The Last Overland: The Return Journey of the Iconic Land Rover Expedition

by Alex Bescoby

In 1955, a group of students led by Tim Slessor drove 19,000 miles from London to Singapore in a Land Rover; the resulting documentary and book, First Overland, caught the public imagination in a time of post-war austerity. But it was a passing comment by Sir David Attenborough’s on the fiftieth anniversary of the expedition—in which he suggested it was “a journey that I don’t think could be made again today”—that proved an irresistible challenge for the filmmaker and adventurer Alex Bescoby. This book, and a Channel Four documentary series, are the result: a thrilling adventure in which nothing goes quite to plan, that offers an opportunity to reflect on how much has changed since the 1950s.