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(L-R Dad, Lord Lansdowne, Mrs Nicklin, me and my handbag. Photo by Lis McDermott)
20th November 2009 - Wiltshire Business Awards
During the months of October and November I had a series of gruelling interviews to win the “New Business Awards” in Wiltshire. My business, to promote my talks and sell my books won me the 2009 New Business Award for Mere, Wiltshire. The award came as a delightful shock when I was awarded my £1,000 prize money at the Athenaeum in Warminster. Following this I went on to a glamorous awards evening at Bowood House, Chippenham. Here, 16 regional entrepreneurs met up and saw the fledgling company, Monkey Puzzle, win the grand award and a further £2,000.
Lord Lansdowne, who was guest of honour for the awards, told all 16 finalists from towns across the county that entrepreneurs were what make British business successful.
“It is you we rely on to create the wealth and drip that wealth down into the welfare system.” he said.
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22nd October 2009 - Mere Book Launch
On a blustery autumn evening, many friends of mine met up in the Old Ship Hotel, Mere, to attend the official ‘Around the World in 80 Handbags’ book launch. The evening started off with my brief introduction (during which I handed back my eighty-eight-year-old grandmother’s handbag - that she’d already lost on the evening!)
Soon the eclectic audience settled down to a four minute movie highlighting the findings of ‘Around the World in 80 Handbags.’
“What a very special evening last night was. I thought you pitched it perfectly!” Pip Scaramanga
The evenings formal entertainment finalised as I read a couple of pages from the book (Day 19 in Chennai).
After the talk, the singing and the reading, my friends queued up the length of the room to receive their signed copies of the book.
“Thanks for a great evening – it was fantastic and I loved it. I loved the movie especially since it was to one of my favourite pieces (Lakme) and the ending was perfectly timed, as the slides came to a close. Great speech and story telling. It was so entertaining all round.” David Plimmer
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18th October 2009 - Mere Literary Festival
Every year, the idyllic town of Mere (where I live and work) hosts an International Literary Festival. Now in it’s 13th year, the focus for 2009 was poetry. The open competition received over three-hundred entrants from across the globe as far as New Zealand. Although l didn’t enter the competition (not a poet just yet) they kindly provided me with a space to host my stand in the break out room just off the main stage.
I also had the great pleasure in meeting the head poetry adjudicator, author of ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’ and himself an internationally acclaimed poet, Louis de Bernieres. Quite a funny story actually, after handing over a copy of ‘Around the World in 80 Handbags’ I had this photograph taken with him. Then Louis went back to the judging. An hour later as I was packing away my stand, Louie came up to me, telling me that he had lost his book and wondered if he could have another one. This time I had a little more time and managed to sign it for him.
I can tell you, iIt’s quite an experience writing ‘Louis de Bernieres’ on the first page of your own book!
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7th October 2009 - Book Review by Freddy Mead
I have to admit, when Will asked me to review Around the World in 80 Handbags, I was sceptical. Sceptical not only because to say I’m not entirely convinced by the whole ‘hippy’ ideal and the cliché of travel to ‘find oneself’ would be an understatement of biblical proportions, but because I simply couldn’t see the interest in the contents of a handbag or wallet belonging to anybody but myself.
It soon becomes clear that Will isn’t really that interested in the handbags either, but deeply in the people attached to them. Now, THAT is intoxicating. You, the reader, breathe a huge sigh of relief and start to allow yourself to become sucked into the whirlwind of the book.
Pages fly by as Will writes confidently with breathtaking honesty and a style of humour that render this book truly captivating from the outset. Short tales of compassion, mentorship and self discovery warm the heart and encourage you to probe at your own core values. Surprisingly, unlike many books that repeatedly ask such deep questions, due to the high pace, this never really gets boring.
That said, I cannot agree entirely. Various expressed opinions relating to capitalism and its effects are, in my opinion, flawed and others naive. However, I understand entirely why Will has done what he has done. On sharing with us his quest to discover the fundamental answers and how fate and a good mental attitude positively affect not only such a physical journey, but the journey of life itself, he has reminded us that, as Einstein said and is mentioned in the book, “the important thing is never to stop questioning, curiosity has its own reason for existing”.
For that alone, I am grateful.
Freddy Mead, 21, Student
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4th October 2009 - St Catherine’s Artisan Market Frome
My first ever outing of the book in public. Here I sold and signed copies for members of the public. The book was most popular with foreigners who were travelling in England and people who had previous done a lot of travelling, however there was one delightful lady who bought a signed copy for her friend who had a handbag fetish!
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29th September 2009
First editions piled up to be shipped out to the people who pre-ordered this unknown new author’s first book.
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10th September 2009
Single proof edition of the book is delivered. l experienced a moment of absolute joy when I first saw it in print. I highly recommend that everyone writes their own book! For me, it wasn’t just compilation of two years work, it was the realisation of a dream.
306 Pages of print.
Take a look inside, ten pages of glossy photographs. Look close and you can see five of the handbags: Mate from New Zealand, Will in New Zealand, Tekina in New Zealand, Greg from LA and Chris in Hollywood.
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August 2009 = Final draft signed off and sent to pre-press print with the CPI Group (Eastbourne) and the first editions will be delivered to people who have pre-ordered the book on 1st October 2009. The book is 306 pages long, has 93,000 words and 10 full colour pages of photographs of people and their handbags from all over the world.
July 2009 = Proof reading of book completed. Steve, Allen, Anna, Sue and Will’s Dad all pre-order the book to take advantage of receiving one of the first signed copies.
June 2009 = Completed 3rd draft. Now down to 95,000 words.
May 2009 = Completed 2nd Draft. Filtered down to 100,000 words.
April 2009 = Completed 1st Draft. 130,000 words.
February 2009 = Pre-orders start being taken for upcoming book.
December 2008 = School Talk: Ferndown School, Bournemouth.
November 2008 = Philosophical Travel Talk: St. Osmunds Church, Derby, UK.
April 2008 = I appeared on BBC Breakfast with Susanna Reid and Charlie Stayt. I dived into Susanna’s handbags to discover that she went to the Horniman museum yesterday and that she has kids. Charlie was surprised to hear that I didn’t only ask women and that half the peoples handbags that I looked in to were in fact owned by men!
April 2008 = I appeared on BBC World with George Alagiah. Apparently 20 million viewers watched me all over the globe (not broadcast in England though). In September 2009 I met a guy who recognised me because he’d watched it on his Honeymoon in Cuba!
April 2008 = Travel Talk: Headlining the TNT Magazine Travel Show, London.
July 2007 = Book writing starts. Various ideas tossed around, would it be a picture book? A book of quotes? Would I carry on photographing the contents of people’s handbags? My great friend, Dan Chilcott, helped me with the final decision to keep it simple and tell the authentic story of my 80 days of travelling in the form of a travel diary. “Just write the truth, people can make their own conclusions.” he told me. Thanks Dan.
1st January 2007 - 22nd March 2009 = Trip around the world in 80 days.
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What would you like to do now?
a) Read the latest news.
b) Find out about upcoming events.
c) Own the book.
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