Anecdote – Hans and the Rolling Stones

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Hans and the Rolling Stones

Hans was a huge German youth who adored the Rolling Stones. He’d never heard them before but took an instant liking to them and became besotted after just one listening.

The Hostel had a Dansette record player and I put on my Stones album. Immediately Hans came over with a look of incredulity. He was smitten. I had to play it through again and again.

Hans was massive – like a lumberjack on steroids. For a snack he would buy one of the large black loaves, slice it open with a huge sheaf-knife, slice up sausage and cheese in big wedges and eat it as a sandwich. It was enormous.

There were two very shy, timid and serious Austria girls staying in the Hostel. They were either mute or simply terrified of everyone. I think it was the latter. They kept themselves well apart from the entire riot going on around them and did not seem at all keen on sharing wine or playing table soccer. They would huddled together round the Dansette, play Strauss and try to blot out the rest of the world. They looked like a couple of baby fauns hiding from the hunters.

Hans would stride over, thump his fist down on the table so that the stylus skipped across the LP, and say ‘ROLLING STONES!’ in his booming voice.

He was very intimidating. The two girls would scuttle about collecting up their LPs and disappear. I felt sorry for them but there was no arguing with Hans.

He’d put the album on, turn the volume up and give us great big bear hugs, grinning and guffawing with pleasure.

I think we’d altered his life. We certainly had not enhanced the Austrian girls lives though.

The other girls in the place liked the Stones though. They kept us happy with their cooking and other delights. I had never tasted so many exotic dishes.

This hitch-hiking business was proving every bit as illuminating and fun as it had promised to be.

Life would never be the same.

Anecdote – Hitch-hiking in France without the Hitch-hiking

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Hitch-hiking in France without the Hitch-hiking

It rapidly became apparent that we had most of the things we needed. Life was idyllic. We had great food, wine, facilities, music and French culture. All we lacked were girls.

Fortunately there were girls. The town was full of them and so was the Hostel. There were German girls, Yugoslavian girls, French girls, Czech girls, Austrian girls and even a Scottish girl. Not only that but they all seemed to like long-haired English boys.

After two days of consuming bread, cheese, wine and beer, playing table football (and being thrashed by the French youth who seemed to have devoted their lives to mastering it like exponents of Zen), sitting in the shade under the trees, showering and learning more rude French terms than I thought possible (The French language is so expressive) we decided to have a conflab concerning our departure and future travel plans. We weighed up the advantages of staggering down French roads under heavy rucksacks to the sound of rapidly receding cars, with the obvious horror of putting an end to our dream and staying put. It wasn’t a long discussion. We decided that it was perhaps better staying in the tent rather than lugging it about in the heat and that it might be a great idea to expand our vocabulary even further and get to know some of the girls a little bit better – in fact a lot better (especially as they seemed so keen it seemed almost churlish to deny them the opportunity).

The summer began to assume a pattern.

I would get up fairly early considering. The heat made it difficult to lie in too long, besides the early mornings were zinging with that electric summer air of expectancy.

I would saunter into the village and get some shopping. This always proved challenging. The French shopkeepers were friendly and amused by us but rarely helpful.

At one shop I spied some porridge oats and decided that might do for breakfast. I conferred with the bemused shopkeeper who could not seem to understand any of my many different French pronunciations of Quakers porridge oats. In the end I took him outside and pointed, to which he responded ‘Ah Quakers porridge oats’ in extremely clear English. I think he was having me on.

I’d discovered this new wonder food called yoghourt. They did it in a series of flavours so I decided to try them all. I bought eleven pots of the wonder food but I had no bag to put them in. I could not seem to get the shopkeeper to understand this and provide me with one. He seemed to deliberately misunderstand and was determined to watch to see how I was going to manage the feat of carrying eleven pots of yoghourt home. It must have made his day. In the end I scooped them all up in my arms and set off. I only dropped two.

At the greengrocers I went in to buy an onion so that I could cook some spaghetti. I only wanted one onion but as they were mere centimes for a whole kilo the shopkeeper was totally bemused by this. It took me ages to convince him I only wanted one. He roared with laughter. After that, every time I walked past the place he’d rush out into the street and run after me with an onion.

‘Monsieur, monsieur – un onion.’

Fortunately the girls at the hostel took to feeding me or my diet might have been a bit limited and we rapidly gained skills at the Football table and mastered the art of spinning!

One interesting thing we discovered was that the courtyard was infested with large rats and as our tent had no front they came to visit in the night. After being disturbed by tiny scampering feet on the first night Foss hatched a plan. He got his sheath-knife out and we sat poised with the knife up in the air ready to sweep down on the unsuspecting rodent (the size of elephants – well cats then). We waited hours but none came. In the morning Foss found the razor-sharp knife in his sleeping bag. But fortunately all his bits were intact. After that we decided it was best to ignore them. We developed a policy of mutal respect. As long as we did not leave food in the tent they wouldn’t bother us so we did not bother them. We got used to the scampering.

Life was extremely pleasant chez nous.

Fifteen and hitching around France with Foss – the planning and execution

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Fifteen and hitching around France with Foss – the planning and execution

It was 1964. Every day was bathed in the bright sunshine of possibility. There were no clouds in the sky and none on the horizon. I could do anything.

Foss was a fellow rugby player. He was a year older than me and was leaving school that year. I was fourteen and was up for adventure. We planned an adventure. It was meticulously worked out. It went like this:

We would hitch-hike down to the coast.

We would board a boat bound for France.

We would hitch-hike around France for the summer.

We would hitch-hike back, board a boat, hitch back home and reminisce.

What could possibly go wrong?

Our meticulous planning paid off. My parents were convinced that it was watertight. Foss, who was coming up sixteen, was so mature he would look after me. They were satisfied.

In hindsight it was probably more that they didn’t think we’d ever get it together. But we did.

The reality hit home. The ferries unreasonably demanded money for the fare. We were unable to hitch a ride on a boat. Then there was the small matter of food and shelter. We would no longer have access to the fridge and my bed.

It was OK. We could work it out. I had a sleeping bag and a rucksack. Foss had a tent. Admittedly it didn’t actually have a front to it but it would keep the rain off.

All we needed was a bit of cash. Neither of us was a musician so busking was out of the question. We set about delivering leaflets. That was fun. We ran down roads leaping over fences and hedges and stuffing leaflets through letterboxes. Apartment blocks were best. You could stuff a whole series of boxes with leaflets.

By the end of the first day we could see that we were not going to make a lot of money at this. No matter how fast you ran, stuffed, leapt and deposited we could not possibly deliver sufficient leaflets to make enough money. Not only that but we were knackered.

We came up with a solution. We would deliver to every other door and put three through each of the letterboxes. We’d miss out the odd street or two and dump half of the leaflets in the bin. That seemed to work.

We did this for three months and had amassed some cash. My parents were obviously impressed with my tenacity and subsidised my efforts.

We were all set.

I packed my big rucksack with essentials – a few changes of clothes, a toothbrush and the Rolling Stones first album and latest single. The Stones had just released it and I splashed some of my money on purchasing it. It could mean that we starved but at least we’d have good music while we starved (even if we had no means of playing it). When the sleeping bag was tied on the top the rucksack was nearly as big as me. Foss’s was even bigger. He had the tent.

We waved goodbye and set off cheerfully down the road. This was long before mobile phones. We would be out of contact for nearly two months. It was OK. We had a map, some rudimentary French, a bit of cash and a booklet about Youth Hostels in France. We were heading for the far south.

The sun was shining. Everything was good in the world.

I felt like Bilbo Baggins.