Footloose Scot (2 page)

This gave me two years free before university. I thought getting a job in London would provide some funds, show me a bit of the real world and might be fun. I rented a room by the month near Marble Arch, and then set out to find a job. Outside the staff entrance to a department store, C&A Modes, on Oxford Street, was a sign advertising job vacancies. They needed a staff elevator operator. I applied and was hired. The job was to take sales girls from their floor (there were six sales floors) down to the basement when they needed stock sizes not available on the sales floor.

"An up and down sort of job," said the old timer whose job it was to teach me how to operate the lift. "The only thing you need to know is to stick to a routine, up and down in a steady sequence. Never vary the routine to help someone out however desperate or pretty." This otherwise boring job kept me on my toes, since I was constantly on the move, just as the old geezer said. Sometimes I caught some flack from sales girls demanding special trips; but generally everyone was keen to keep on the good side of the lift operator.

I got a slightly better paying job (six pounds a week) at a wholesale record company in Tottenham Court Road, and after that a definitely more interesting job at nearby Foyle's book shop, advertised as the largest bookshop in the world. I worked in the mail order department, not as interesting as being on the floor but with the advantage of being able to chat with my fellow workers. One Welsh lad who worked next to me told about how he had spent a summer hitchhiking through France and Spain, camping or staying at youth hostels and drinking lots of wine. This sounded like an escape to me, and a whole new adventure. I began to make plans as I assembled, packaged and addressed book orders.

My travel plan was to keep moving and to stay in youth hostels. I bought an international youth hostel card, and with it came a guidebook with the addresses of all the youth hostels in Europe and a map, which I still have today. I would eat snacks during the day and in the evening cook a meal in the hostel kitchen. I would head south through Germany and Austria into the Balkans, then maybe Greece or Italy. When a ride was not forthcoming after a day or so, I would take the train to the next city. Before I ran out of funds I would head home. I was aiming to spend no more than twelve shillings ($2.05) a day on everything.

And—after leaving the cold weather of northern Europe— that is how the itinerary unfolded. I arrived in Brussels to find Expo 1958 had opened. This was the first of these international shows after World War II and 42 million visitors would visit. I spent two days wandering wide-eyed around the many national exhibitions, particularly the Mexican pavilion, where I would see and hear for the first time colors and sounds with which I would become familiar many years later.

On the road again, I found it was possible to make good distances on the German autobahn network. It might mean one or two hours of waiting in strict order on the entry ramp behind other hitchhikers. But a ride would be forthcoming; it was part of German culture to give rides. In France it was much less easy since the French don't embrace the idea of
auto-stop,
as the Germans describe hitch-hiking. In Italy, the cars were small and were usually full. Rides in trucks were difficult due to company regulations; the driver most likely to give a ride was a travelling salesman. Hitchhikers got good at identifying vehicle license plates to determine likely rides.

After the depressing experience in Rosendaël, I usually found excellent youth hostels, particularly in Germany. They were clean, cheap and well-run. Overnight guests turned in their youth hostel card on checking in, and got it back the next morning after doing a cleaning job. There was a certain military orderliness about the German
Jugendherbergen
(youth hostels) but you could count on them to be open, clean and cheap.

I settled into a daily routine of hitch-hiking, and found I liked it. It was hard work, being outside the whole time and exposed to traffic noise and fumes; at bad times I waited for hours for a car or truck to stop. It was important to find the right spot on the outside of a town, perhaps at a turn-off or traffic circle with signs pointing to the next town, and make it easy for drivers to see you, pull off and stop. The excitement lay in the anticipation of new sights and perhaps a different language. Every day was an adventure, never knowing what would happen. I passed into Austria which I found more charming than Germany, and then headed for the Loibl Pass into Yugoslavia.

After a long wait on a road with little traffic, a van pulling a trailer on which a motor bike was tied down stopped. The van was old with rusty body work, but the motor bike looked efficient. An older man was driving, and a teenager sat next to him. They were going to a motor bike race in the mountains at the border, and I was required as ballast to help the van gain traction. This was fine with me; anything was fine if it helped me to get into Yugoslavia. I sat on the floor in the back of the van, which proceeded up the steep and windy road. I recall to this day the youngster shouting "Hupen, Herr Rauer!" ("Blow the horn, Mr. Rauer!") over the noise of the screaming engine as we roared around tight corners, and finally made it to the summit at 4,485 feet.

