I was looking through some of my older writings and found this account of a crazy journey I undertook when I was 17. This sort of thing would not only be much more difficult, if not impossible today, but would also most probably be extremely dangerous. Maybe it was equally foolhardy back then but perhaps the ignorance of youth made it a viable option. Enjoy.
Having spent a fantastic four days partying it was time to get back to work so we headed up to the farming town of Buis Les Baronnies to take a look.
The first night we arrived up in Buis Les Baronnies we got completely wasted on Pastis (Aniseed Liquor) and passed out in a parking lot, literally just unrolled our sleeping bags, used our rucksacks as pillows and away. The next morning I was decidedly the worse for wear, mouth like Ghandi’s sandal and in dire need some fresh, cold water. I stumbled over to the mini market which was conveniently close by and purchased water. It was shortly after this that I learned a very valuable lesson; never drink a bucket of water the morning after a heavy session drinking Pastis, unless that is, you want to get drunk again right away.
Still.... cured my hangover temporarily.
We stayed in Buis les Baronnies for about a week, got wasted most nights in a bar run by a guy we called Surge, I think it was actually spelt Serche or the like but we just had a laugh teaching the guy sayings such as sweet as a nut and well ‘ard and he answered to Surge so.....
We ran out of money.
I’m not sure which of us it was who suggested it but we ended up going to the town church and begging the priest for some cash. He gave us ten Francs each and off we went. We bought a sausage sandwich to share and 20 cigarettes. We realised that it was time to go. We had tried all the local farms but all the fruit picking was done, the last apricot had long since been picked and packed. After a chilled evening smoking weed on a river bank with a couple of other travelers we rolled out our sleeping bags and slept.
We weren’t caught and arriving in Paris we headed to the huge information billboard and found that we needed to cross to the other side of town to get another train up to the port town of Dieppe. It was almost midnight and we’d been on the go for 18 hours. We headed down the stairs to see if we could somehow blag our way onto the Metro, the French subway system. At the bottom of a really long escalator we came to a row of ticket reading machines which controlled sets of huge steel doors edged in thick black rubber bumpers. The doors would open and close with a hiss and looked to be an effective barrier. Not having tickets, Justin tried to follow another passenger through his set of doors. He held his rucksack to his chest and went for it. The doors slammed shut, trapping his rucksack with him still on the outside. As he struggled to free his bag I happened to glance to my right and see that the steel fence that caged us had a gate and this gate was open. With a laugh I ran through, grabbed Justin’s bag and hauled it free. He soon followed and we headed down yet more steps to the platform.
We boarded the next train to our desired station and in short order we were boarding another train which would take us all the way to Dieppe. It was now almost 2am. Feeling more confident and pretty tired we sat at a table and promptly fell asleep. I was woken with a hard jab to the ribs by an exasperated looking Parisian train guard. He asked to see our tickets and when we said we had none he produced a fat pad of proformas, you know the kind, one white sheet with a yellow and a blue one beneath. The guard proceeded to issue us with fine notices. After getting us to sign in acceptance of the fines the guard left. We laughed that it wasn’t so bad. We wouldn’t be in France much longer and certainly wouldn’t be mailing payment after getting home so all in all a pretty painless encounter.
What we hadn’t counted on was getting thrown off the train about a half hour later at a station in the middle of nowhere. It was just after 4am. Not to be defeated we just headed to the end of the platform and settled down to sleep in our bags on the grassy verge. About three hours later I awoke to the feeling that I wasn’t alone in my sleeping bag. I shot out like sprinter out of the blocks and danced about trying to shake the literally hundreds of creepy crawlies of my body. You see, my bag was designed for use in a trailer so had a wide open neck. I guess my warm body was just too tempting for the locals to ignore. Anyway, we jumped on the first train that stopped and continued our journey. Fortunately we weren’t questioned again as our feigned sleep when the guard passed was sufficient to deter any enquiries.
