#43 Elspeth Beard: The Journey That Changed Her Life & Women's History- Forever

ELSPETH BEARD is the first British female motorcyclist to ever solo ride the globe as well as an award-winning architect. In 1982, at the age of just twenty-three, Elspeth Beard left her family and friends in London and set off alone on a 35,000 mile solo adventure around the world on her 1974 BMW R60/6 with no sponsorship or support, in an age before email, cell phones and satnavs.  

Her two-and-a-half year journey saw her survive life-threatening illnesses and numerous accidents. She witnessed riots and civil uprisings that forced her to fake documents, and she fended off physical threats, sexual attacks, biker gangs, and corrupt police who were convinced that she was trafficking drugs.

Returning home in 1984, Elspeth finished her architecture degree and in 1988 brought a derelict water tower, which she spent seven years converting into her home. She runs her own architectural practice, specialising in creating and remodelling interesting and unusual buildings. She lives in a converted Victorian water tower in the southeast of England and still enjoys riding her collection of motorcycles, which includes the trusty BMW R60/6 which carried her around the world.

The book: Lone Rider 

Website

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Transcript

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Josephine McGrail: So, welcome, welcome! Today, I have the incredible honor to sit down with the wonderful S. Elspeth.

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Elspeth Beard: And I want to just give a little bit of a background to Amazing You, because we met…

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Josephine McGrail: about, I don't know, about a month ago or so, and I have gone from knowing nothing about you.

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Josephine McGrail: To literally diving deep into

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Josephine McGrail: incredible details about your journey, about your life, in your book, Lone Rider, over the past 4 weeks. And so, listeners out there, I came across Elspeth at this beautiful charity event that my fiance invited me to.

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Josephine McGrail: And little did I know that the woman who sat one chair away from me was about to be my new heroine.

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Josephine McGrail: without further ado, again, for listeners out there, Elspeth, you are an award-winning architect, you are an author, you are a mother, you're an incredible person, and then, of course, you were the first female

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Josephine McGrail: rider to ride around the entire world, 35,000 miles, 56,000 kilometers.

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Josephine McGrail: On a second hand, and I really want to say that, on a second hand BMW that you bought in 1979, as far as I remember. So, welcome, welcome, welcome, it's an honor to have you here.

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Elspeth Beard: Thank you very much.

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Josephine McGrail: So, let's get started. Elspeth, where were you born?

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Elspeth Beard: I was actually born in London, just off Portobello Road, in 1959.

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Josephine McGrail: Wow!

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Elspeth Beard: So, yeah, so I spent the first 33 years of my life, well, my family home was based in London, and then I moved out in my early 30s, to Surrey, which is where I live now.

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Josephine McGrail: Amazing, and from what I read in your book, you were… you were born and raised very much in Wimple Street, right? Upper Wimple Street, which is funny for me, because I walk up and down that street all the time, and now I was like, that's the… that's the one! This is where she lived!

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Josephine McGrail: And… and so, you set out in life.

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Josephine McGrail: At the very early age of… were you 24 when you decided to do this amazing trip on your motorcycle?

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Elspeth Beard: I was 23, actually.

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Josephine McGrail: Okay, 23. And can you give us a little bit of background? Because obviously I've read the book, but people don't know, what was the incentive?

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Elspeth Beard: Right, well, well, I suppose I started riding bikes… well, I suppose it all started initially when I was expelled from school.

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Elspeth Beard: And I was sent off to boarding school when I was 10,

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Elspeth Beard: And I, I was expelled when I was sort of 16, partway through my A-levels, and I ended up going to a Cramer in central London, which was where I met this group of people who rode motorbikes, and that was my introduction to motorbikes.

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Elspeth Beard: And I ended up buying one of, you know, you know, a bike off, off, Simon, which was a little Yamaha YB1100, and it was simply, you know, the easy, most efficient way of trying to get around London. That was it. I never saw it as motorcycling becoming a…

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Elspeth Beard: really important part of my life, or anything at all. It was just cheap, it was… and it was good fun, and I… and I really, you know, it was great. I used to hack all over London with this thing, it was brilliant.

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Elspeth Beard: And then… and then, after about a year of that, I bought myself a slightly bigger bike, which was a Honda 250, and then about a year after that, I finally bought my BMW R62 Stroke 6. But again.

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Elspeth Beard: Even at this stage, I had no…

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Elspeth Beard: you know, ambition or whatever, to ride any particular long journeys with it. I just enjoyed riding, but I suppose each bike, as they got bigger and bigger, sort of enabled me to ride further and further. So… so when I got my R60,

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Elspeth Beard: stroke 6, I… I think that's when I really sort of felt you could go places on this.

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Josephine McGrail: I see.

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Elspeth Beard: You know, it was a decent-sized bike. So I did a trip around, Scotland was my first trip I did, then I went around Ireland, then I went around Europe in, the summer of 1980, and then in 1981, I flew out to America, to the west coast of America.

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Elspeth Beard: And I bought an old R75 BMW, 750, and rode it across to, to, to,

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Elspeth Beard: the East Coast. And I think it was kind of somewhere on that. I don't know, this crazy idea just popped into my head.

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Elspeth Beard: I wonder whether it's possible to ride around the world, and that just shows how different it was in those times, because people kind of didn't do trips like that at all, and the world… because obviously it was before

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Elspeth Beard: social media, and the internet, and all that, all the technology that we're so used to now. And so the world seemed a much larger place, because it was much harder to find out anything about countries.

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Elspeth Beard: And so it was… Anyway, this kind of…

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Josephine McGrail: Yeah, yeah.

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Elspeth Beard: this thing popped into my head, but it was only following the year after that that I decided for several reasons. I was not in a good place, I wanted to escape, I was brokenhearted.

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Elspeth Beard: I'd finished my first three years architecture, but hadn't done particularly well in my degree, so I was sort of…

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Elspeth Beard: undecided, really, what to do in my life, and whether to carry on with architecture or not, because architecture is like a seven-year course, so it's a kind of serious.

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Josephine McGrail: Commitment. Commitment, exactly.

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Elspeth Beard: And,

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Elspeth Beard: So, I… I just decided, what am I gonna do? And I just… I don't know, I just thought, well, why don't I see if I can ride my… my bike around the world?

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Elspeth Beard: And that was it, really, so I just got… got a, you know, a job in a pub, I… I earned and saved some money for three… about three and a half months.

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Elspeth Beard: And once I had enough money to get, hopefully, to, you know, either New Zealand or Australia, I just left. So I… I think I had about £2,500 when I left, which I knew wasn't going to be enough, but, you know, it was fine. I…

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Elspeth Beard: I think if you always wait until everything's perfect, then you never… then you never leave on those kind of trips. So I just, you know, went with what I had, and shipped my bike to New York, and that's where I started.

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Josephine McGrail: Which was so wonderful, and I really… I just want to pause for a second, and just… I'm just gonna take a breath here, because…

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Josephine McGrail: Because I really, really… what I love about everything that I've come to, you know, have an insight about.

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Josephine McGrail: is… is everything that's been fueling you. So I know you're mentioning a few different things that took place here, right? And thank you so much for your openness and your honesty.

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Josephine McGrail: Because I think so often in life, you know, we can look at the outside achievements and go, oh, well, it's very exciting, but the point is, it's the inner achievement, right? It's the, well, no one will ever know, apart from you, what it was like to be you at that moment in time, right? So, I also, obviously from the book, I know that,

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Josephine McGrail: You know, a man had broken your heart, which wasn't very, very, very fortunate, but at the same time, instead of going, well, that's that, you know, you used whatever you were feeling

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Josephine McGrail: and you poured it into something, even… and the same thing, like you said, like, well, you know, the architect, you know, 7 years commitment, and I wasn't really sure if that was really what I wanted to spend my life doing. And instead of sitting there and going, like, oh, well, you know, all these challenging things are happening to me, you decided to do something.

