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FIRST OVERLAND NEWSLETTER 30The latest news of the 'First Overland' DVD, based on Antony Barrington-Brown's original film footage of the 1955 Oxford & Cambridge Far Eastern Expedition from London to Singapore. |
A tribute to Adrian Cowell, originator of the 'First Overland' Expedition, and latterly an award-winning documentary film-maker who warned of the dangers of deforestation.
Also, a reunion celebrating the three Oxford & Cambridge expeditions of the 1950s, that did so much to promote the Land-Rover as a world-class vehicle.
2/2/1934 – 11/10/2011
I was very sorry to hear of the death of Adrian Cowell, originator and Business Manager of the 'First Overland' Expedition. This was made all the more poignant because it came just 3 weeks to the day since we last met, at a reunion for the Oxford & Cambridge expedition crews from the 1950s, arranged by Land Rover at Solihull. This included a superb dinner in the Ramada Hotel on the evening of September 19th, and then a meet-the-press-and-view-some-films morning at the Land Rover Experience centre in the factory grounds. This was followed by a tour of the modern factory so that the team members could see where their Land-Rovers were made nearly 60 years ago.
Adrian clearly looked a little frail, but no-one guessed that in just a few days he would no longer be with us. In an email, Pat Murphy told me:
We understand that Adrian died after a heart attack, aged 77. He was born in Tongshan, China on 2nd February 1934. The funeral service was at St. Marylebone Crematorium, in Finchley. [At the Solihull reunion] he told me he had made over all his Brazilian archives to a university in Brazil, and was planning to go to Brazil in about a month's time to finish the film he was making. I think you will be astonished at the amount of work he did on Brazil and the impact he made to halt (or at least slow down) the destruction of the Amazon rain forest. He was also one of the first to draw people's attention to the effect of climate change and the importance of maintaining the Earth's rain forests.
Indeed, elsewhere on the Web, tributes have been flooding in to the impressive campaigning work he did through his films, arguing (long before it became part of the wider ecological argument) that the destruction of the South American rain forests was one of the most serious threats that Planet Earth was facing. The nearly-completed film 'Killing for Land' documents the current violent conflicts taking place in the south of the state of Pará. The website Latin America Bureau gives a more informed review of his importance in the region, and there his friend Stella Penido (who has been restoring his huge archive of footage) says: "There are things that haven't been written about, that don't exist anywhere else, only in Adrian's work. He was tireless. He died working, just before he was due back in Brazil to complete his latest documentary."
As someone working in TV, I'd long been aware of the name 'Adrian Cowell' as an important film-maker, but had never associated him with the 'Adrian Cowell' in Tim Slessor's book until just before I was due to contact him to see if he would give me an interview for the 'First Overland' DVD. The situation couldn't have been made clearer than by the response I received from my first email – he apologised for taking so long to reply, but he was currently in a mud hut in the Upper Amazon Basin, dealing with his Inbox via a satellite phone! He was already into his seventies.
That we could correspond so swiftly in writing over such a huge distance contrasted with the first time we met face-to-face. Adrian lived in a fine old house in a leafy street in North London. My cameraman colleague Ted Parker and I set out from Yorkshire early on a Sunday morning, and in about 4 hours were in Adrian's neighbourhood... an hour before we expected after a marvellously smooth run, so we grabbed a bite to eat so as not to arrive early. After the excellent interview, we set out for South East London where we were booked into a hotel for the night before meeting Pat Murphy the next morning. But although I lived for my 25 years in suburban London, and even used to drive into the centre regularly as a private hire driver, I wasn't prepared for the increased traffic of the 21st Century. I thought that a Sunday would be quiet — on the contrary, my chosen 12-mile route over Tower Bridge and down the Old Kent Road took as long as it had taken to get from Yorkshire to London in the first place. The Classic Range Rover I was stop-start driving probably used as much diesel as well!
One of the London-Singapore team (not Adrian himself) once told me how he came to get interested in film-making. When David Attenborough was editing the 'First Overland' programmes, he had a professional film editor to do the actual film splicing... but he also needed a member of the team sitting in the edit suite to make sure that the right clips were assembled in the right order. This was generally one of the 'media-oriented' members — Tim or BB — but on one occasion neither of them could make it. Rather reluctantly Adrian agreed to go the the BBC. He was so fascinated by the craft of assembling clips of film to tell a story that he stayed with the editing sessions until the programmes were complete. When it was over he maintained his interest, finally becoming one of the finest film campaigners of the later 20th and early 21st Century.
Which makes all the more special one of the very last things he said to me. My film projects couldn't begin to approach his for skill, power and impact... or even budget! But at Solihull he said "I admire you — I've never met anyone who financed a film by putting up the cash in advance, knowing that it would get its money back through sales." For a man of Adrian's standing to say that to me, I take as a great compliment.
