In writing the book there was never any problem finding enough information about walking and walkers. The problem was always more about what to leave out than what to include. I'm happy to stand by the decisions I made. But every now and then I find a new snippet of information and I'm disappointed that it's too late to include it in the book.
For instance I just saw an interview with Richard Branson, in Parade magazine. They asked, "Are Americans too afraid of taking risks?" And Branson replied, "People do need to be a bit braver. When I was 4 years old, my mother dropped me out of the car to walk three miles to my grandmother's house-to find my own way." Wha?
I would love to have been a fly on the wall of granny's house when young Richard walked in the door: I'm assuming he did walk in the door, though the interview doesn't actually say so. I wonder what kind of celebrations they had.
My other recent discovery, on just reading Bran Stoker's "Dracula" - for the first time I'm ashamed to admit - is that an awful lot of trouble starts because Lucy Westenra, who is quite the sexy minx, goes sleep walking, that's when Dracula gets her, bites her in the neck and turns her into one of his vampires. A lesson learned there.
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Geoff Nicholson, 
The Lost Art of Walking, 
Pedestrianism, 
Riverhead, 
Penguin Books
Plennie L. Wingo
Geoff, I enjoyed your book very much. Its inspired me to try a long walk in the near future. I'm on a personal quest to do a 50-mile hike mindful of the 1963 walk done by Bobby Kennedy. I'm planning on trying this next month without much preparation, although I'm in pretty good shape for a 60 year old guy. I was one of the crazy 15 year old kids that walked the walk back then and I've been obsessed with this idea over the last year. Here's a website that provides a little background on my challenge http://50-milehikers.ning.com/ In doing research on walking, I came across a character named Plennie L. Wingo who is said to have walked backwards over 3,000 miles wearing periscope type glasses to see where he was going. It looks like he wrote a book "Around the World Backwards". I was wondering if you knew anything about this or have read his book I couldn't seem to find a reference in your book on him, but I'm pretty sure this would be a character you would appreciate. Anyway, thanks for a good and helpful read. Any information on Plennie or advice on a 50-mile walk would be appreciated. Paul