An Impecunious Beginning
20 minutes
A couple of months after my sixteenth birthday, I set off from London to hitch-hike to India. I’d only hitch-hiked once before, when I was twelve, from London to a caravan in Suffolk with a woman I’d just met who had offered to show me how to make toffee! However, my father Jake, always picked up hitch hikers, and I had happy memories of chatting to interesting strangers in the back of the family Rolls on our occasional family trips.
The idea of going to India had come about gradually. In January 1963, when I was fifteen I’d left Dublin, where my family had moved in 1960 from Soho, and moved back to London to find a job. I didn’t go to school in Dublin, as all schools were either Catholic or Protestant, and we were neither. This meant I made one or two friends of my own age, and they were at school or working, and so I found the days dull. And apart from the occasional post-pub party, where I met numerous interesting, if inebriated, people my life was largely limited to reading voraciously, playing chess, going occasionally to the theatre and long walks alone exploring Dublin.
On the other hand, when I did start work in London, I found it so miserable an activity that I decided it could only be justified if I could save up enough to take a really long holiday. I realised that I needed to go somewhere very cheap for my holiday, given my low wages and how little I could save. Michael, a sculptor who had spent many weeks making a terra-cotta head of me, also when I was twelve, was a family friend. He had a house on a Greek island, and I thought he would put me up, so my plan was to hitch-hike there for the summer. However, as the idea of the holiday developed I thought, “if I can get to Greece, I can get to Turkey”; then, “if I can get to Turkey, I can get to Persia,” and a month or so later, “if I can get to Persia, I can get to India!” The idea of hitch-hiking to India wasn’t so far-fetched, as another family friend, Bob, had travelled overland from India to England on the way from Australia.
My knowledge of India was limited to a love of Indian restaurants, the Taj Mahal, the ‘Indian mutiny,’ and images of Rajahs with bejewelled turbans riding elephants. To get some practical help, I met up with Bob one evening, in his miniscule room behind Harrods,. His room was so small that the mattress stopped the door opening fully. He got out of bed with an attractive woman, and we all went for a drink at a nearby pub. At 15 I was technically too young to drink, but I looked older than my years, and had not had a problem ordering a pint for some time. Bob gave me some useful advice, sprinkled throughout a long narrative on Indian culture and history. I only remember now his advice to stay at Sikh Gurdwaras in India, which provided free food and lodging to travellers, and to make sure my rucksack weighed no more than thirty pounds, or I would regret the extra weight. The only other advice I remember was from my mother Bobby. I went back to Dublin for a couple of weeks for my sixteenth birthday and to see the family before I left. Bobby’s advice was “Look both ways before you cross the road, and always wash your hands after you use the lavatory.” For many years I shared this advice as an example of the daftness of my mother, but discussing this with Bob recently, he pointed out that it is the best advice you could possibly give to a young traveller setting out to the tropics for the first time.
Armed with these wise counsel, I set about assembling the kit I’d need. Another family friend, Christie, lent me an old army rucksack and a US army down sleeping bag. The sleeping bag caused me much embarrassment later on in Turkey, when finally airing it out after several weeks of use, I turned it inside out. A pair of red knickers fell out on the floor in front of my three German travelling companions, to all our astonishment, and my teenaged embarrassment. I bought maps of Europe and India, books to enable me to teach English to augment my miniscule funds, cotton socks and a sun hat, mosquito repellent and a net. Weighing my bag a few days before leaving, I discovered it was already 33 pounds. Many of the things I needed weren’t yet packed, so I had to ditch much of my weight, including the language books and maps. I was now more or less ready, but I had been waiting around since the beginning of September for my boss Jack to pay me the £65 he owed me.
Six or seven weeks after I started my trip, I was given a diary by a printer in Pakistan. That night, I went back to the beginning of the trip and wrote in where I’d stayed each night until then. I also wrote up the first two days of the trip.