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Josephine McGrail: And I think…

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Josephine McGrail: I'm just gonna quickly… you don't know this about me, but I, I left my country at 16, so when I moved out of home, it was leaving the country to go to another country, and people always… often they go, oh, you were so brave, and I was like, no, if you are in a house that's on fire.

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Josephine McGrail: it is very common to jump out of the window. I did not feel I had a choice. I'm not saying this was your experience, I'm just sharing that, you know, whatever we are feeling, whatever we are experiencing, we can always…

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Josephine McGrail: pour it into something, whatever container that is, so I just didn't… I just wanted to highlight that, because I think it… it takes so much, so much more than a lot of other people, you know, because I know a lot of people

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Josephine McGrail: especially in the, I know you do all these amazing talks in the bike communities, and all the men are like, oh, yay, look at what else we've done, and it is amazing, but I think more than the outer achievement, it's the inner achievement, because

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Josephine McGrail: When you experience that state, again, like I said, no one else will ever know what it's like to be you, because you were you. But…

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Josephine McGrail: to be with yourself, and to choose to stay open-minded, and to go, well, I don't know where I'm going, but I'm gonna take the next step. And that next step for you was, you know, getting on your bike. Well, actually, which I love is that you ship your bike over to America first. You're like, bike goes first!

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Josephine McGrail: Then I come, right? And, you know, so I just wanted to sort of share that. I think that's absolutely incredible that you set out to do it, and…

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Elspeth Beard: Yeah, I mean, I can't… I can't say that I… I thought it was particularly brave at all when I left. It was just something, I'm gonna try and do it.

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Josephine McGrail: Oh my god.

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Elspeth Beard: And, I didn't know how far I would get. And I think partly the reason… well, there were several reasons I chose to start off, in, you know, the States, was, one, it was a lot further to come home.

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Josephine McGrail: Yes.

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Elspeth Beard: Wait.

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Josephine McGrail: Yeah.

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Elspeth Beard: You know, if I had had… had…

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Elspeth Beard: second thoughts, I don't know, in week two or three, or the first month or something, it's much harder to turn around and come home.

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Elspeth Beard: And also, because I'd been across America the year before, it was a kind of known quantity, and I was pretty confident with my limited funds, I would be able to get to either to New Zealand or Australia, where I could get work, and I could kind of save money for the next trip. But I didn't…

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Elspeth Beard: I mean, I think… I think the thing now, people sort of almost over-plan, you know, just… just too much.

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Elspeth Beard: And, and in those days, you couldn't plan, you know, and literally, I just thought, well, I'll get myself to New York, and then I'll decide where I'm gonna go, and then… and then I'll… you know, and it was very much… you… you know, I just made… I would plan the next one or two days, roughly, which route I was going to take, and that was it. I had no idea where I was gonna stay, or anything.

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Elspeth Beard: you just stopped at places, and you just found places to stay. So, it was a very… it was a very different, and I didn't even know whether I'd get, you know, you know, manage to, you know, to… to, you know, ride around the world or not. I had absolutely no idea.

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Josephine McGrail: Absolutely, and it's this thing of… which you also get, you know, which I loved in the book, that thing of where you said.

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Josephine McGrail: very quickly, actually, very quickly in your book, you go, like you said, I've given up on trying to plan far ahead, because very quickly, I realized that's just not possible, right? And this is, especially, like you're saying, for this day and age, this is such valuable wisdom, you know? Where we all love to have this idea that we have control over what's gonna happen the next minute, the next hour, the next whatever, right? And actually, like.

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Josephine McGrail: we don't actually have a control over anything, because at any point, at any time, life can be taken away from us, and that's kind of the brutal reality we live with, right?

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Josephine McGrail: That's just, yeah, very juicy. I want to also highlight, because obviously there's so much in this book, and we don't have the whole day, but you get to Australia.

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Josephine McGrail: you finally get to Australia, and…

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Josephine McGrail: This was, you know, in your book.

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Josephine McGrail: there's so many heartbreaking moments, and then there's so many heart… enlightening moments, and then there's so many funny moments, and that's what's so beautiful about this. So anyway, you get there to Australia, and there's this point where… I think it was… was it an acquaintance of your father, something, like, you know, an architect that you started working for, and after several weeks, he wasn't treating you very well, he decided as well to not pay you.

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Josephine McGrail: And you find another place where you're working for this other person who's much nicer, and at the same time, I think you're also working at a pub. And then you find this little place that is… I think you… is it a garage or something that you make into your own house? And I… and again, sorry, Elspa, for, like, relating to my own story, but I just…

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Josephine McGrail: you know, I came to London, and I found this teeny tiny little place in Earl's Court, and there are cockroaches everywhere, and my mom came over mortified. She was like, Josie, are you cooking with cockroaches in the kitchen? And I was like, I wasn't that bothered. I was like, well, it's mine! You know? And I haven't asked anyone for any money, you know? I've made my own money, and I… this is another thing that's just so inspiring about you.

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Josephine McGrail: and your story, Elspeth. You know, it just feels as if Whatever happens.

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Josephine McGrail: You know, you're not asking anything of anyone, and you are, you know, you're really, you know,

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Josephine McGrail: just so resilient, but also this thing of a sense of feeling proud of one owns means, and the fact… the way that you are budgeting, and it's hilarious, because it was the same as me, like, I was 16, and I was putting a budget, and I still do to this day, with all my little things, and at the end of your story, at your book, when you were sort of sharing what the fuel costs, I was like, yes, I can relate! And a part of me really enjoyed that, too, this thing of…

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Josephine McGrail: you know, really, looking after oneself, and the, you know, the sense of happiness or contentment that comes from that, you know? It's just…

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Elspeth Beard: I mean, well, I'd, you know, I'd been away on short trips, and I'd managed to look after myself.

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Elspeth Beard: In my head, I'd kind of left home.

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Josephine McGrail: Hmm…

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Elspeth Beard: You know, I had… I had made the big step.

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Josephine McGrail: Right?

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Elspeth Beard: home, and I was on my own. Right. Because my parents weren't particularly encouraging about me doing the trip.

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Josephine McGrail: Hmm.

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Elspeth Beard: I was really determined I was not going to ask them for a penny.

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Josephine McGrail: Right.

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Elspeth Beard: And it also made me determine I was not gonna fail.

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Elspeth Beard: And so, you know, it was…

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Elspeth Beard: Yeah, I mean, it's… it was a big step in life, as you say, when you moved, it's, you know, and so I made this little home for myself.

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Josephine McGrail: Right!

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Elspeth Beard: You know, in Sydney, and I got myself, you know, like… well, eventually, I managed to get two jobs that paid.

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Elspeth Beard: paid me, and and I saved, you know, I saved 6… 6,000 pounds, I think, which was pretty amazing for…

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Elspeth Beard: You know, for… but I did work literally non-stop, you know, all day as an architect's assistant, and then I would work all evening in a pub, and weekends I worked in a pub as well.

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Josephine McGrail: Right.

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Elspeth Beard: And it was time and a half at the weekend, so that was… that was… that was good money for me at the time. So, yeah.

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Josephine McGrail: Right. But then, having said that, a lot of that money actually ended up getting stolen as well, right?

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Elspeth Beard: Some of it did, yes. My first loss of money that I got paid, finally after I'd worked for this architect for 6 weeks, and he didn't pay me, so I walked out, got another job as in another architect's practice, but this time I'd started working in the pub.

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Elspeth Beard: So, I think… I think I'd been given my first…

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Elspeth Beard: pay… pay packet, so the first bit of money that I had… that I had… that I had actually earned, and… and… and I was staying in a friend of mine's flat, and the flat got broken into, and they stole it all! I couldn't believe it.

