Nige Tassell: Final Destination

FINAL DESTINATION:

All aboard for a one-of-a-kind journey by train to some of the most obscure parts of Britain

On the 200th birthday of the world’s first passenger-carrying railway, Nige Tassell sets out to ride Britain’s railway network all the way to its lesser-travelled-to corners, its seldom-visited outposts. From Wick to Penzance and many points in between, he stays on until the end of the line. He is the last man sitting.

The sixteen final destinations he visits offer sixteen different stories. By delving into their histories, by speaking to their people and by having a good old-fashioned nose around, Tassell reveals much about places that rarely have light cast upon them – from ferry ports to abandoned resorts, from tiny hamlets to towns being reclaimed by the sea. It’s a journey that takes in Harry Potter, Muhammad Ali, goths, Alan Bennett, Vera Brittain, Viz comic, Alex Horne, Nigel Farage. Vikings, John Betjeman, Aneurin Bevan, Tyson Fury, Charlotte Rampling’s dad and the weepy judge from The Great Pottery Throwdown. All human life is here.

So grab yourself a window seat for an odyssey that tells us much about Britain today. All aboard, all aboard.

NIGE TASSELL

Nige Tassell writes about popular culture, sport, history, and travel. His journalism has appeared in The Guardian, The Word, The Sunday Times, The Independent, Q, GQ, Esquire, New Statesman, the TLS, FourFourTwo, The Blizzard and When Saturday Comes among many others. 

 He is also the author of eleven books of non-fiction, on subjects as diverse as the film Fargo and the 1989 Tour de France. Among his most celebrated titles are the non-league football classic The Bottom Corner, the Penderyn Music Book Prize-shortlisted Whatever Happened To The C86 Kids?, and Searching For Dexys Midnight Runners, described by Mark Kermode as ‘hitting the sweet spot between gritty detail and heartfelt fandom’. 

His latest book is an excursion into travel writing. Final Destination: Riding Britain’s Trains To The End Of The Line (Mudlark/HarperCollins) finds Nige staying on board multiple trains until the buffers to see what lies beyond – from Wick to Penzance and many points in between.  

Nige lives in Somerset’s Mendip Hills with his wife, kids, dog and a fulsome collection of Half Man Half Biscuit albums. 

‘One of my favourite chroniclers of sport’ – Danny Baker 

‘There’s no writer alive I’d rather go to extremes with’ – Ian McMillan