Hitch-hiking lessons from my Father

Hitch-hiking lessons from my Father

In the 1920’s, my Father had been among the early pioneers of Lorry Jumping in England and France. So called, because flat-bed lorries moved slowly enough to hop on board, invited or not.

I tested this one night at a pedestrian controlled traffic light in the Cromwell Road. Having got the timing right, I stepped up and huddled down on some piled up canvas near the driver’s cab. I see in my mind’s eye the laughing faces of overtaking lorry drivers, who knew me for the ‘jumper’ that I was.

Only when we were on the M4 did it dawn on me we might be on our way to Wales. Freezing cold, we stopped in the parking yard of a depot miraculously close to my destination, Wokingham. It was barely dawn. With the driver out of sight, I jumped down. The hot drinks machine was a life-saver.

My father gave me and a school friend practical tuition in the science and art of hitch-hiking in 1963. He drove us to a slow left-hand bend on the new Farnham Bypass. He placed one foot on the road, and raised the flat of his hand with his arm at right angles, like a police stop hand sign. We were astonished that the first car stopped. He politely explained he was all right, only teaching us to hitch-hike!

He was scornful of thumb-waving, which is so synonymous with hitching. The flat of my hand attracts the driver’s attention, and I make eye contact with an unthreatening smile on my face. When the driver pulls up, my good cheer sets the tone for me as a passenger. My job is to provide the driver with the best company I can be in return for the gift of free travel. Tact, diplomacy and good listening skills are important. A hitcher needs to be sensitive to the way the road conditions affect the driver’s decisions to slow down and stop safely. The easiest place to ask the driver for a lift face to face is at a petrol station!

I was once on a long solo hike out of season in February from Torremolinos to the nearest mountain range. Towards the end of the first day, I again followed my Father’s instructions, went into a busy bar, tapped on a glass for silence, and asked if anyone had a bed for the night. A local family put me up and I had a good night sleep.

With my Father’s advice fresh in mind, we took the Newcastle to Norway ferry. We set off from the luxurious Bergen Youth Hostel, and we used the large scale maps I had bought at Stanford in Covent Garden to hitch single track mountain roads, At one barrier, we had to wait till rock blasting had cleared our road!

In the evening after the ferry from Haugesund to Stavanger, we set up tent and had a midnight swim in a fjord. In the morning, another wild camper translated the Norwegian sign: “It is dangerous to bathe here”. Jellyfish!

We crossed the Skagerat by ferry, and got as far as Aalborg. Being a hot August, we were in need of a wash. I am not proud to say I persuaded my pal to take my place after my shower at a small hotel, where I simply walked in as if I was a resident. Some years earlier, my Dad had taught me the art of innocent gate crashing.

We found convenient, large, upturned rowing boats by a lakeside and cheerfully snuck under for a peaceful night sleep in sleeping bags on dry sand.

We hitched to Copenhagen. We made a bee-line for the Little Mermaid statue with bottles of Skol from the brewery itself. After a couple of days we set off very early, caught the ferry to Germany.

We seemed to attract devil-may-care US military personnel with their big brash roadsters, which they’d imported into Germany on Hercules transport aircraft helped by friendly air force contacts.

These jovial men gunned their motors free from speed limits or motorway tolls. In a record 12 hours after 1,400kms, we reached Basel, and a Youth Hostel. Then to stay with friends in Geneva. Onwards to Nice.

In Nice, no one wanted anything to do with us. The problems with the OAS brought by the Algerian war, made people rightly suspicious of strangers asking for lifts. In that same year in France, a pair of my classmates had a brief but terrifying experience which started when the driver’s friend threatened them with a pistol.

Desperate, at a red traffic light, we let ourselves into a car with English number plates. The two well-bred Etonians could not bring themselves to kick us out. They slept in a hotel; we froze on the back seat. In one single lift, they dropped us off in Paris, during its full, crazy, wine-fuelled, 19th WW2 Liberation celebrations.

In the 60’s, I relied on hitch-hiking for transport in London, north to Oxford or Liverpool, and as far west as Fishguard.

I had a weird holiday with another classmate in Ireland in 1965. We thumbed it to Liverpool where we drank Sherry at a Wine Lodge. Overnight ferry to Dublin. Breakfast was a double ration of Guinness at the famous brewery. We pressed on west to Connemara, south to Limerick. We paid 8 shillings to view the Ring of Kerry in 20 yards visibility! Ah, the Irish mist! Then by ferry to Fishguard and train to London.

The following year, I went on a solo hitching tour of Ireland. I repeated the same route, but being on my own, this turned out to be a Rite of Passage. It’s another story.

In those days, in England, you commonly saw young men in blue military uniform stand with their kit by the roadside, thumbing for a lift.

Later, while I worked as a Company Car Delivery Driver in 1992, I successfully travelled between the delivery of one car to the collection of another, ranging from Bournemouth to Manchester. Using no public transport, only by thumbing around, I began to earn good money, because pay was calculated on how many cars we delivered in a day, not on distance driven.

I will not hesitate to polish up my skills and hitch-hike long distances in England again, no matter how “dangerous” or “impossible” it is supposed to have become