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Josephine McGrail: Oh my god. No, I know.

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Elspeth Beard: I couldn't believe it, but anyway, you know, you have to soldier on and carry on, which is what I did.

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Josephine McGrail: Again, right. And I just wanna… I also wanna just share this… I mean, just gonna highlight a few things. You woke up in hospital twice, as far as I remember, and twice actually not really knowing how you got there. And on one hand, it's

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Josephine McGrail: Thank God there are good people in the world who brought you there, right? And number two, it's also you have DNA that is stronger than a fern, and a fern is a very strong DNA already. And again.

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Josephine McGrail: you keep going. And, you know, just…

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Elspeth Beard: Well, I was so determined. I was so determined. And I think, you know, when I left, so many people told me… well, I think everybody actually told me, you'll never do it.

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Josephine McGrail: It's…

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Elspeth Beard: You can't do it. You'll… you'll be back in, you know, a month's time, two months' time. And I think all that really fueled this…

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Josephine McGrail: Hmm.

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Elspeth Beard: I was so determined. I was not gonna be beaten, and I was not going to,

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Elspeth Beard: Yeah, I was going to do it.

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Josephine McGrail: Oh, yes, and indeed you did. And I also… I mean, there's so many juicy moments. Then there's that gorgeous, amazing moment, well, not for you doing it, but as a reader, as an observer of your life. The whole Punjab, crossing into Punjab, that experience of… because I call it Punjab Round 2. So you go in…

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Josephine McGrail: You're nearly… you can almost smell the next place!

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Josephine McGrail: And then they send you back, and you go all the way down, and then you return all the way back up, and then at this point, you've obviously met Robert at this point, right?

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Elspeth Beard: Yeah.

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Josephine McGrail: definitely great love of your life, right? And Rashad, if it's okay, I just want to add to the story, because again.

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Josephine McGrail: Oh, this is your life story, it's so beautiful. And so there you guys are, you're back in at that crossing point. For the second round.

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Josephine McGrail: you're sleeping in that sort of, I don't know, garage-looking place, as far as I remember it, a warehouse, something, and that night, you've been told, you've been told by the people there, the border police, I guess, that you'll be able to pass, because you have this cool little thing, maybe, but Robert can't, so there you are. Not only have you, I mean, everything you've already been through, survived several accidents, I mean.

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Josephine McGrail: survived, you know, a pregnancy. I mean, all these insane, challenging things, and I'm just mentioning 2% of it. And now, you're also faced with the challenge of, do I continue onwards without this person that I believe is my soulmate, you know? This is incredible.

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Josephine McGrail: And then what I love is that you go, you know, you go, oh, but do pop over with me, you never know, sort of like, the eternal optimist, which I love, you know, because I always go.

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Josephine McGrail: Well, you know, as a human being, it's so often, you know, again, that thing of, we can't plan everything, and hallelujah for that, because sometimes life just surprises us, right? And there is no way you could have planned for what happens. Do you want to share with us what happened when you retrained the second time?

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Elspeth Beard: complicated. So, so when I was in India.

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Elspeth Beard: it was the storming of the Golden Temple by the, Sikhs, and,

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Elspeth Beard: And it meant that the whole Punjab state was closed to foreigners. So, although the border was open into Pakistan, the actual Punjab state was closed. And the only way you could get to the border is to ride through the Punjab state. So,

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Elspeth Beard: So we… so… so, Robert and I, we were up in Kashmir and lay in Ladakh, when the border… sorry, when the Punjab state was closed.

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Elspeth Beard: And so we had to ride back down through the Punjab, in order to get to the border. And so we decided just to try and, just to try and, get to the border, even though we knew the Punjab state was closed.

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Elspeth Beard: So we just rode through all of the roadblocks, and all these soldiers would come out, all, you know, trying to stop us and tell us to slow down, and we just pretended. We didn't have a clue what was going on.

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Elspeth Beard: And we just waved to them, and smiled and whatever, but we just kept on going. We just didn't stop. So we did this all through these roadblocks, all through the Punjab.

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Elspeth Beard: And we managed to get, out of India, technically out of India, into no man's land, and we could see Pakistan. It was like… it was like 20 yards away.

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Elspeth Beard: And,

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Elspeth Beard: And but the… but the Indian officials wouldn't let us go through, wouldn't let us pass, because we hadn't been allowed to do what we'd already done. So we were supposed to get a special permit to ride through the Punjab, which of course we didn't have. So… so they sent us all the way back to Delhi, through the Punjab, to get a permit.

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Josephine McGrail: to enter the Punjab.

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Elspeth Beard: And we must have spent an hour trying to argue how ridiculous this was, and they just would not… they just were absolutely adamant. We hadn't been allowed to do it, so you've got to go through the Punjab, or… and it was, like, 500 miles, I think, back to Delhi, to get this permit, so…

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Elspeth Beard: Anyway, long story short, so we went back to Delhi, then we… then we realized after being sent all around the houses in Delhi for about a month, that actually this permit didn't exist, they'd never issued one to anybody.

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Elspeth Beard: My visa was running out, I had to… and I just said to Robert, look, let's just try again. Let's just try… just go to the border again and try.

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Elspeth Beard: So… so we did the same thing again. So we rode from Delhi back to the border, we rode through all these roadblocks, waving and pretending we didn't have a clue what was going on, and why they wanted to stop us.

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Elspeth Beard: And then we got to the border, and we got, again, out of India, into no man's land, and

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Elspeth Beard: And we were… we were queuing… well, it wasn't a queue, because the border was completely empty, because nobody had been allowed to get there. So… so… but when I gave my passport, I… I had this… this kind of registration, document that I'd been given by the…

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Elspeth Beard: by a police station when I entered from, you know, from Nepal back into India, I was… I had to register with a local police station, so I had this document, and it just fell out of my…

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Elspeth Beard: my passport, and so they picked this up and opened it up, and they went, permit, permit! And I kind of went, I don't think so, but I'm not going to say anything. So they seemed to think, because we… it suddenly dawned on us.

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Elspeth Beard: that because Delhi had never issued a permit, these people at the border had never seen a permit. They had no idea what one looked like. We could have just made anything up, and they would have said, oh, permit, permit! Anyway, so I… I had this, this, this, this, piece of paper, which was why I was allowed to go through, but Robert, because he had a Dutch passport.

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Elspeth Beard: he… he wasn't required to get this… this… this kind of registration thing from the local police, so he didn't have one. So they said, you can go through, but not now, because it's 4 o'clock and it's tea time, and then we're gonna close…

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Elspeth Beard: close the, you know, the border anyway, so come back in the morning, you can go through, and they pointed at Robert and said, you can't. And then… and then the next morn… and anyway, so as you said, we… we, you know, Robert and I, we just spent hours, you know, and Robert was saying, you know, just go, just get out, don't worry about me.

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Elspeth Beard: You know, and…

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Elspeth Beard: But… but Robert was, you know, Robert really struggled in India, and he… he had, you know, his…

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Elspeth Beard: it didn't take him long to… to lose his patience with the Indians, and he… he… I mean, there was one time in…

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Elspeth Beard: Delhi, when we were trying to get the permit, and we finally, after weeks and weeks, we got to see the official

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Elspeth Beard: that we were supposed to see to… who was going to issue us the permit, and the guy just said, no, I'm not going to give one. And Robert just… just started to punch him. So Robert was… was… was really at his complete, you know, wit's end with this, and he just was…

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Elspeth Beard: And I was kind of fearful that if I left him in India, he'd probably, you know, end up in prison, to be honest.

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Josephine McGrail: Oh, God.

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Elspeth Beard: And so… and plus the fact, you know, I… I felt strongly that we should, you know, we had got through so much, you know.

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Elspeth Beard: together. And to leave him now, just… to be honest, it didn't even cross my mind for a… for a second that I was going to leave him.

