FT270


It’s not often that a volcano interferes with my travel plans, but in April 2010, that’s exactly what happened. When Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted, sending a dense ash cloud over Europe and closing UK airspace, I was about to return to London from the US after a week’s work in Florida. What I was doing in Florida in the first place was unusual enough. I’d been invited to teach at Trinity Preparatory School in Orlando, as part of their Visiting Writers Program. Robert Boerth, an English teacher at the school and head of the programme, was familiar with my books, and had arranged for me to lead classes in esotericism, consciousness, and the history of the 1960s counter­culture.