This sort of travel was more vagabonding than tourism. Keeping to the budget was vital because it meant more days on the road. I didn't pause much, unless the weather was good or the town large enough. Large cities kept me for two or three days, visiting museums and people watching. What really drove me was the desire to cover the miles, to be on the move. I was restless to get as far south as possible, to warm weather. Getting a good long ride lifted the spirits. When there was no youth hostel, I slept rough, often climbing over a railing after dark into a public park and unrolling my sleeping bag under a tree, first having checked that there were no police or barking dogs around. If it was wet, I looked for a station waiting room.

Even fifty years later, certain memories come back. In Yugoslavia a car dropped me off in Ljubljana, a town with no hostel. I walked into the countryside, and asked a farmer by miming if I could sleep in his barn. His farm looked run down, and the local economy depressed. But, as often was to happen, the least likely chance turned good. He nodded, took me to the barn and showed me a pile of loose hay I could sleep under. The next morning he showed up with some coarse bread which served as breakfast.

Getting on the road again and heading towards the Adriatic Coast I saw a VW with German plates approaching, so I waved extra energetically. The car, driven by a single man, passed me then stopped. This should be a good one, I thought, probably a salesman heading down the coast. I opened the passenger door and asked "Rijeka?' the next town. He didn't reply, but said "English?" I nodded enthusiastically and prepared to climb in. Instead, he leaned across, slammed the door shut and roared off.

Surprisingly, a car with Austrian plates driven by a man with his wife stopped not long after. I say surprisingly since tourist couples seldom pick up hikers, and who can blame them. You never know who is getting in, and sitting behind you. But this couple was as charming as the German was abrupt. They apologized, saying they were only going as far as Rijeka, and complimented me on my German. Then, even though it was nowhere near lunch time, they opened up a picnic basket and offered me a ham-filled roll: "Mehr fleisch als semmel," he commented jovially ("More meat than roll" -a phrase I still remember).

In Italy, the difficulty of getting rides was more than compensated for by the variety of the everyday life: the colors, sounds and smells. The economy was in bad shape and the people were poor, but there was more life in the city streets than in Germany, for example. More of my time was spent people watching than in going to museums or art galleries, unless they were free. As I went further south the weather got steadily warmer, and the variety and beauty of the old buildings took me by surprise. It was easy to hang out for two or three days in a small town, amble around and watch street life. At night I would ask other hostellers about cheap local restaurants, or we would discuss where we had been.

Italy seemed to recover more slowly than Germany after the war. To a naïve newcomer there was even beauty in the poverty. The warmth of the colors in the buildings and the noise and gesticulations of the people, often poorly dressed, remain as memories more than any painting or sculpture. Memorable moments were not in a museum but watching street theater: an argument between a shopkeeper and a customer, the police intervening.

There were few tourists around, and seldom a line to enter a museum or gallery. Arthur Frommer's ground-breaking
Europe on $5-a-Day,
which would encourage generations of American tourists to travel cheap and be smart, would not come out until the following year. The millions of tourists from northern Europe buying package tour holidays to the Mediterranean countries were still to come. It was also out of season.

En route to Naples, a large black limousine with a British flag on the front stopped as I flapped my hand. It contained an official from the British Embassy in Rome and his wife, who were taking diplomatic papers to the consulate in Naples. They questioned me with interest about my itinerary and bought me lunch at a small seaside restaurant. I said that I was travelling as far and as cheaply as I could, and described it as an adventure before going to Oxford. Too polite to ask, they must have wondered how this travel-worn hitchhiker had gained entrance to Oxford. I had spent the previous night sleeping in a vineyard after drinking half a liter of red wine, and had had little opportunity to clean up.