7 September 1963
Enter Belgium-YMCA
Left England: travelling; Dover- Ostende- Brussels
6/7 o’clock to Euston to meet Philip [my older brother, who was coming from Dublin]. Missed first boat-train, but he was on the fourth. Back to Wilton road. Philip went to bed and I packed my haversack, then went to find swine Jack Buckle [my boss who owed me £65 in wages]. Tracking him down at his flat at 10 am, he gave me a tenner and promised to post the rest to me. Back with cakes for Philip, then not wanting to delay any longer, I set off with just £36. [I never heard from Jack.] Before noon, I took a No. 24 to Charing X and the 12.30 train, (4/ 9d), to somewhere in SE London. A one mile walk to the A20, which was the high street at this point. Hitch-hiking conditions didn’t seem ideal, standing waving my thumb outside the line of parked cars on a busy shopping street, but I soon got a lift in a broken down Austin van to beginning of M20. Then another lift with a clothes factory owner, for 30 miles with a stop for tea on the motorway. A third lift with a sergeant in the engineers into Dover. I arrived with my companion of two lifts at 4. Walked to quay and caught the 4.30 boat to Ostende. Good company on boat including an American student off to Vienna, an English solicitor, and a Lancashire family off for a week in Ostende. They were excited, as they had never been abroad before. When they asked me where I was going, “India” didn’t seem real. It was dark when the ferry arrived, and I walked across the docks to the car ferry, but one wasn’t due for hours. So I walked 5 miles along a motorway under street lights until I got a lift into Brussels with Flemish speaking Belgians. I was dropped in the north of Brussels. After 3 mistakes, I caught a tram to the YMCA (youth hostel closed) and got the last bed. Talked for an hour in the wash-room, then kip.
Sunday September 8 1963
I got out of the bottom bunk having listened to a party of Germans who made an early and noisy departure. I packed and went downstairs. I hung around for sometime, wondering if anyone would notice if I slipped out. I paid the lodging fee (about 7/-) with a £2 travellers cheque, after some hesitation, and got change in Belgian francs. My measly funds were going far too fast, but at least that night I had free lodging near Koln with Volker, a hitch-hiker we’d given a ride in the family Rolls a couple of years earlier. I left the YMCA at about 10.30 and walked for half an hour through Brussels in the direction of Germany. I saw a Volkswagen parked with a Negro reading the paper and asked him if he was moving off soon; he was. Brussels (what I saw of it) grand, with impressive buildings, broad avenues, tram rails and trolley bus wires covering the street, very French. A peculiar collection of lifts, mostly short distances. It was Sunday so lots of people out for a spin in the car, which meant they were mostly full. I got to the German border, and didn’t manage to change my Belgian equivalent of 30/- . I walked across no-man’s land towards the German border and hitched a Belgian journalist. Onwards. Next lift a girl in a fiat to Koln. She was quite beautiful, but a poor driver and spent five minutes on a steep hill with traffic lights at the top, unable to pull away. She parked her car outside a friend’s block of flats, and said she’s take me further if her friend wasn’t in. I entertained ideas of her returning and taking me to her warm home. Sadly, after five minutes hoping her friend wasn’t in, she waved from a balcony. I walked 100 yards, bought a loaf (I still had the cheese, tomatoes and butter that Bob had advised me to carry), and just near the river walked up to a line of cars at the lights and got into one,which took me half way. Another lift and I was dropped in Solingen. A student told me the bus to take to Volker’s place, and kindly gave me a bus ticket. I was dropped almost at the door. I spent an evening with Volker and his family, including some beer and a very good nights sleep. In the morning, Volker gave me a map of India, a jacket and some sandals- which in spite of breaking my 30 lb weight limit, I took. They were prove their worth. [End of diary entry.]
My notes from the time give an idea of some of the themes of my first days: good luck hitch-hiking, a bold approach to getting a lift, the kindness of strangers, who bought me the occasional coffee or meal. Brussels was one of the few nights I paid to stay until Istanbul. I lived on simple sandwiches with the bread and cheese and the occasional apple, or banana, and a few coffees and occasional meals bought for me.
