Brilliant Book Benefits United Through Sport

Thanks to a genius spark of imagination and a very different slant on travel writing, Emily Monk, a GAP SPORTS volunteer, has raised nearly £3000 for United Through Sport. Her book ‘Don't Tell Mum: Hair-raising Messages Home from Gap-year Travellers’ has been selling like hotcakes, and she has generously donated a large sum to the charity to support community development overseas.

The brilliant book reads as a series of real-life emails written by gap-year travelers, updating their friends and family on their exotic adventures. Where once the news of a fresh tattoo, the purchase of a gold Mercedes or a village chief's proposal of marriage would have had to wait until a traveller's return, those left at home are now able to follow every trial and tribulation of their loved one's attempt to 'find-themselves'. Together with Simon Hoggart, Emily has collected together the funniest, most surreal, most alarming gap-year e-mails into a treasure-trove of correspondence. Accompanied by their wicked commentary, Don't Tell Mum invites us to live the gap-year experience without even having to leave the country.