"Two minutes of vintage film footage unlocks a parallel cycling universe."
Ned Boulting’s Tour de France commentary is an institution for fans of the race and when Covid disrupted his annual gig, like many of us, he was vulnerable to any distraction from lockdown madness. In his case that came in the form of a two minute reel of Pathé news footage covering his beloved race at some point around one hundred years ago. On a tip-off he picked it up at an auction. He had no idea what he was buying, and certainly not where it would take him.
In the pages of 1923, Ned goes on a journey through time, hitched to this blurred, niche sporting film, barely a snapshot of one stage on the Tour. Driven on by the knowledge that the reel was his alone, his established obsession with the race, and slightly unhinged by what is going on in the world, he unravels mysteries, stories, characters and histories that together assemble a parallel universe that is all his own.
In normal life, Ned would be turning up annually to take his place ‘trackside’ at the world’s greatest display of cycling, with a natural understanding of what was going on in the world. He talks about his interest in the places through which the Tour moves and the light research he undertakes to enrich his commentary, but essentially for the duration of the race he is escaping the everyday.
This book is a reversal of that paradigm. Here, given only a short and shaky black and white spool of fading film, he enters another world and the research is anything but light. He firstly identifies the riders and other characters involved in the race. He widens the picture to individuals, adjacent colourful characters of both the time and location. Soon, he is edging into neighbouring territories and getting to grips with the fragility and uncertainty of post WW1 Europe.
1923 is compelling reading, whether a cycling nut or not. From the unlikely collision of Ned, this film and Covid, has emerged a story which explores the complex relationship between sport and the wider world. This is a once-in-a-century book and a worthy award winner.
| Primary Genre | Sports |
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Winner of the Sports Book Awards 2024 Cycling Book of the Year
Nominated for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2023
The story of an obsession. When cycling commentator Ned Boulting bought a length of Pathé news film featuring a stage of the Tour de France from 1923 he set about learning everything he could about it - taking him on an intriguing journey that encompasses travelogue, history and detective story.
In the autumn of 2020 Ned Boulting (ITV head cycling commentator and Tour de France obsessive) bought a length of Pathé news film from a London auction house. All he knew was it was film from the Tour de France, a long time ago.
Once restored it became clear it was a short sequence of shots from stage 4 of the 1923 Tour de France. No longer than 2.5 minutes long, it featured half a dozen sequences, including a lone rider crossing a bridge. Ned set about learning everything he could about the sequence – studying each frame, face and building – until he had squeezed the meaning from it. It sets him off in fascinating directions, encompassing travelogue, history, mystery story – to explain, to go deeper into this moment in time, captured on his little film.
Join him as he explores the history of cycling and France just five years after WWI – meeting characters like Henri Pélissier, who won the Tour that year but who would within the decade be shot dead by his lover using the same pistol with which his wife had killed herself. And Theophile Beeckman – the lone rider on the bridge.
1923 features in the following genres: Sports, History, Cycling: general and touring, History of sport, Travel writing, Cycle racing, Sporting events and management, History and Archaeology, Active outdoor pursuits, Sport: general, Travel, Lifestyle, Hobbies and Leisure, Vehicle sports, Non-Fiction Books of the Month, Star Books, Recommendations
1923 is available in Paperback, Hardback
1923 was written by Ned Boulting and published by Bloomsbury Sport an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
1923 has 284 pages
£9.89