I wrote where I stayed each night on the top of the next many pages until my next entry on the 1st of November when I spent the night in the Ladies Inter class waiting room in Shikarpur in Pakistan. So for the intervening journey, I will have to rely on my memory, and the few remaining letters I sent home. I will use my minimal notes from the diary, and anything remembered.
9th September
Left Solingen at noon. Munich 11.30pm
Volker had most kindly given me Marks for my useless Belgian francs.
Travelling Frankfurt, Mannheim, Munchen.
Several people helped me on my way: one driver took me on a scenic detour; “You must see the Rhine”, he said.
10th September; enter Austria
Travelling Munchen- Salzburg- near Salzburg
When I arrived in Salzburg, in the late afternoon, I made my way to the road to Vienna. But, there were twelve people ahead of me, so I moved to the road going south to Yugoslavia. I soon got a ride with an Austrian peasant family, who kindly took me home to their large wooden farmhouse. It was late and they’d eaten, but they put out a vast loaf of home-made black bread, a half pound dish of butter and a big jug of fresh milk. I ate it all. Their twelve year old son spoke some English and we plotted my journey on a globe. It took a while to convince them that I was planning on going all the way to India. It seemed a little unlikely to me too. They put me up in a bed with clean sheets and a massive down duvet [the first time I saw that magnificent covering] and fed me a massive breakfast before I left in the morning.
11th September; enter Yugoslavia
My journey was across the Alps through magnificent scenery. Crossing the border into Yugoslavia, my driver took me for dinner in Ljubljana, and then took me to the youth hostel. I don’t remember paying, so perhaps my host treated me.
12th September
The next day I didn’t get very far. Late at night, I was dropped off near an all-night petrol station just after Zagreb, and walked 100 yards into the woods across the road to bed down. During the night, I woke up to discover I was being robbed! I shouted and a figure scurried away. I gathered all my kit and put my head on top my pack and went back to sleep. A short while later, I had the horrifying experience of seeing an upside down face just inches from my own as someone ransacked my pack’s side-pockets. I shouted out and scared the thief away again, but I was now too scared to sleep. I picked up several scattered objects on the ground around me, bundled up my stuff in the dark and spent the rest of the night sleeping under the arc lights of the petrol station.
13th September
In the morning, I discovered that I had lost several items from my side pockets during the late night pilfering. There was not much early morning traffic, but I asked for a lift as cars stopped for petrol, and got a ride in a massive black car, with two silent black-suited apparatchiks, who dropped me in Belgrade before eight am. I asked for the road south and was directed to a lonely spot on the edge of town. After several hours with only two vehicles passing by, one of them a pony and cart, my spirits sank. I felt as if I would never make it any further. Depressed, I returned to Belgrade and found a hostel for the night. I had a look around Belgrade, with its over-wide streets, and triumphalist architecture, and returned to the hostel. I had a large dorm room to myself and felt very lonely. I was depressed at the lack of traffic south, thinking I’d been on the main road, and lost the confidence to continue.
Saturday 14th September
Early in the morning, a large and noisy group of high school students around my age moved into my dormitory. They asked me where I was going, and when I told them, their enthusiasm for my journey reinvigorated me. They also showed me the right road out of town. Getting onto the highway after breakfast I quickly got a ride going all the way to Istanbul!
I had planned on going via Greece, but realising how little money I had, I opted to go straight to the east, where I hoped living would be much cheaper. The driver was a Turk who was returning home for a holiday after spending many years working in Germany. He spoke no English, and we had difficulty talking. He tried to teach me German but I was a poor student, irritating him by quickly forgetting most of what he taught me. In Nis, there was a mosque with a tall minaret and I felt I was already in the east. He was going through Bulgaria, and I worried that I’d get to the frontier and they wouldn’t let me in as I had no visa. However, there was no problem and we spent the night near Sofia in a hotel, which he paid for.
Sunday 15th September
Enter Turkey!
I got to Istanbul on my ninth day from London.
Next: A week at Hostel Amerikanski
The Blue Mosque, meeting some interesting travellers, another crisis of doubt and the puddings of Istanbul.
writesimon 