Chapter 5-Heading for the soul weekender

Why not?

 

 

 

This is a book in progress. The story is partly true and partly fiction I would like to hear your comments and suggestions. Please use the box at the bottom of the page

 

 

Chapter 5
HEADING FOR THE SOUL WEEKENDER
I wake up in the Lidl carpark. Need to get out of the back and into the driver’s seat before the employees arrive and park-up. First wee of the day was a mistake. Never piss into the wind. (Another candidate for my gravestone inscription)
Back into the rear of the car in a befuddled state. Wriggling out of the wet, brown cord trousers and pulling on the baggy hiking trousers on. I chose them because they’re easy to get on when all you can do is lay flat under a cover and shimmy. I do wipe my inner thigh down with wet wipes carefully and so I at least smell clean. I promise myself that I will use services on the highway later to have a full on head to toe wash. I’ve got a bin- bag full of laundry. I must camp somewhere tonight in a place with a washing machine. Back in the driver’s seat I curse the wind that came across the field from Switzerland and made me pee myself. One more reason for a list of many for why I don’t like Switzerland.
After the coffee and the muesli and the little high both give me, I read through my list of yesterday, decide it’s brilliant, copy and paste it into messenger and press send.
Inflated by my own thoughts I then write the FB post for the day.
Welcome to the 22nd September 2018

Day 7
Diss to Jerusalem
Current Mileage- at the end of the day, 1100 miles. Forgot to record at the start
Weather- Partly cloudy. High of 18c. Overnight low of 8c. Autumn coming but we are also getting to higher altitudes. So cooler for the two reasons
Today’s destination Reidlingen in Germany. Now following the River Danube on and off until I reach Budapest in Hungary.
Today’s distance is 193 km

Diss to Jerusalem tune of the day- Girl from the north country. Bob Dylan song. Clip from the movie Silver Linings.

Apologies for distance travelled being in miles and the days target in Kilometres. My car records miles and my satnav uses KM’s and I don’t know how to change it,… and am scared if I try I will mess it up and be unable to sort it out.
Overnight I was just a 100m from the Swiss border. This region had been absorbed by the Nazis into Germany between 1940 and 1942. Much of its population enthusiastically supported this and young men served in the German army. Very much on my mind was how those hunted by the Nazis tried to reach that Swiss border and safety. Shadows from those events are everywhere. I noticed there is no war memorial in this village. I’m guessing that’s because the population is split between those of German and French ancestry and it would have been too raw a subject in 1945. There is also no memorial to partisan and resistance fighters which most French villages have for the summer months following the Allied invasion of June 1944. Maybe I caught the town on a bad day but it did not feel good, or maybe it was my mood when thinking about the events of those years.

 

Phone call from my good friend Gary last night. He is in Portugal and doing something called ‘Rocking the Waves with his board like a good-un”.’. These baby boomers are a funny lot. We have all dumped work and the idea of working till we die and headed for the hills in our own way.
Tonight I’m hoping to camp again. It helps me catch up on routine chores and it means I can have a drink!
Onwards and upwards.
I will update as the day goes on.

 

 

 

8.55. It is possible to lose a whole country. I started the day by driving by accident into Switzerland twice and Germany once. It’s a lot easier than it sounds. I then lost Germany for a whole hour and the Satnav wanted to take me to Switzerland again.. Resorted to going into a cafe and saying “I’ve lost Germany. Can you help? The Turkish owner got my attempt at humour and pointed me the right way. (English must have been his third language at least).
10am. Just crossed over the Rhine. All sparkly in the sun! Crazy world where you’re not able to stop and take a picture. Autobans mad. You will have to imagine it
1.10pm cliff roads and scarey bridges. Have just pulled over to let the push bikes get past me.
7.30pm sat in a field drinking my €3.50 bottle of organic farmers market Vino Tinto. It would cost at least a tenner in Diss. Lovely day. Up in the Alps. Had a walk round the old town this evening. Lovely as well.
All is well with the world
Oh bugger its started raining. Never mind”,

 

End of post.
Note. No word from Joan today.

 

 
Day 8
Sunday 23rd September
Diss to Jerusalem
Current mileage 1100
Today’s weather. High of 25c. Frequent showers and thunderstorms.
Today driving to Vohburg in Bavaria. About 150 miles, which is the minimum I have to do each day. German drivers scare me. Every road is a 50km/hour or go as fast as you can, option. And we are talking about mountain roads some of the time.
In driving through Ulm, the place where Albert Einstein was born. He was a big name but I suppose its relative.
After last night’s rain there is an odd smell in the car. A bit cat like my cat ‘Tiger Feet’ was watching me pack the car before I left. Maybe he sprayed without me knowing.
I hope not.
According to Wikipedia the most famous person to come from Vohburg was Agatha (of Vohburg). She married a king and had two children in the 13th century. That’s all Wiki says about her. Anyone know anything else?
The place is set in its history. From the Medieval to the early 20th Century. The war memorial is large and full. I notice a little plaque on the town hall wall dedicated to a civic leader who defended and sheltered Jews during the bad years of the 1930’s. The River Danube is lovely. Im following that now for a few days. It’s a kind of milky green here.
The villages and landscape around here glisten and sparkle in the sunshine…just as if they might if it had been through a dishwasher. My poor phone camera can’t do the sight justice. So just think of everything being very, very clean and sparkly.
Onwards and upwards.
Will update as the day goes on.
Pleasant day. Southern Bavaria is lovely…just some of the villages are a bit Stepford Wives. Had a nice walk around Vohburg. Lots of wall murals of Agatha. She is still their number 1 celebrity,
Regional elections going on. Lots of posters for the AFD party (Alternative for Deutschland Party), a neo Fascist group who came close to holding the balance of power in the federal parliament earlier this year. All feels a bit sinister. Fascists these days look like dads off a Father’s Day card

 

STRICT Sabath observance around here. Nothing open all day apart from a petrol station. I’ve dined on pot noodles and a banana this evening. It was actually okay.
6pm. Parked up to eat my food on a gravel area. After 15 minutes I noticed the other cars all looked brand new and had no registration plates. I was in a car sales area.
7.30pm. Parked up for the night at a sports centre. Storms on their way.
9.25pm. settling down for the night in the back of the Berlingo. Torrential rain beating on the roof but I’m well sorted and surprisingly comfortable. All good”.

