Commemorative London walk for Iain Banks planned

Fans of Iain Banks will walk through London to commemorate the late author. Picture: Ian Georgeson

Avid readers of the writer’s novels are to hold the commemorative walk later this month following his death from cancer aged 59 one year ago.

The planned route of the 2km walk from Holborn to Islington mirrors one taken by the character Graham Park in Banks’ second published novel Walking On Glass.

The devotees will carry copies of the book during the trip and will finish by raising a glass to the author in the Hope and Anchor pub in Islington, one of his favourite watering holes.

It was at the pub that he wrote the first draft of The Wasp Factory, one of his most famous novels.

The walk on June 28 is being organised by David Haddock, editor of the Iain Banks fanzine, the BANKSONIAN, and around 50 fans are expected to turn out.

David said: “Iain Banks’s second published novel, Walking on Glass, has three interlinked storylines.

“One of these has chapter names which are the roads in London that the character Graham Park walks in his journey

“In the book Graham walks from Theobald’s Road to Half Moon Crescent and then to Regent’s Canal.

“We will do that and then head up Upper Street to see some other locations from the book and the author’s life. Depending on how long we spend in various pub along the way it will take about three hours.”

Banks, from North Queensferry, Fife, revealed in April last year he had been diagnosed with gall bladder cancer and had just months to live.

He married his long-term partner Adele Hartley shortly after being diagnosed with the illness.

Last month it was revealed he had left more than £3.6 million to his wife in his will.

The will revealed his estate, including royalties for his fiction and science fiction books, was valued at £3,640,011 at the time of his death.

SEE ALSO

•Obituary: Iain Banks, author