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Elspeth Beard: And then the next morning, I just said to Robert, come on, let's just try again. You never know, you never know. And so we went to the desk, and I showed my, you know, registration thing, and they said, oh yes, permit, permit, permit.

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Elspeth Beard: And, and then, for some bizarre reason, they didn't ask, you know, Robert for his, whether they thought mine was for both of us, or I haven't got a clue. No idea, we just kept our mouths shut.

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Elspeth Beard: And then we were both just, you know, they just stamped us both out. I mean, we could not believe it. So it was… but we were the first people to get through the border in months.

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Josephine McGrail: Oh my god.

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Elspeth Beard: Absolute months.

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Josephine McGrail: I'm sorry.

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Elspeth Beard: But it just shows, you could just never tell with these things, and what happened, and every day was like that. It was a…

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Elspeth Beard: You know, you never knew what was gonna happen.

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Josephine McGrail: And I want to share… and thank you so much for sharing that, and I want to also ask, because there's another one, and this one is slightly more fun, because this one was… this one was obviously vitally important, that it actually happened. But then there's also the experience of you trying to get through the Calcutta station.

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Elspeth Beard: Just…

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Josephine McGrail: Right? And I was laughing so much at this point, where he goes.

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Josephine McGrail: you know, maybe just, maybe just wheel your motorcycle through, and there's a guy nodding, you know, sort of going on your shoulder, going, miss, miss, you know, sitting on the motorcycle, you must get off it, and then wheel it through!

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Elspeth Beard: I know, I… I gave up trying to understand.

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Elspeth Beard: I mean, logic.

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Josephine McGrail: Yay!

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Elspeth Beard: officials, and the bureaucracy was just on another level. And I just gave up trying to, like, understand it. It was just so bizarre, and so ridiculous, and…

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Elspeth Beard: Yeah, I mean, it was… it is an extraordinary country. I mean, I think now it's a lot better. But, I mean, that's certainly one… one thing the Brits left the Indians that was probably not a good thing, was all our…

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Elspeth Beard: Paperwork and…

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Elspeth Beard: bureaucracy that we left, that they seem to have taken to a whole, a whole, you know, different, you know, level to what we… anyway.

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Josephine McGrail: Anyway, and actually, from the funny to the sad, we're going around all the emotions in our chat today.

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Josephine McGrail: again, I think this was India again, there's this moment where you're on your bike, and you see this man with a little girl walking, coming towards you, and you actually mentioned that you get this gut feeling, and I seem to remember that he was in a white tunic or something, I feel you mentioned that, and you get this gut instinct that something isn't right.

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Josephine McGrail: And, I mean, do you want to share a little bit about what happens?

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Elspeth Beard: Yeah, I mean, we were, you know, we were told by many people, I mean, many, many Indian people, that if you hit anybody in India, don't stop, just keep going. And… which might sound, you know, a bit very harsh, whatever, but…

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Elspeth Beard: You know, we'd been told it was…

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Elspeth Beard: You know, especially out in rural areas where there's a lot of poverty.

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Elspeth Beard: You know, they, you know, life is very cheap, and their children's life is very cheap, and so if they, you know, if they can get their child injured by… by you, then they can extract, you know, you know, money out of you.

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Elspeth Beard: So, you know, and I was riding along, you know, Robert was in front, I was riding behind, and… and… and Robert…

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Josephine McGrail: bike past him, so it was a father and a daughter, she must have been 4 or 5. And.

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Elspeth Beard: And he looked at Robert, and then he looked at me, because he saw me coming along, and I don't know, I just got this really uncomfortable feeling, and just as I sort of came, you know.

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Elspeth Beard: towards him. He, he, you know, his daughter got kind of pushed under the wheels of my bike.

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Josephine McGrail: Hmm…

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Elspeth Beard: And, and she was, you know, I… I hit her, I, you know, her headlight… her head smashed into my headlight, she was burnt because my exhaust burnt her shoulder and her arm.

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Josephine McGrail: Oh.

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Elspeth Beard: And I kind of kept on rolling, you know, the bike on, and I saw her in the mirror, you know, lying on the side of the road, and I, you know, there was just no way I could not stop.

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Elspeth Beard: I mean, I had to know, I had to… so I turned… so I stopped the bike, and I walked back.

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Elspeth Beard: And the father who had… who didn't even go to his daughter to, you know, to pick her up or look at how injured she was, you know, he just came to me, and he went, rupee, rupee, you give me money, you give me money, you give me money, rupee. And I could have… well, I think I did nearly

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Elspeth Beard: you know, nearly hit him. Anyway, so Robert kind of saw… he… he turned around when he realized I wasn't

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Elspeth Beard: behind him anymore. And then we had this huge argument and debate on the side of the road, and then all these people came, and every bus that passed stopped, and they were all given a whole kind of thing about what had happened, and fortunately, after, I don't know, half an hour or something, this kind of army jeep arrived with these sort of soldiers or sort of officials in them.

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Elspeth Beard: And they kind of said, look, you know, just give them something. And so I gave him 20 rupees, which was equivalent to about $2, and he seemed as happy as anything.

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Elspeth Beard: And the child, you know, I did, you know, I got my first aid kit out, I bandaged her up, I cleaned all her wounds up, and I made sure she was okay as best I could, and then we were allowed to leave after he got his 20 rupees.

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Elspeth Beard: So, you know, life is very, very cheap in India. Well, it was then, again. I think the country… I mean, I was back in India last year, actually, and the country's very, very different now.

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Josephine McGrail: Oh, that is very good to hear, but again, just demonstrates, again, that, you know, these two years of your life, you know, from the highest highs to the lowest low, and everything in between, and again.

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Josephine McGrail: even that experience as well, and… and just touching, because again, there's so much here, but just touching very briefly.

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Josephine McGrail: I don't know how many times, but it's definitely… I want to say 4, at least that you mention in the book.

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Josephine McGrail: Did you also have several men, you know, trying to ask for your price, or right up, literally just trying to grab you. And not just a little cute something, a little sneaky, a little naughty something, literally, you know, locking the door, pushing you up against the wall, this whole thing,

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Josephine McGrail: Yeah. So you don't have to go into details, but I just wanted to share it. I just think it's…

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Josephine McGrail: It's just so important that these things be told, because that is… that is also part of life, and the fact that you also survived all of those moments.

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Elspeth Beard: I mean, in a strange way. I mean, I think because before I left on my trip, I had actually traveled quite… I mean, I went to the.

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Josephine McGrail: E.

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Elspeth Beard: with my sister when I was.

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Josephine McGrail: Bye.

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Elspeth Beard: 17, I'd… I'd, you know, I'd been…

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Elspeth Beard: to Morocco, and traveled around that when I was 16.

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Josephine McGrail: Hmm.

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Elspeth Beard: So, you know, I mean, I wasn't completely… you know, I… I… you know, I did…

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Elspeth Beard: I was aware that I was going to get a certain amount of attention, or, you know… Right.

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Elspeth Beard: unwanted attention, I should say, and hassle.

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Josephine McGrail: Hmm.

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Elspeth Beard: But to me, it was always… it was a risk I was prepared to take in order to achieve what I wanted to do.

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Josephine McGrail: Of course.

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Elspeth Beard: And I did have… and I was quite good at… once it had happened.

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Josephine McGrail: Excellent.

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Elspeth Beard: had happened.

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Elspeth Beard: I didn't, you know, I didn't think about it for very long. It was… it was… it was just, right, that's it, done. And I would move on, and I wouldn't, I wouldn't let it, you know, I wouldn't get angry about it.

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Josephine McGrail: things I wouldn't…

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Elspeth Beard: let it fester.

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Josephine McGrail: online.

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Elspeth Beard: get angry. I just… I just literally, I moved on from it, that's it, dealt with it, fine, off we go. And… and I think that was a very… and I don't know why or how I did that, but I just did.

