OBITUARY | Eric Newby

Eric Newby, author of A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, died on Friday, aged 86. First Wilfred Thesiger, now Eric Newby. Newby's one of the old guards of travel writing. They travelled and lived to write about it in the days before Lonely Planet guidebooks.

Someone go check on Jan Morris, please.

From The Guardian's obituary:

Evelyn Waugh wrote a preface to the book, which is considered a classic of travel literature. In it, Newby describes encountering the legendary traveller Wilfred Thesiger in Afghanistan. Thesiger observed Newby and his companion Hugh Carless inflating their airbeds, and told them: "God, you must be a couple of pansies."