A first novel can be a daunting experience. Friends who have been through the experience speak of self-doubts, anxiety, wakeful hours and sheer terror when the time comes to allow the manuscript escape into the domain of the critics, not to mention the public at large. It takes some courage to let it go. Bert Slader has done so.
A natural story-teller, as anyone who has walked a trail with him will know, Bert has the ability to enliven conversations with his often quirky reminiscences. It was just as natural that he would write a novel, and in his mystical story, Belshade - set in the Blue Stack Mountains of Donegal - he has done so.
A former deputy head of the Northern Ireland Sports Council, Bert has become a well-known writer, lecturer and broadcaster. His own publishing company, Quest Books, was not idle before the arrival of Belshade.
A decade ago, in Prilgrims' Footsteps, he described a solitary journey to Santiago de Compostella in north-west Spain, along the ancient pilgrimage route - the Camino.
His account of the walk, through some of the most breathtaking scenery you could imagine, moved the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Ireland to enlist his help as a walk leader along the same route. And that set in train his association with the society - one which still continues. It also brought together charity walkers from Cork to Belfast who have raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for the society over the years.
The Slader leadership style is different from other walk leaders who are given to breaking the land speed record ahead of their flock. Slader takes the view that the strongest are there to help the weakest.
He has walked all over Ireland as well as Europe, Asia, Arctic Norway, the Alps, the Pyrenees and the Himalayas. He has led expeditions to these regions as well to the mountains of Iran and Afghanistan. He has twice brought MS walkers along the Great Wall of China and has led a trek in India.
Set against a backdrop of postwar Donegal, the pilgrimages to Lourdes at that time, and the French and Spanish Pyrenees, his new book tells the story of Anamar, a girl from the Lough Esk Valley who makes the pilgrimage and then decides to stay. This year, Bert was the recipient of the Waterford Crystal Walker Award in recognition of his leadership and fundraising efforts. Beyond the Black Mountain, Across the Rivers of Portugal, Footsteps in the Hindu Kush, and An Echo in Another's Mind, are his other travel books.