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Elspeth Beard: And so… but it was a… it was something I, as I said, I… I always knew I was going to… to get, you know, a certain amount of hassle.

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Elspeth Beard: But there are things, you know, I mean, I chopped all my hair off, I didn't wear makeup, didn't wear jewelry, I wore the most unflattering clothes I could possibly find, you know, all that kind of stuff, which obviously makes a difference.

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Elspeth Beard: And I think while I was on the bike and riding my bike, I felt relatively safe, because everybody automatically seemed I was a, you know, I was male, because nobody imagined it was going to be a woman riding this big motorbike.

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Elspeth Beard: Especially in a lot of the countries I was riding through. And I, you know, I had a full-face helmet, so you couldn't see all my face. And so when I was actually on the bike, I felt relatively, you know, safe.

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Elspeth Beard: And when I got to certain Muslim countries, I would just not take my helmet off all day.

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Elspeth Beard: you know, if I stopped to go to the market, I just left my helmet on, I went into the market, I bought whatever fruit and veg or whatever, and then I just came back to my bike, and got onto my bike, and rode off, and I just did not take my helmet off.

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Elspeth Beard: And so, you know, there are certain things, obviously, you can do to minimize.

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Elspeth Beard: You know, the hassle that you're gonna get. But, you know, it's… unfortunately, being a… being a woman, that's… that's part of life, or it certainly was then a lot… well…

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Elspeth Beard: I mean, maybe more… more… more than it is now, which is so… so things have improved a bit, I think.

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Josephine McGrail: Right, absolutely. I want to just jump into here now, and make it super, even more relatable to listeners.

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Josephine McGrail: If, if someone wanted to go on a… on a big ride, even just… just going, oh, well, let's, you know, like, like you were saying, let's just do one day at a time, see where we get to.

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Josephine McGrail: What would be your advice to a young woman like yourself? So, you were 23 when you set off, what would be your advice to someone at 23 to set off? Any specific advice?

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Elspeth Beard: Well, that advice I've just given, you know, you know, just… just be very conscious of what you look like, and how you appear to people. And I think one thing I always tried to do when I… when I entered a new country, when I got to a new country, I always…

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Elspeth Beard: I always spent the first 2 or 3 days observing, you know, seeing how the women dressed, how they were treated, how they…

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Elspeth Beard: just their whole body language, how they… and I think, you know, if you can try and

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Elspeth Beard: fit in the best you can, and not stand out, that certainly makes a difference. And obviously, just be sensible. You know, I never used to ride after dark. I would always try and find somewhere to stay, or pitch my tent.

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Elspeth Beard: before it got dark. So, you know, I think there are basic things, which I'm sure most women are, you know, we all do the same. I don't think I'm… I'm particularly… whatever in inventing this stuff, I, you know, we all… we all know ways, and I… but I think it is…

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Elspeth Beard: really trying to… trying to blend in, rather than trying to stand out. And being respectful of the country.

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Elspeth Beard: You know, if you're in a country where the women are all fairly well covered up, then cover yourself up, you know. It's just being, you know, respectful.

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Josephine McGrail: Absolutely.

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Elspeth Beard: And that goes a long way, and if you do all that, you'll find it does make a huge difference, so…

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Josephine McGrail: No, that makes complete sense. I, I want to just take us forward in time now, again.

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Josephine McGrail: So, after these incredible two years.

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Josephine McGrail: you arrive back home, which, by the way, also that last journey home. Wow, that last big sail, and then stuck on the ship in front of Dover, and… honestly, you know, your whole… obviously, it's your life, but I'm sitting there, and I keep going, I'm like, this is like a move, and I'm like, no, this is Elspeth life, this actually happened, you know? So you're there, like, finally, you've been… you've nearly been

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Josephine McGrail: been killed several times. I mean, so much has happened, and then you're there, and you're stuck on that ship in front of Dover, and you… anyway, you finally pull up.

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Josephine McGrail: And then…

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Josephine McGrail: And then you don't… you put all of your journals and your tapes, because you were sending home tapes to your parents, you mentioned, and you put them into a box.

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Josephine McGrail: And then, you don't really take it out for, was it 30 years, am I right in saying that?

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Elspeth Beard: 35 years, yeah.

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Josephine McGrail: So, to listeners out there, here's the surprise moment, right? For 35 years, and you also… it also takes about, is it 6 months where you don't actually wash your bike, and you don't take her out riding? Because it's that thing of, if I wash her, if I wash off all the little insects and all the little dirt, it's like I'm… it's like… it's like I'm washing off the journey, like, the memories might disperse somewhere.

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Elspeth Beard: Well, it was incredibly difficult coming home.

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Josephine McGrail: That's.

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Elspeth Beard: really difficult to… you know, I'd had this incredible experience where You know, it's a totally… transformed my life.

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Elspeth Beard: And…

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Elspeth Beard: an incredibly intense experience, you know, every day on the road was just trying to survive, trying to sort out problems, trying to fix your bike, trying not to get ill, trying not to get killed, you know, and it was this constant, you know, you really…

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Josephine McGrail: kind of lived every minute of every day, and having done that for…

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Josephine McGrail: you know, for over 2 years, to suddenly come home.

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Elspeth Beard: And everything at home is, like, really easy, and you don't, you know, and it's actually really quite boring.

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Josephine McGrail: Right!

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Elspeth Beard: And, and, you know, and actually, and nobody's in the slightest bit interested.

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Elspeth Beard: in… in what I've been doing, or my journey, or my… or any of the things that have happened to me. They are just not interested at all. Which, of course, now you look back and you thought, well, I mean, you know, I can understand it, I suppose. And I think

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Elspeth Beard: Also, because people didn't really travel like I did in those days, it was impossible for people to actually relate to it.

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Elspeth Beard: you know, explaining to them, oh yes, and I was in the desert, and there was… I hadn't seen a person for, you know, for, like, two days, and it was all… and there was no road, and I broke down, and I didn't have any water. They go, oh yeah, really? Oh, that's a shame. You know, so… but it's… but it's not really… but then…

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Elspeth Beard: you know, why should they? I, I, I, you know, but I suppose when I got back, I was so…

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Elspeth Beard: Desperate to, kind of.

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Elspeth Beard: tell people what I'd been doing for the last two, you know, over two years, and… and in my mind, I thought they'd be interested, but of course they weren't in the slightest bit interested.

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Elspeth Beard: Which was kind of fine. It didn't, you know, it was… I mean, I didn't mind, you know, the bike press and all that and whatever, not… not having any, interest. You know, my family, again, I just think that they just couldn't understand it.

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Elspeth Beard: And my mum, you know, she just thought, right, now you've done that, now you can, you know, now you can settle down and be a normal person.

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Josephine McGrail: Yeah, yeah, be like, be like…

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Elspeth Beard: Exactly. So, so…

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Elspeth Beard: But it was almost… it was swept under the carpet, as if it was this sort of little blip that I'd had that wasn't… I don't know, it was a very… it was very, very odd. So, yeah, I did. I basically locked myself up in a basement for 6 months and barely spoke to anybody, because there was nobody I could talk to.

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Elspeth Beard: And, and then I finally managed to… to… I said, I've got to do something. So… so I… I got my bike out of the back of the garage, and I completely stripped, stripped her down, and…

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Elspeth Beard: And rebuilt the engine, not that she needed that much, but, you know, seals, gaskets, all that kind of stuff, and she was leaking oil everywhere, and so, anyway, so I kind of fixed her up, and kind of restored… well, yeah, anyway. So, I'm still riding her now, which is… which is good.