We jumped down from the container, closed the door and headed up on deck. We had run out of cigarettes earlier in the day and the weed was long gone so we made our way to the duty free shop where Justin was able to pilfer a small tin of Cafe Crème Cigars. They tasted foul but gave us the nicotine hit we sought. The voyage was uneventful and we managed to sleep an hour or two before arriving in Portsmouth at about 5pm.
We disembarked and, showing our passports only, passed quickly through customs. As we stood at the exit to the port with our thumbs out we must have looked a sight. We were dressed in cut off jean shorts and T shirts; we had scraggly, youthful beards and were both pretty dirty and dishevelled. As luck would have it we scored a ride without much delay and the gentleman driver was willing to take us as far as Swindon. We struck up a conversation with him and discovered that he had a son about our age and had only picked us up because he hoped someone would do the same should his son find himself in a similar situation. It turned out to be a great ride indeed as the guy stopped at a freeway service station and bought us sausage, beans and chips and gave us each a Mars bar.
The cigars would have to serve for a while longer as the guy didn’t smoke and wasn’t about to encourage, you understand. As we settled in for the drive, our bellies full and listening to the radio, I heard the local news reporter telling the story of how there had been an escape from the county mental asylum. The escapee was a man who had murdered his wife and daughter with an axe some years before. He had stolen a Land Rover with a trailer hitched and was said to be on the run in vicinity. I considered this for a moment but tiredness overcame my interest and I drifted off to sleep.
About an hour and a half later we were dropped off on the roadside, just after a mini roundabout, on the outskirts of Swindon. It was about 8.30pm and was starting to get dark. There we were, on the side of the road with our thumbs out when we saw a Land Rover towing a trailer come around the mini roundabout. I’ll never know if it was the mad murderer but we both immediately turned our backs to the road and pretended to be taking a leak. There was a moment of terror as we heard the Land Rover slow but then it sped off and that was the last we saw of that. Some short time later we were picked up by a massively fat and grease covered truck mechanic who’d been on a job just outside Portsmouth and was happy to take us to Cheltenham. I lost the toss so spent the next hour and a half or so stood in the back of the dirty, oil stained Transit Van. I didn’t care too much as I like the smell of gasoline, oil and grease and I was just happy to be off the side of the road and heading in the general direction of home.
We arrived at the outskirts of Cheltenham at about midnight and had a roughly five mile walk to the house of one of Justin’s friends. We both had blisters and the walk became a mission during which we hardly spoke; I just got my head down and followed Justin’s lead. I don’t remember how long it took us but we eventually arrived at Steve’s house. It was a small red brick house in a quiet part of old Cheltenham and Steve was an ex hippie who had done way too much acid in his life and had ruined his eyesight as a result. He stared at us, squinting his eyes until he recognised Justin then, with a friendly smile; he invited us in to his cosy, warm home. We sat on his sofa; I pulled off my trainers and socks and enjoyed a few puffs of the offered spliff. Within no time at all I was asleep.
I awoke the next morning and enjoyed a fried egg sandwich, a mug of coffee and a spliff and waited for Justin so we could decide a plan of action. He arrived, ate drank and smoked then we decided we should get to the M5 (freeway) as it would be easier to get a ride in the general direction of North Wales from there. Steve gave us a ride as far as the on ramp and there it was that we waited, once again with our thumbs out. We couldn’t believe our luck when not 15 minutes later we were picked up by 40’ish hippie woman driving a battered old VW Golf who informed us that she was heading to Pwllheli (North Wales) and was happy to drop each of us at our own doorway. Unbelievable.
The journey took most of that day. It was a pleasantly relaxing experience as our new friend played Bob Dylan and was generous with her cigarettes. It was late afternoon by the time I walked in to mums kitchen, dirty, tired, a little stoned but elated to be home. Though it felt much longer, the entire journey was just about a thousand miles. We'd walked, hitched, hidden, been busted and met some truly kind people. I couldn't quite believe that just 36 hours earlier I had been in a parking lot in a small farming town in the South of France.
