The Path of Peace: Walking the Western Front Way

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In it Anthony Seldon documents the walk he took along the whole of the Western Front of World War One, as part of his self-appointed mission to establish a via sacra, a path of peace, fulfilling the vision of a young soldier, Douglas Gillespie, who was killed in the early weeks of the war. Touching on grief, loss and the legacy of war, The Path of Peace is the extraordinary story of Anthony’s epic walk, an unforgettable act of remembrance and a triumphant rediscovery of what matters most in life.

The reader does not have to be a First World War expert to appreciate the historical background, as the relevant elements of the conflict are cleverly explained in the course of the narrative. Apart from his teaching and administrative work, his establishment credentials included being director for the National Shakespeare company, name dropping Boris Johnson as a contact and easy access to national newspapers and TV channels.As for the realism of the idea of establishing the Western Front Way as a long distance footpath/cycle path, Seldon's struggles to avoid busy roads and to stay anywhere near the multiple lines of the front for stretches at a time, combined with the sheer scale of the project, made it feel unlikely ever to be fully achieved. In 2009, he set up The Wellington Academy, the first state school to carry the name of its founding independent school. He was the 13th Master (headmaster) of Wellington College, one of Britain's co-educational independent boarding schools.

Seldon was knighted in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to education and modern political history. It is impossible not to be moved by a chaplain’s description of the last moments of a 19-year-old who had been court-martialled and sentenced to be shot: “I held his arm tight to reassure him and then he turned his blindfolded face to mine and said in a voice which wrung my heart, ‘Kiss me, sir, kiss me’, and with my kiss on his lips, and ‘God has you in his keeping’ whispered in his ear, he passed on into the Great Unseen. The idea for this initiative goes back to a letter written by the young British officer Douglas Gillespie to his parents, shortly before his death on the Western Front. I myself have walked extensively and written about my experiences and I definitely sympathise with the Author's gruesome tales about blisters and Compeed plasters!The German author Herfried Münkler describes in his book “Der Grosse Krieg” that his grandmother’s fiancée who was killed on the Eastern front and of whom he was told as a child, was looking over his shoulder whilst he was writing). The route of his 1,000 kilometre journey was inspired by a young British soldier of the First World War, Alexander Douglas Gillespie, who dreamed of creating a ‘Via Sacra’ that the men, women and children of Europe could walk to honour the fallen. I might not share Seldon's passion, but I can appreciate it and feel the importance that this walk traces a line that has a deep connection to the personal history of many European families. A huge undertaking and a book that is highly recommended for anyone with an interest in the First World War.