One predominant theme, intended or not, is Stewart's love of Britain's "lived in" rural landscape. The small village, the stone fence enclosures, the sheep and cattle, the neighboring farms and farm houses, where everyone knows everyone. A certain coziness. After the Norman conquest, the Middleland area was cleared of habitation and reserved as royal forest for the king's hunting. Stewart looks on forest as a form of desert.

The memorial part is nicely done, but honestly probably not of that much interest to most people who did not know the man (who does not come off as a particularly admirable person, though the familial love clearly shines through.) Fascinating...Stewart provides wonderful insights as he visits Roman fortifications, medieval castles, and Hadrian's Wall. This is an informative, thoughtful, and timely mix of history and travelogue." -- BOOKLIST Stewart] anchors his lively mix of history, travelogue, and reportage on local communities in a vibrant portrait of his father, who was both a tartan-wearing Scotsman and a thoroughly British soldier and diplomat."-- Publishers WeeklyAnother theme is the unique nature of the Middleland. Stewart had set out on his Hadrian's Wall hike with some thought that the wall marked a separation between Scots and English peoples. His findings confused him, and he now feels that the people of the "Middleland" -- now defined as stretching from the Humber river to the Highland Line -- make up a distinct third culture, one containing a number of sub-cultures. A real-life Richard Hannay … Brian Stewart CMG, veteran of the second world war and MI6. Photograph: Heathcliff O'Malley The author’s journey along Hadrian’s Wall, which allowed him “to explore and answer questions about Scottish nationalism, Rome, Frontiers, and Empires.” Stewart's father, Brian, is present throughout the book. In his early 90s as the book takes place, Brian Stewart serves as a bridge between the British Empire and Britain of today. A WWII veteran, a diplomat, and a high-ranking director of MI6 in the mid-70s. He was "Q". Pease, Howard (1912). The lord wardens of the marches of England and Scotland: being a brief history of the marches, the laws of march, and the marchmen, together with some account of the ancient feud between England and Scotland. London: Constable.

I read Stewart's The Places in Between many years ago, enjoyed it, and thought I'd give this a try, since it involves a memoir of along walk, and one along Hadrian's wall at that, something I've always wanted to do. As a writer, Stewart has a fine sense of the nature of the physical spaces he traverses, as well as the human stories (past and present) that play out in these landscapes. SIGNATURE At the end of the Marches is a Chronology which I found very interesting, defining The Middleland before AD100 up to the present days. The Middleland is a term invented by Brian Stewart: On their six-hundred-mile, thirty-day journey - with Rory on foot, and his father ‘ambushing’ him by car – the pair relive Scottish dances, reflect on Burmese honey-bears, and on the loss of human presence in the British landscape. Stewart reveals the force of myths and traditions and the endurance of ties that are woven into the fabric of the land itself. A meditation on deep history, the pull of national identity, and home, The Marches will be regarded as one of the best books of 2016.”— WAMC-FM, “the Roundtable”

Stewart reveals the force of myths and traditions and the endurance of ties that are woven into the fabric of the land itself. A meditation on deep history, the pull of national identity, and home, The Marches will be regarded as one of the best books of 2016."-- WAMC-FM, "the Roundtable" He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. Modern agriculture, tourism, environmentalism, and reforestation are causing a rapid re-desertification, in Stewart's eyes. Small farms held by families for centuries are being combined into large mechanized agricultural businesses. The government is reforesting other areas, and environmentalists are undoing the farmers' work of centuries, returning the land to "non-invasive" species. Among the many undesirable effects, as Stewart sees it, is a significant depopulation: fewer people now live in the "Middleland" than at any time since the middle ages, and deserted farm houses abound. The miracle of The Marches is not so much the treks Stewart describes, pulling in all possible relevant history, as the monument that emerges to his beloved father." -- NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW McNeill, Ronald John (1911). "March, Earls of § II Scottish Marches". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol.17 (11thed.). pp.687–688.

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil. Stewart does have a clever and thoughtful way with words and his observations of the people he interacts with feel fair, balanced and humorous. These are a joy to read throughout the book and are for me quite characteristic of his writing style. In this book he does particular justice to his father, who is painted as an extraordinary and yet very human individual. The tender moments between the Father and Son are wonderful to read. It might be seen as an act of love. At the beginning of this book, the author recounts an incident from his childhood, when he showed his father a model plane he’d made and his father didn’t pay it sufficient attention. Rory then wrote a note: “Because you would not look at my plane … I am running away.” When Brian Stewart found it, his son writes, “I saw from his face how frightened he was. I realised how easily I could hurt him. I never wanted to see him like that again.” His book becomes a history of the Middleland, or ‘The Marches’. Britain, he argues, is an island whose natural boundaries are the sea, a nation split by a colonial empire that drew a line on a map, separating tribes and families.Stewart brings a humane empathy to his encounters with people and landscape."-- The Washington Post

However, the third part - the attitude - was a huge disappointment to me. In Stewart's previous writing, he seemed very sympathetic yet fair-mindedly critical regarding all the people he came across. Here, his attitude reflects that of the book project itself: he had a preconceived notion of what he wanted to find and do, and is resistant and frustrated when the reality doesn't match those preconceived notions. Stewart has a ridiculously romanticized notion of rural British life, and is practically angry when he discovers that rural English folks and Scots are, well, modern people, concerned with their daily lives without secretly harboring old tales and traditions. Those who do love the old tales and traditions repeatedly come under fire from him for being inauthentic and inaccurate (this may be true, but one would think we could appreciate the passion and love these people have, regardless.) Stewart loves seeking out the etymology of place names, and notes frequently which areas of the Middleland have names deriving from Northumbrian (Germanic) roots, which from Norse roots, and which from Cumbric-Welsh roots. He points out that what he now calls the Middleland was, before and for some time after the Conquest, shared by a number of kings representing different language and cultural regions. Some of these distinctions still exist in local language and customs.This beautifully written book is a haunting reflection of identity and our relationships with the people and places we love’ Daily Mail The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance. Ik weet niet of ik auteur of zijn vader in de dagelijkse omgang sympathiek zou gevonden hebben, maar dat doet er niet toe. Uit elke zin blijkt de liefde en de eerbied die zij voor elkaar voelen en dit wordt zéér goed overgebracht en mooi verwoord. Wat een rijkdom om zo een relatie met een ouder te mogen hebben. Ik was, toen het onvermijdelijke gebeurde, ook echt ontroerd. How much Stewart regrets this growing apartness is hard to know from this account. The delight of it lies in his encounters with the specific rather than in ruminations about the general. He has an alert eye for the awkward detail – the things that don’t quite fit with the tone of a scene. It makes him an enjoyable and persuasive writer. It sometimes seemed to his son that Brian Stewart, once the second most powerful figure in the British intelligence services, was protesting his Scottishness too much. There had always been an enthusiasm for country dancing. In Kuala Lumpur, in between keeping an eye on the natives, he’d taught five-year-old Rory how to hop the steps of the Highland sword dance. Now, white-haired and rather frail, he wore tartan trews every day and spread a tartan blanket on his bed; he had lurcher called Torquil; next to the whisky on his desk lay oatcakes and a Gaelic dictionary; he ate porridge every morning and haggis twice a week.