Adrian Cowell will be much missed. I'm sure you'll join me in thinking of his friends and family.
Largely at the instigation of Steve Kerss (the owner of the 'Cambridge' replica), and with the support of Roger Crathorne, Land Rover hosted a special reunion on September 19th/20th for representatives of the three Oxford & Cambridge expeditions that took place in the mid-fifties using Land-Rovers. Of these the best-known is, of course, the Far Eastern Expedition from London to Singapore, otherwise known as 'First Overland' from the title of Tim Slessor's book, and now the DVD of Antony Barrington-Brown's footage. But this expedition wasn't the first of the three — in 1954 there was a 'Trans Africa Expedition', which (so Steve alleged in his introduction) started when Adrian Cowell wondered whether a light blue (eg Cambridge) car would beat a dark blue (eg Oxford) one in a race around Africa — from the audience, Adrian said it was the first time he'd heard that story! Of course, the Trans Africa Expedition itself had a more responsible academic and research aim, and from June to December 1954 covered 27,000 miles travelling from London to Capetown and back.
Although it was originally his idea, Adrian didn't go on the Expedition, but stayed back in the UK as the supporting 'Home Team' — was it because of that that he persuaded Tim and BB that a further expedition to Singapore the following year would be a good idea? Either way, he also got to join the third expedition in 1957/8 for a 30,000-mile circuit of South America, along with his brother Christopher and Nigel Newbery, the Oxford representative on the Singapore expedition. I believe that that was when Adrian's interest in Brazil was first kindled.
All these expeditions used Land-Rovers, and it can't be denied that they provided an excellent promotional tool for The Rover Company. The Land-Rover was by now fully established in its home territory and in 'the colonies', but these expeditions were a chance to introduce it to new markets. So it could be said that a celebration dinner in the explorers' honour was long overdue. But following Steve Kerss' suggestion, Roger Crathorne, the Technical Manager in Land Rover's Press Office (and a devoted Land-Rover historian), took up the idea with enthusiasm. 9 of the members of the three expeditions came together in the Ramada Hotel in Solihull, together with Roger and his colleague Bridget Mawn from Jaguar Land Rover Public Affairs, Steve Kerss, Mike Bishop (who did so much of the research that brought Project Engineer Arthur Goddard back to the public eye) and his wife Michelle, and me.
Pat & Jutta Murphy were there, along with Althea and Antony 'BB'. Also representing the Singapore team were Adrian and Tim. From the Trans Africa Expedition were Ross Charlton (Cameraman), Tony Morgan (Mechanic) and Gethin Bradley (who became Rover's Press Officer in the late 50's). Representing the South America Expedition were John Moore (Photographer) and Peter Riviere, the expedition anthropologist who went on to become Professor of Anthropology at Oxford University. We had an excellent meal, with many reminiscences, as some of the expedition members hadn't seen each other since they left Oxford and Cambridge 60+ years before.
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Roger Crathorne shows Tim Slessor a model of a Series 1 gearbox tunnel
that was given by Land-Rover as a souvenir paperweight in the early 50s
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The next day there was a Press Call at Land Rover Experience at the Lode Lane factory. Ross Charlton gave a presentation about the Trans Africa Expedition, and Peter Riviere remembered the South American venture. BB introduced some of his footage of the journey from the Ganges river crossing through to Singapore. We're now watiing to see what the journalists will write about the event. |
Jutta and Pat Murphy go through a press cuttings album wth BB
The explorers with the 'First Overland replicas —
(left to right) Ross Charlton, Pat Murphy, Tony Morgan, Adrian Cowell, John Moore, Peter Riviere, Gethin Bradley, Tim Slessor, BB
Then there was a chance for the teams to visit the Solihull factory — although there have clearly been many alterations since the mid 50s, the modern Defender lines are still in the original part of the factory, so although the machines were new, and the cars were certainly more up-to-date, it was still possible to get a feel of where their original vehicles were built,
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It was a magnificent, and entirely appropriate, celebration of some of the pioneers of Land Rover's 'go anywhere' philosophy, and I feel honoured to be involved in it. There is certainly a great deal more to be written about the non-Singapore expeditions... and there was even talk of the long-awaited (!) books and films being produced. Mind you, 'First Overland' will always be a hard act to follow. But if they do appear (and I very much hope they do), then I'll pass on the details here.
This Newsletter has been prepared rather hurriedly because of the sad news about Adrian, so I've not had the chance to go through the email postbag for your expedition stories. But as I suspect there may be other news to give you before long, I hope to be able to produce another Newsletter a little sooner than this one has been.
GRAEME ALDOUS
Previous Newsletters are available here
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