![]() ![]() While there, he became ill with the duodenal problems that plagued him all his life, and which had prevented him from joining the Army, Britain having declared war against Germany on August 4 that year. (The house is still there indeed, anyone wishing to re-enact the novel’s finale may rent it as a holiday let.) John Buchan wrote The 39 Steps in a few weeks towards the end of 1914, while staying with his wife and children at Broadstairs in Kent, in a house on the cliffs overlooking Stone Bay. Thus Alice Buchan gave the title to her father’s, my grandfather’s, new novel, little knowing that it would prove to be one of the most enduring adventure stories ever to be published. ![]() ‘Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-NINE!’ she says in triumph as they step off onto the sand. The girl, just turned six, is improving her counting by determinedly calling out the number of each step. ![]() On a late-summer’s day in 1914, a man walks with his small daughter down a rickety flight of wooden steps leading to a private beach from a house on the clifftop. 'The 39 Steps, in its language, its settings, its nods to contemporary technology and its characterisation, belongs firmly to the 20th century,' said John Buchan's grandson, Toby ![]()
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