The Five Pound Look

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When he heard that H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh had told students: "Every young man should be able to work round the world on £5", Tom Houston set out and in the course of one year travelled through twenty-one countries, sometimes on foot and sometimes in luxury, using peasant bus and freight plane, working with wharfies and talking to archaeologists.

Starting with £5 a man looks on the world in a new way: He is neither merchant, tourist nor beachcomber - but a bit of each.
In many lands he has no legal status, not being an immigrant, and not allowed to earn his living. His journey is a struggle against bureaucracy - putting into practice ideas which will powerfully affect a new generation. The author becomes an enemy of specialization. He finds unlimited choice, constant change, and new freedom. He tries to become a workman in a society which must become international if it will survive.

In Canada, Tom Houston married his wife Caroline who had flown out to Toronto, after a transatlantic telephone conversation, with £5, one suitcase and a medicine chest. From their five-day honeymoon at frozen Niagara, they shared a host of happy adventures. Caroline earned her passage, endured long journeys in the tropics better than her husband and proved her belief that by meeting people of every race and creed as equals and by working alongside them, we may find a way to build a peaceful world.

Covering an enormous canvas, The Five Pound Look is a rich, gay, thoughtful book.