In the Naples youth hostel a German girl gave me a rail ticket to Palermo in Sicily. She had to go home suddenly due to family illness. So, after one long train ride, I found myself at my ideal destination: a small hostel near the small resort town of Taormina fronting onto the Mediterranean. I stayed for 8 days, basking in the warm sun and doing very little. I washed my clothes with the village women at the public washing place. I swam sometimes and most evenings cooked pasta in the hostel kitchen. I took trips on local buses just to see how far they would go. Each day there would be a new intake of hostellers with whom to exchange information, spend time on the beach or share cooking. This was the lifestyle which I had come for.

I found out that I could get back to Naples by a regular ferry service which left Palermo and stopped at the Aeolian Islands before making a straight run to Naples. I booked deck passage, and went on board. The boat, which had cabins and a bar and restaurant, was almost empty. A young Italian fellow got into conversation with me in the bar and sometime later, seeing I was about to stretch out on one of the seats, suggested I take one of the empty bunks in his cabin, where there was only one other occupant.

I took him up on his suggestion, relishing a comfortable berth. The trouble was that I woke up to find the cabin steward staring at me from the door. From his gestures and speech, he seemed to be asking for my ticket or some money. I got up quickly, brushed past him and through the door, and went up on deck. We were right in Naples harbor and about to dock. I ducked behind a lifeboat, then nipped down a stairway as I heard his voice shouting at me. Coming up at another part of the ship, I found the gangway right in front of me, just on the point of being secured, so I jumped onto it and was first off the ship.

I was soon absorbed into the dockside crowds and felt free from pursuit. Looking for a place to eat, I saw a tiny hole-in-the-wall pizzeria, an eating place for the locals I assumed. Inside, the aroma of the cooking cheese and the warmth from a wood-fired oven filled the small space. I ordered the smallest pizza on the menu and soon had a crisp pie crust with sizzling tomato sauce and some sardines on top in front of me. Straight from the oven, rich, tasty and simple, I ate it, my first ever pizza. Then I ordered another. Thirty years later, mindful of my experience in Naples, I opened a pizza restaurant in Oxford which turned out to be very popular.Thirty years later, mindful of my experience in Naples, I opened a pizza restaurant in Oxford which turned out to be very popular.

Heading north up the Mediterranean coast of Italy towards Florence I stopped in Piombino and took a short ferry ride to Elba, where Napoleon was exiled in 1814. I like small islands; they give a nice feeling of separateness. On Elba I planned to visit the villa, now a museum, where Napoleon spent 300 days. I had a fanciful plan to remain in the museum after closing and sleep in his bed. But it was out of season and I was all too visible among a handful of visitors. The guardian ushered us all out at closing time. I wandered on and found a cafe in a seafront village, and ate a bowl of pasta. The question now was: where to sleep?

Leaving the village I noticed a dirt road leading to a farmhouse, now showing lights as it grew dark. More promisingly, on one side of this track was a pile of loose hay, thrown down from a haystack adjacent and meant for the next day's meal for the farmer's cow. Delighted, I burrowed under the hay so I was completely covered, except for an air passage. I prepared for a sound and safe sleep.

I had hardly nodded off when I heard voice approaching, a man and a woman. Then they stopped, right next to the pile of hay. Next, a large weight landed on top of me, waking me from my half sleep. I pushed upwards against some smooth material covering a flabby mass. From above I heard a shriek, and saw the terrified face of a woman and realized I had grabbed a buttock. She scrambled off the hay pile, and I stood up. Two shocked faces, a young man standing behind the now upright woman, told me I had interrupted something private and spoiled their tryst. They didn't say anything, I didn't say anything. They moved off down the lane. I settled back into the hay but it was a long time until I fell asleep.

After five months of travel around nine countries, I'd had enough. The novelty had worn off, and each day no longer seemed special. I'd enjoyed the sights and sounds, the art treasures, the different foods and the changing countryside. Getting a ride seemed to take longer now. Previously I had loved the carefree, vagabond type of travel. Now my funds were depleted, and I was getting tired of the constant economy. I was likewise getting bored of hostellers boasting how little they had spent, and how far they could travel without regard to sights unseen and meals uneaten.