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Elspeth Beard: And then… and then I went back and finished off my architecture. So I… I did actually… and that was one thing, the trip was really good. It did reignite my…

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Elspeth Beard: my interest in architecture again. I'd seen the most incredible

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Elspeth Beard: buildings all around the world of temples and forts, and, these incredible houses in… in Indonesia, and I don't know, it was just… it was a real…

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Elspeth Beard: you know, architecture just suddenly clicked for me, and I… so I then went back and I finished off my architectural degree, so…

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Josephine McGrail: Mmm, amazing. And also, I just want to highlight the fact that the one person that

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Josephine McGrail: could relate to you, because he had experienced lots of it with you, i.e. Robert, right? At this point, the two of you decided at some point to not be in touch anymore, right?

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Elspeth Beard: Well, that was complicated. So we saw each other for a year or so. I mean, I don't want to say the end, otherwise it'll spoil the book, but…

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Josephine McGrail: Yeah, sure.

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Elspeth Beard: But yes, for various reasons. Yes. I mean, we sort of continued to see each other for a year or whatever, but for various reasons, we decided… well, I didn't.

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Josephine McGrail: It would…

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Elspeth Beard: Anyway, the decision was taken that we… that we wouldn't see each other again, so… so we never did. We never did.

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Elspeth Beard: Until… The early, well, the… yeah, sort of, 2000 and… can't remember.

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Elspeth Beard: in the early 2000s, I, you know, I got news from Holland, so…

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Josephine McGrail: Yeah. And thank you so much for sharing that, and also that experience of, you know, the real sort of, like, sadness, despair, whatever you want to call it, like, coming home, and then just to realize that actually I also don't really belong here. Like, the only one I belong to is me. That's kind of a lonely place, it's…

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Elspeth Beard: It was very… You know? It was very isolating, and very lonely, and I literally, as you say, I felt I don't belong anywhere.

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Elspeth Beard: You know, I just… and in fact, all I wanted to do was get on my bike and go again.

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Josephine McGrail: Right.

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Elspeth Beard: You know, just to carry on all the fun, and it… well, no, it wasn't all fun, but yeah.

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Josephine McGrail: Yeah, yeah.

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Elspeth Beard: Just to… just to get back on the road again, that's all I wanted to do. But at the same time, I kind of knew that wasn't really the answer.

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Josephine McGrail: Hmm…

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Elspeth Beard: You know, you can't… you know, it just wasn't the… the answer.

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Elspeth Beard: For me, anyway.

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Josephine McGrail: Yeah.

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Elspeth Beard: So… yeah, so I kind of… but it was… it took several years, really, before I…

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Elspeth Beard: I felt reasonably comfortable, but to be honest, I've never really felt,

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Elspeth Beard: I mean, it changed… it changed me for… for life, you know.

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Josephine McGrail: Of course it did.

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Elspeth Beard: You know, it makes you a very different person when you're experienced.

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Elspeth Beard: Or went… went through all… all the things that I did.

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Josephine McGrail: And I just want to share, I don't remember the exact line, but it's something… it really, like, again, another little… another little moment where my heart was like, wow, so it's… you say something along the lines of, so you are…

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Josephine McGrail: Ugh, you're finally meeting up with your parents, it's in Kathmandu, I think it's after 18 months of not seeing each other, something like that.

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Josephine McGrail: And, you know, obviously you're very excited, desperately missing them, you can't wait to see them, and you see them. And, you know, again, like you mentioned so gracefully, you know, your parents being gorgeous, well-meaning parents doing their thing, but obviously not really… they haven't been in your shoes, they haven't experienced what you've experienced, and so you're there going, do you want to see my bike? Right? And your mom's sort of going, oh, Elsbeth A wouldn't want to do… you know, and this thing of…

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Josephine McGrail: And so you're there, and you say something along the lines of, like, you know, just, you know, a thought to yourself, where you're like.

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Josephine McGrail: realizing that I didn't belong anywhere. I didn't belong to my family, I didn't belong to, you know, the fellow travelers, I didn't belong to the locals. I belonged nowhere. And then you have another line in the book as well, something along the lines of, loneliness is a high price to crave for independence.

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Josephine McGrail: And I just… I think these are the things that often we sort of skip over, because you're like, oh, look at what you did, and it's like, hee-hee, yeah, but, you know, that's… that's a big… that's a big thing, that's a big experience.

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Josephine McGrail: I want to then also call in that you… so you came back.

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Elspeth Beard: you've finished your architect, studies, which is absolutely incredible. At some point, you get a phone call from Alex, your friend, who sort of… and that you also… and I love how you also, in your book, I love how you recognize all the patterns that took place in your life, and how each person had their own character. And so you go, Alex, pick, you know, because of Alex, his, you know, his arrival, his scenes in your life.

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Josephine McGrail: sort of pops up again, and goes, hey! There's this amazing tower! I think you're gonna love it. And you drive out, and you see it. And obviously, I know listeners can't see it here, but you're sitting with, you know, beautiful photos of the tower behind you, I'm assuming, right?

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Elspeth Beard: I have, actually, that's the…

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Josephine McGrail: Right? That's it, exactly, right? And you know what's interesting, Elspeth? Because obviously I want to hear in your words, I know from reading about you that it took 7 years, and again, your gorgeous persistence, your gorgeous, you know, putting everything into it, your gorgeous, let's break this down in just one step at a time.

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Josephine McGrail: But, I also know that the tower…

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Josephine McGrail: whether you're into tarot or not, but the tower, actually, it represents big changes. Normally, when you get the tower, it's like a huge change again, and I just think the fact that you fell in love with this tower, and you decided to… to make it your home.

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Josephine McGrail: it's just such an incredible symbol of you, this sort of, like, the rebuilding and the rebirth, and the, you know, one step at a time. Yeah, so I just wanted to sort of, like, share that, because I can't believe it. I was like, this is so symbolic! And then you're also tall, so there you go. In my head, that makes complete sense. Of course she lives in a tower.

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Josephine McGrail: Elph, you fell in love with the tower.

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Elspeth Beard: Yeah, well, I think I was… I was, you know, I mean, I kind of went… went back, to finish off my architecture, but I was never really… I was restless, you know? I was… I was looking for another challenge, looking for something to do. I was still…

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Elspeth Beard: you know, very, very restless. And, and then, as you say, Alex saw this tower, phoned me up, told me about it, and I went out there to have a look at it. And it's this beautiful 130-foot-high Victorian brick water tower.

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Josephine McGrail: Hmm.

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Elspeth Beard: octagonal, and I just kind of looked at it, and I thought, that's my next project. And… and I… so…

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Elspeth Beard: And I mean, at the time there, you know, you phoned up the look, because nobody had actually converted a water tower to, into a, you know, a…

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Elspeth Beard: you know, a home at that stage. So there were a lot of technical issues and, you know, regulations that

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Elspeth Beard: hadn't been tested, or… and basically, the building could not comply with any of the regulations, because it's such an unusual.

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Josephine McGrail: building. And… and so you phoned… I phoned up the local… because I had to buy it at auction, and I phoned up the local council.

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Elspeth Beard: and said, I'm interested in buying this tower, and what are the chances of getting the permission to, you know, to turn it into a residence. And they basically said, we'll never give you planning to turn it. We'll never give you planning to

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Elspeth Beard: convert the building and give you the change of use, because we cannot see how you are ever going to, get over all the… all the regulations, all the building regs, means of escape, fire, you know, all overlooking, you know, they just came up with problem after problem after problem after problem. And I can just remember thinking.

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Elspeth Beard: You don't know what problems are.

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Elspeth Beard: You know, you have absolutely no idea what problems are. I just thought, I'll just deal with them. I don't know how, I don't know how I'll do it, but I'll just deal with them. So, I bought it at auction.

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Elspeth Beard: And I then started a year and a half fight with the local council, who did turn me down.

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Elspeth Beard: And then I had to go to, you know, appeal to the government, and I got the decision overturned, and after a year and a half, I was finally able to start work to turn it into my home. But I can just remember thinking, you know, don't tell me I can't do something.

