Life on the open road: M4 to Dover Twice
Getting our first lift from Simon’s mother we’re dropped off just outside Bath on the A46 and promising to send post cards when we reach southern France (we didn’t let on we were heading for Africa) we flex our thumbs for the first of a thousand times. We reach the M4 quickly and ready a massive sign saying London which only tells a fraction of the story.
The start... how did I not get Simon's thumb
(most used part of his body) in the photo?
It takes a while to get a lift, although compared to what was to come it was pretty damn quick. The guy is that much endangered species the travelling salesman aka the hitchers 3rd favourite bloke (first being travelling hippies, although their transport is usually less comfortable they're a lot more fun; 2nd a van full of punks and skins, uncomfortable and worrying but also fun). Any other time their chat would be purgatory for us two but we can handle an hour of bullshit in return for a 100 miles down the road. Their part of the deal is to have smelly and potentially lunatic hitchers relieve their boredom, well before mobiles this was, so the trade off was unsaid but well understood on both sides. Bidding farewell at a service station probably near Swindon we soon get picked up by a middle aged woman who tells us of her hitching days in the early 70’s. To be fair she was probably only about 30 but to us looked middle aged. She probably felt for us as we were so fresh faced. Well, Simon was... back then he had brown tousled hair fairly shortly cut but falling over his forehead. Very fresh faced with no hair on his chin. Tight white T shirt newly washed showing his muscles and tight jeans with boots. Probably of the monkey variety. Piercing eyes. My look was similar from the bottom up - boots, tight jeans, T or self painted white shirt. Not so fresh faced as bushy beard, yes, I don’t know why either maybe my mind was befuddled. The swept back hair contributed to a werewolf look that I thought gave me a certain edgy look to the girls. Unfortunately most obviously thought I was just too lazy to shave and to be avoided. Individually we would’ve been lucky to get a lift and both together was not good. Anyway, our damsel saving our distress in giving us a lift obviously wasn’t interested in seducing a sweet young boy or in being ravaged by a hairy git so the journey into London was uneventful.
London! The big smoke within a few hours. A day to Paris via ferry, day to south France and another to bottom of Spain we’ll be there by Monday morning. We stay at a friend of Simon’s parents somewhere slightly east of the centre and Friday morning we tube out to the end of some tube line and start hitching again. This time we get a lift fast from a coach driver on his way to Dover. Jackpot! We’ll be there by lunchtime and we’re on schedule. The driver says that he’s taking a group of Japanese tourists back to London and then next day he’s taking a party of Spanish tourists back down to southern Spain and will be there in 2 days. Bonanza! We debate jumping off at Dover but the lure of a guaranteed lift to Spain is too great. Double or quits? We gamble. After all, what could possibly go wrong? The driver is pretty grubby and overweight. Pasty skin and greasy hair against his head don’t add to the healthy look but he’s got a coach and we’re gonna use it. We help him pile the tourist’s luggage into the coach and soon we’re back in London unloading everyone at a 5 star hotel opposite Hyde Park. Once we’re back on the coach the driver says he lives in a London suburb and we’ll stay the night there. I guess we hadn’t really thought about the night imagining that we’d all kip on the coach somewhere. He starts asking us our ages and joking with us telling us about coachloads he’s taken and then moans about foreign tourists. Atmosphere gets a little darker as dusk descends and we travel through narrower streets into somewhere neither Simon or I would ever recognise again. Once he parks up he opens his house door and shouts out to someone. Then gets back on the coach and starts joshing with us and then suddenly wrestling with Simon. Very odd especially in a narrow coach aisle. A young teenage boy comes out from the house and brings sandwiches and beer into the coach and we all settle back to eat and drink. The driver wants to practice his moves again but both Simon and I are adamant we’re not going to and say we’re knackered. Offered a bed in the house we decline and sleep in the coach.
After a troubled sleep, mentally not physically I’m glad to say, we are awoken by the coach starting and the driver gruffly telling us we’re off into London to pick up his coach load. He drops us off at one of the bridges, Vauxhall I think now I know London, saying that he’s not meant to take other passengers so we can’t be seen at the pick up point in London - however when in Spain we can help him unload the coach and he can do with the conversation on the way. He’s cheered up a bit and says he’ll swing by to collect us in 30 minutes and we should grab some breakfast from a nearby cafe. An hour later we are starting to wonder if we should have quit when ahead at Dover. Another hour later we give up waiting and cursing effing coach drivers tube out again to start hitching at the same place we were at 24 hours earlier. We get relatively uneventful lifts to Dover and manage to catch an evening ferry to Boulogne watching the sun go down. A day lost but a story for the pub albeit a bit too recent to be entirely comfortable thinking about what could have happened and what relationship to the horrendous coach driver that poor teenager had. Anyway, we’re on the open water and only a continent between us and our goal.