The absolute very first time I went hitchhiking in Europe was just after my O-Levels. I’d been hitching in the UK for a couple of years by then and hadn’t been molested or murdered so I thought it was safe to give it a go on the continent.
In the 80s, hitching (for any younger readers) was like Uber except it was free. It’s gone out of fashion in the intervening 30-40 years and is probably considered too dangerous nowadays but, back then, my parents didn’t bat an eyelid, as long as it saved them from having to give me a lift.
I celebrated the end of my exams by heading down to see some friends in Malaga and then decided to hitchhike to Athens. I wasn’t entirely sure where Malaga and Athens were in relation to each other but I knew they were both in Europe so couldn’t be too far apart. Up until then, the nearest I'd got to Europe was skimming stones off Woolacombe Beach on the coast of North Devon and being told by my Dad that they'd gone halfway to Portugal. Geography was never his strong point although he claimed to have studied it at University but, in his day, you were awarded a 2.1 in your final exam if you managed to fill in the names of the major cities on a map and colour in the countries without going over the lines.
In Spain, I tended to get lifts from lorry drivers including one who took me on the first leg of my journey, between Malaga and Granada, and tried to have sex with me. Luckily, one of my O-Levels was Spanish and, unlike French, I could speak it pretty well so a constant mantra of “las chicas solamente” (look it up on google translate) and a refusal to touch anything which wasn’t welded to the truck (and the thing in front of me didn’t even look like it was welded to him) meant I reached Granada intact and unscathed.
With the Schengen agreement still a twinkle in the eyes of Monsieur Mitterrand and his EU chums, crossing a border in Europe was a lengthy and tiresome process which was only made tolerable by the prospect of a stamp in your passport at the end of it (like a sweetie from the nurse after your BCG jab). There was no computer database so the officials just kept you waiting for the hell of it, glancing at your photo (I had spikey and freshly-dyed blond hair by that point and looked nothing like the cherubic 11 year old in the photo) and having a good nose through your passport stamps to see where else you'd visited. It was their way of making you think that your chances of being allowed in were 50:50 and would only improve once they'd taken you into the back office and slapped a latex glove on their hand. It relieved the boredom I guess.
Once I'd got into France, it was like being transported into an episode of Starsky & Hutch. All corners were taken at 100 mph, ideally with the hubcaps slamming against the kerb and over-taking some other maniac driver at the same time, and any kind of alleyway (ideally a rubbish-strewn one) represented a potential shortcut. All that was missing was someone sliding across the bonnet or landing on the roof (oh, and Huggy Bear obviously) - click here for a reminder. On one journey, I was so terrified that I begged to be dropped off. Luckily, one of my O-Levels was French but, unluckily, I had oublié tout because I'd taken it over a year earlier (I've done a refresher course since as you can tell) and so struggled to deliver this message with the fluency required for it to be understood.
Once over the Italian border and past Pisa, I got a lift in a soft-top driven by two beautiful Italian girls who drove me into Florence with the roof down and the sun blazing overhead, laughing and singing together all the way in. They were in the mood to party and asked me to join them, offering me an evening to remember and a place to stay the night….which, for some unfathomable reason, I politely but promptly declined and bid them a cheery farewell. I think I’ve mentioned elsewhere that c.10% of my stories are exaggerated, made-up or mis-remembered. I truly wish that this was one which fell into that category.
Instead I headed to a summer school where a friend of mine, Bryn, was studying and where I slept on the floor of a boys’ dormitory, ready to roll under one of the beds if the housekeeper ever came in to check. Even Bryn would concede that, given the alternatives, this was a decision of mine which ranked right up there with throwing away my Six Million Dollar Man doll in its original box, considering that's about what it's worth nowadays.
Afterwards, I hitched south and took the ferry across to Corfu where a guy gave me a lift and offered to take me out on the town. The next thing I remember was waking up in an empty house halfway down the coast. To this day, I have no idea whose house it was, how I got there and whether I’d happened to pick the one moment, when my captor had popped out for some rope and a spade, to make my escape. As it was, I wandered out of the house, stuck out my thumb and headed back to the harbour to catch any lift I could find to Mainland Greece. I'd have joined Captain Pugwash and his cardboard cut-out crew of dubiously-named seamen (all a tabloid invention sadly) if it meant getting off the island more quickly.
Once I'd had my fill of Athens and rather than hitch all the way back home again, I decided to experience the classic backpacker adventure on board “The Magic Bus to London”. Nowadays, with social media scrutiny and trading standards, it would simply have been called “The Bus to London” and I’d have been able to read 50 reviews advising against taking the trip in the strongest possible terms. In those day, if some bloke in your hostel happened to suggest it was ‘alright’, you were booking a ticket the next day.
I arrived in London Victoria and thumbed a lift up north to within a mile of my home town, which turned out to be close enough to encourage my mum to pick up the son she hadn’t seen for over a month. I know I now had blonde hair and had lost a stone in weight but that didn’t really explain why she drove past me twice before deciding to pick me up. I’ve had Spanish lorry drivers who were quicker to give me a lift than that.
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