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Elspeth Beard: And it was that, and I think that is something.

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Josephine McGrail: That was probably one of the best lessons I learned from the… from the trip, was that.

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Elspeth Beard: actually, you can do anything. If you… if you set your mind to it, and you are absolutely 100%

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Elspeth Beard: percent convinced that you are doing the right thing.

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Elspeth Beard: And you just have to just persevere, and persevere, and keep on going, and find, and just… and it, you know, you can actually do anything if you… if you… if you have that sort of mentality.

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Elspeth Beard: And it was the trip that gave me that way of thinking, and that there was nothing I couldn't do if I wanted it, and I was prepared to work hard, to make sacrifices, to, you know, and just to not give up. And so, you know, and then I spent… so after I'd spent a year and a half fighting the council, and I got the planning and the listed building

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Elspeth Beard: consent.

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Elspeth Beard: I then spent the next 7 years building the thing. So, you know, it was not a… it was not an easy project. But, you know, I still live there now, 30-odd years later, and I still love it, and it's a great place to live, and so…

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Elspeth Beard: But, you know, it was… That's good.

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Josephine McGrail: No, it was another moment where I'm just gonna go…

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Josephine McGrail: And I love this thing that you just said, because it's…

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Josephine McGrail: It's so important as well, that we have this thing, we have to want it. It can't just be a little flimsy something, oh, that'd be kind of nice, because life is going to test us, and there's gonna be lots of challenges, and if you don't want something enough.

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Josephine McGrail: You're not gonna stick at it, of course you're not, and that's okay, but then find something that you do want enough.

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Elspeth Beard: Yeah, and you might… and you've, you know, and all you will find, I mean, when you… well, I… my experience was, is that when I embarked either on my round-the-world bike trip, or when I bought the tower, or was thinking about the tower, everybody around you is so negative.

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Elspeth Beard: It's all kind of, oh, you never did. It's really difficult. You know, it's all just negative, negative.

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Elspeth Beard: And I don't know why people are… you know, they should be encouraging you, but they don't. It's all… and it's almost… I don't know whether because they don't think about doing it, or they don't have the courage to do it, or whatever, they kind of… they don't want you to do it. It's really bizarre. And so you have to be incredibly, you know, you have to kind of…

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Elspeth Beard: Ignore all of that, and just not listen to all this negativity that you can sometimes get when you want to do something that is just… that isn't the norm.

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Elspeth Beard: And I think, so there's that, and I think, you know, and you cannot, for, you know, a, you know, a… you know, like a millisecond, you cannot have any doubt at any point.

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Elspeth Beard: during the whole time. You have to be so focused and so convinced that what you're doing

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Elspeth Beard: is the right thing, and just, as I said, just not listen to anybody else, and just keep going, and if you do all that, you'll get that.

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Josephine McGrail: 100%. And there's also a point in your journey that I'm not going to reveal here, but you know the one, so you are in your tower, on your tower. We're not going to go any more deeper into that, but where you really, you know, from you to you, you know.

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Josephine McGrail: highest version of Elspeth, where you say that to yourself, where you're like, I've been in this situation before, and what did I do? How did I deal with it?

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Josephine McGrail: and you broke it down, and again, like, I really think that from everything I've heard about you, know about you so far.

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Josephine McGrail: your greatest achievement is really overcoming yourself, overcoming every single doubt within yourself, and getting to this point that you're talking about now, and that you also mentioned at the talk and that night at the charity event, where I was like, yes! And you were like, I have come to a point in myself where I know that I can do anything.

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Josephine McGrail: I put my mind to.

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Elspeth Beard: Yeah, I mean, I… yeah, I mean, I feel I can do anything, I can get through anything.

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Elspeth Beard: You know, and… and I think that's just… you know, and I know I can, because I've done it.

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Josephine McGrail: Exactly.

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Elspeth Beard: And this is why people need to push and test themselves sometimes a little bit more.

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Elspeth Beard: Because they'll discover they can do so much more than they ever imagined they could do.

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Josephine McGrail: 100%, 100%. And actually, again, ta-da-da-da! Another surprise moment for listeners out there. So, so after, after, you know, you've come back, you've bought the tower, you're now an architect, a whole new life has appeared, arrived, you have created.

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Josephine McGrail: And then, I've got a date here, what is it, 2008?

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Josephine McGrail: you're contacted by a journalist to write an article about, finally, finally, 2008, bearing in mindlessness out there, Elspeth, you returned in 1984? 1984. And then in 2008, that is a very long time, very long gap. It took a very long time for the world to catch up with you. You're contacted by this journalist, who asks if he can write an article

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Josephine McGrail: article about your trip, and it comes… it's online, motorcycle something online, sorry, I don't remember the whole name. And then, someone in Hollywood reads that article online and contacts you.

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Josephine McGrail: And you, and flies you over, I think, to Hollywood, and you have a chat. And then, at this point, you go.

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Josephine McGrail: I think I should write my own book to make sure… to make sure matters how, you know, this is how it went down, right? Which is so beautiful. So tell us about that, because that whole, you know, again, you never did any of this to be famous, you never did any of this to be like, oh, look at me, you're, like, the most humble person.

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Josephine McGrail: I've…

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Elspeth Beard: Well, I mean, even now, I'm sorry.

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Elspeth Beard: bewildered.

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Elspeth Beard: why people think it's such an amazing thing that I did, because for me, it's just something I kind of did.

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Josephine McGrail: You know, I got home, nobody was interested, well, that's okay, whatever, put it away. Right. And then, as I say, there's suddenly this email out of the blue from this agent in Hollywood who wanted to buy the rights.

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Elspeth Beard: to my story to make a film was just, you know, completely bizarre. But I did when I went out there, I can't… well, it was partly because I hadn't read any of my diaries for 30-odd years, and they were asking me all these questions about, well, what did you do here?

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Josephine McGrail: Yeah.

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Elspeth Beard: And I'm going, I don't know.

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Elspeth Beard: So, and I… but I also felt that they…

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Elspeth Beard: That they already had a kind of film in mind.

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Elspeth Beard: and sort of attaching me to it, whether it was actually going to be my… all my story, or even part my story, I… I don't know. So, I thought, you know, that the starting point is to write a book. So at least there's a…

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Elspeth Beard: accurate, true story of my… of what happened, and my journey, and then if, and as and when, or whatever, if…

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Elspeth Beard: the film is made, then at least there's the book which can tell the real story. Because I think any… any film is going to be a, you know, slight whatever of the…

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Elspeth Beard: Of the story. It always is.

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Josephine McGrail: Of course, of course it is.

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Elspeth Beard: And I… and it was a, you know, writing the book was an incredibly interesting process,

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Elspeth Beard: that I never expected. It was another… it was a whole nother journey in itself.

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Elspeth Beard: Writing the book. And I think it was writing the book made me realize how much the journey had shaped the rest of my life.

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Elspeth Beard: Which I can… I kind of never had… I mean, I kind of did, but I'd never really thought about it.

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Elspeth Beard: you know, I got back, nobody was interested, well, whatever, you know, went off, finished my architecture, then I was straight on to buying the tower, then I was fighting the council, then I had a baby, then I, you know… and so, you know, life just kind of moved on completely. And so, I never really stopped to think, or whatever, about

395
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Elspeth Beard: How pivotal that the, you know, the trip had been in my life.

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Elspeth Beard: And how it sent me off down the road that I eventually took.

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Elspeth Beard: You know, I never would have bought the tower. I never would have had the confidence or whatever to buy the tower had I not done that trip.

