with swooping, majestic bends that dip into lush valleys and run alongside rushing We've been listening a lot to The Killers, especially Sam's town which is the perfect, if slightly clichéd, driving accompaniment.

Each late-summer morning I've been driving rented house, perched up on the steep hillside, into the small town for fresh bread, newspapers and sundry supplies. The pale-blue-eyed sky is spectacular, and the only wispy clouds are far away on the mountain-framed horizon, Each and every day I've spied a chap walking in the opposite direction out of town. There are no pavements so he's always on the roadside gravel or grass verge. He's always wearing shades and a hat, always has a small backpack. He has a bit of grey in his stubbly beard and is quite slim. For all I know, he could be Rich?? Edwards. He doesn't look 'French' to me. One day I almost stopped the car to ask for some fake directions. Just in case. Richey Edwards has been gone for years and could be absolutely anywhere. The longer I spend here the more I appreciate that I could just melt into the landscape if I really wanted to. If I hadn't told anyone back home where I was going, would I be found? The rental house isn't in my name so that wouldn't show up on any searches. I've been using only cash. The Channel Tunnel ticket was the last time any trace of my name would be noticed. I could be anywhere by now. And today I am. Brandon Flowers is telling me that the hurricane started spinning when I was young. Back in 1995 I was young.

Rob Jovanovic

Saint-Jean-du-Gard, France

???? 1

?I would have thought that it would be almost impossible for anyone to ?disappear? nowadays.?

? from Poirot Investigates ? ?The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim? [1924]

Hold steady now boys! Revolt, Revolt. Revolution it in the air!? We're marching. Marching through Wales. And there I stand. ?wain Glyndwr. Village by village I'm taking back the country. Ever since Richard II?s death in February 1400 when the country's future seemed so bleak that revolution was the only way out. By
September I was proclaimed Owain Prince of Wales, the last Welsh Prince of Wales.

In 1401, it spread ? but it had to. If you were Welsh you were outcast. If you were Welsh you couldn't buy land in England. If you were Welsh your children were barred from education. By 1403, village by village had become castle by castle. A year later 'Owain Prince of Wales' became 'Owain IV King of Wales'. The Cynulliad called for a Welsh state and a Welsh church. In six hundred years a 'rock band' will write a song about me.[1] In six hundred years there still will not have been another Welsh Prince of Wales.

The French withdrew their support in 1406 and I was hunted. Suicide was an option, or rather a suicide raid, but still I did not die. I was captured, ransomed and that was the end. Wasn't it?

Owain Glyndwr then vanished in I415. Some said he was dead, others that he was alive and that he had withdrawn into himself. By the time English rule had been restored, much of the Welsh farming land had become neglected and was now a wasteland. There were many rumours of sightings of Glyndwr under assumed names or in disguise, but ht had effectively disappeared. After that, no one knows what happened to him or where he went No one turned him in. No one captured him. He was offered pardons but never surfaced.

Now he is seen as a myth, a caricature, his humanity stripped away. But he knew his history, he knew what the prophecies said and when they gave him the best chance to succeed. His followers would cling to his side with an almost religious fervour, it was almost the cult of Glyndwr. He bridged the gap from reality to literature when Shakespeare penned him as Owen Glendower in Henry IV, Part One.[2] He wasn't the only Welshman to follow this path and only they could decide when they wanted to be found, when they wanted to return.

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Date: 2016-06-12; view: 197