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Elspeth Beard: You know, with all these people saying, no, no, no, and the council saying, we'll never give you planning, and everything was negative, negative, and I just… I just wasn't… I just didn't, you know, listen to any of it. And so…

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Elspeth Beard: you know, and then the tower, that… that… that… that kind of in it, because then I won some awards for the tower, and then that… that enabled me to start up my own, you know, architectural practice. So it… everything had a knock-on effect, and it was all… it all stemmed from, you know, from… from my trip. So…

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Elspeth Beard: Yeah, it was a… but writing the book made me, realize, just how much the trip had changed me, and made me… very much made me the person that I am, and enabled me to do all the rest of the things that I've done in my life.

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Josephine McGrail: I love that so much, and I think it's also… it's also so beautiful. It's beautiful that, you know, that box with all your memories and everything was sort of…

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Josephine McGrail: put at the back for all those years. And then, you know, kind of like, because I always, you know, we always say everything happens when the time is right, right? But we can also say everything happens when we are ripe, you know? Like, as a human being, we are always evolving, and we mature to the place we're supposed to mature to.

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Josephine McGrail: When the time is right, and the fact, you know, that you have the ability and to sort of

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Josephine McGrail: not relive it, but… but have… have this relationship with it again, because now, you know, the journey is unfolding again, right?

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Elspeth Beard: Yeah, and I think… and I think because so many years had passed.

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Elspeth Beard: 35 years had passed between getting back and writing the book.

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Josephine McGrail: Yeah.

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Elspeth Beard: In some ways, it enabled me to be…

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Elspeth Beard: very open and honest, because it was almost as if I was writing about somebody else. It was like a younger Elspeth, and it was like a different person, and so it was, you know, I was, you know, able to be very…

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Elspeth Beard: honest about how I felt about my parents' attitude towards my trip, about the people I met, about the relationships, about the stupid things I did, about

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Elspeth Beard: You know, like, we all do stupid things, but, you know, as long as we learn from them, it doesn't matter. You know, whether… and I'm sure if I'd written the book when I just got back from my trip, I wouldn't… it would have been a totally different book.

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Josephine McGrail: And I wouldn't have, kind of, admitted to most of what I admit to in the book, having done. That was growing up, that was learning, that was becoming, you know, that was just, yeah, that was just life.

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Josephine McGrail: Absolutely amazing. I absolutely loved it. But I think it's… especially, again, because we live in such a fast-paced world these days, right? Anything you want, you can kind of have an idea, and you can kind of… whether it's food that you want, or a friend.

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Josephine McGrail: the gap between having a desire, having an idea, having a, oh, this could be nice, and then actually receiving it is quite short, right? There's not much of a gap. And so I think very often we can get so impatient, or we, you know, we can be told almost by outside world that, hey, if it hasn't happened yet, it won't happen, or it's just, if this hasn't manifested, whatever it is, it's not for you, and it…

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Josephine McGrail: Yeah, I just think your story is just such a testament, testimony, again, of that thing of.

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Josephine McGrail: everything has a rhythm, everything has its time. We have our time. Not only, you know, I am actually from, you know, reading about your life, I keep thinking about people that are, you know,

417
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Josephine McGrail: famous for whatever reasons, but, you know, very often artists, or, you know, so often, their art was… like, they themselves was misunderstood during that time, and then they die, and, like, sadly, like, all of a sudden, they're really celebrated, oh, and people see themselves in their art and all of that, but during their lifetime, they're very incredibly lonely people. They felt like they didn't belong, and… and so the fact that your story, and I know that you never… you never asked

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Josephine McGrail: for, you know, people all around, all around the world to go, yay! We want to hear more about Elspeth, but it is, it still makes me really happy to know that

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Josephine McGrail: You know, at the time when you…

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Josephine McGrail: I guess all you were actually looking for were just, you know, a sense of companionship and a sense of people at least wanting… giving you a listening ear to your story, you know? And all of the motorcycle businesses were like, no, we're not going to support or sponsor anything, and all of the magazines, no one was interested, and then your family, you know, blessed them, also couldn't really understand, you know, and friends, etc, and so…

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Josephine McGrail: It might be 35, 40 years a little late, but at least now! You know?

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Josephine McGrail: at least now, you know, your story is out there and hugely inspiring. I want to ask you Elspeth,

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Josephine McGrail: how does this feel for… for you? So, you know, because knowing, you know, as much as we change, we're still who we are to a certain extent, right? And I'm… you call it restless. I'm incredibly restless. I am always like, there is this, and there is that, and I want to ask, so you're 66 now, is that right?

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Josephine McGrail: Yes.

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Josephine McGrail: What's your new project?

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Elspeth Beard: Well…

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Elspeth Beard: Well, now I've actually just recently… well, I've kind of wound my architectural practice down, and I…

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Elspeth Beard: I do quite a lot of traveling, and I do a lot of trips. I don't have a… well, about 7 years ago, I bought a ruin in Italy, and I spent… I've spent the last 6 years building that, so that was my… that was my last project.

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Elspeth Beard: That was finished, probably finished last year, so that was a… that was a project and a half. Almost as hard as the water tower, actually.

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Josephine McGrail: Hmm.

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Elspeth Beard: So I've got the… yeah, so I've got this place in Italy now, which is… which is great, I love it. It was an old, you know, ruin with a…

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Elspeth Beard: chapel attached to it.

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Josephine McGrail: Wow.

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Elspeth Beard: And I, and I, and it was totally… I mean, it was completely…

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Elspeth Beard: derelict. Nobody had lived in it for 80, 90 years or something.

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01:08:38.100 --> 01:08:38.590
Josephine McGrail: Wow.

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Elspeth Beard: It was completely falling down, so I spent the last… well, I spent 5… 5 years restoring it. Wow. And so that… that's been my latest project.

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Elspeth Beard: So I finished that, as I say, last year. Now I've just wound my architectural practice down, and I just do more motorcycling, more traveling.

439
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Elspeth Beard: And I haven't… I can't say I've seen my next

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Elspeth Beard: Never know, it's probably something out there waiting for me, so…

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Josephine McGrail: 100% it is, I absolutely know that. And I think, you know, again, knowing that about oneself, right? Knowing that

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Josephine McGrail: We need a little goal, we need a little project, we need to pour ourselves into something, you know, because that's what it means to be alive, you know, to feel alive.

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Josephine McGrail: And so, yeah. Elspeth, my lovely lady, is there anything else? Because I could sit here all day, any day, but I feel like, listen, you've shared so much with us. It's been an absolute pleasure. I'm looking across my notes, and I'm like, oh…

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Josephine McGrail: There's always so many good things, but…

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Josephine McGrail: I put this thing here. I wrote that…

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Josephine McGrail: The world wasn't ready for what you had created.

447
01:09:51.890 --> 01:09:53.770
Josephine McGrail: But thankfully, it is now.

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Josephine McGrail: I also wrote that this is a love story.

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01:09:58.440 --> 01:10:04.990
Josephine McGrail: About running from heartbreak to letting it break you open, to falling in love with all aspects of yourself.

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Josephine McGrail: And your bike too, by the way. Lots of love to the bike. Because I think this is, again, such an important thing, you know? We are always in relationship. And I know, obviously, you're an architect, so you get that, you get that so much. We're in relationship with everything around us.

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Josephine McGrail: And the love that you've poured into, you know, buildings, and your bike, and yourself, in your life, and…

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Josephine McGrail: It's just very beautiful, and thank you so much for letting us have a window into your home today. My love… so I'm just gonna put up on the screen here, this is the book, Lone Writer.

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Josephine McGrail: And,

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Josephine McGrail: Throughout the last 4 weeks that I have… that I've known of you, I have recommended to every single person I know. It is my new go-to, it is my new Bible, if ever there was one. When I finished it, the only thing that was sad was that, it was done, and so I will start it again.

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Josephine McGrail: Elspeth, such a joy. Stay on the line just for a second, and to listeners out there, thank you so much for being here.