Note. Still no word from Joan
Day 9
Monday 24th September
Diss to Jerusalem
Miles so far 1287
Weather. High of 13. Overnight low at 3c
Today’s journey. Still in Bavaria but heading from Vohburg to Passau near the Austrian border. That’s about 160 miles.

Diss to Jerusalem. Tune of the day.

End of the Line. Travelling Wilburys

(“Just glad to be here. Happy to be alive”)

Passau is a town of 50,000 plus people. A third of them are students at the ancient university.
Am holding up generally pretty well (fingers crossed). I’m planning to continue the 2:1 arrangement. That’s two nights in the Berlingo followed by one night camping. That gives me access to showers and washing machines and so on.
Bavaria shuts down 98% for Sundays. Here in Vohburg there was a garden centre, a petrol station and a bar open. That meant I had to fall back on a Pot Noodle for my tea. Otherwise I’ve eaten fresh food every day. That will change in Serbia. They have some pretty dreadful food stores. Maybe I’m overstating it, but food poisoning one time from one place, creates quick and overblown generalisations
As a foreign person here I keep getting small cultural things wrong. I often nod or say hi to strangers. In Norfolk or The Famous Town of Yeadon that’s normal. Here people look terrified. If I let someone go first through a door they look confused. Last night though I parked in a Car sales lot by accident. It looked like an ordinary car park but then after about 15 minutes I noticed all the cars were shiny and new…and had no reg plates. It wasn’t my fault. It was just a different kind of set up to what I’m used to. That’s what I’m telling myself. Upside though leaving there caused me to find this sports arena where I parked up for the night. And it was a great place to watch the violent storm that came over (and washed my car).
The roads are perfect…they have the feel of a Lego landscape but the drivers do crazy speeds. I just slot in behind a truck and use him for my slow speed of only 70mph. It’s common to see cars doing (estimated) 140.They come past me in a flash.
Morning routine now…then onwards and upwards.
8.50. Just bought 6x 2 litre bottles o of fizzy water …to make my coffee with. Problems of not being able to read German.
3pm. I spent the afternoon in Passau. Lovely place. You can only sample one small part of a city in that amount of time. That’s why I’m generally staying in small market towns on the Danube. You can get a feel of them in a few hours.

 

 
Sad bit. For a lot of people born from say 1920 up to about fifteen years after the end of the last war, coming to Germany or Austria has an uneasy feeling about it. I know some people who still won’t come here. Particularly Jewish friends. The war was a big issue even in the early part of the lives of my peers and of course myself. We grew up with stories from the men and women who fought, and those who sat underneath the falling bombs at home. Weekend afternoon TV was dominated by war films and details of the extermination of the Jews (and other groups) was becoming more widely known (Sources like the ‘All our Yesterdays’ and ‘The Nazis: a lesson from history’ documentaries in the 1960’s and 1970’s). It’s silly but I almost feel like there should be big boards everywhere in these two countries saying “We are sorry”.
I’m exaggerating for effect. It’s unfair to feel like that and of course no country can live in such a way. The people around me are the grandchildren and greatgrandchildren of the war time generation. Hitler was born across the border in Austria but his family moved here when he was two or three. Whatever the city does, it will have that fact in its biography.
Modern German governments have worked hard to make amends and take a positive role in the world. Angela Merkel is a hero of mine for what she did to assist hundreds of thousands of refugees coming out of Syria. That’s real moral leadership and I sense for her it was doing something pragmatic about past horrors. This afternoon I have seen Nazi symbols scratched and painted on walls. It looks like some of the younger people have to read their history again. Okay politics over.
Heading for the border with Austria now.

 

 

4.30pm. the border was just the German and Austrian flags standing two yards apart. Nothing more …and that’s how it should be.
I drove 30 miles on a road that ran alongside the Danube to this village where I am now. I have fallen in love with the river. It still has a genuine life apart from the tourist hubs. The huge mountains at either side have a disorientating effect. Lots of lovely little churches and herds of the purest white deer. And again the light is special. Things sparkle. I keep thinking of adverts for lemon brand washing up liquid
I am in the village of Engelhartszell for the night. Population 1000. I park up outside the town hall which has decent toilets built into its exterior wall. And are open all night. There is some kind of men’s group going on in the upstairs of the hall until almost 11pm. That delays me settling for the night as their cars are parked either side of mine. The light is at their backs up in the room so I can clearly see them standing and talking after whatever meeting it was. They are a diverse group in regards to ages and social backgrounds. I range through the possibilities as to what it might have been about. Probably too big for AA in a place as small as this. Maybe a council meeting. But all men? Neither option is a good fit.
Sorry for the wild spelling. I don’t have spell check on the phone…and as always my spelling looks great to me (but I assume it’s not really)”.

 

Diss to Jerusalem Song of the Day
Maggie May,
Rod Stewart and the Faces
October 1971
“I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school
Or steal my daddy cues and make a living out of playing pool
Or find myself a rock and roll band that needs a helping hand
Oh Maggie I wished I’d never seen your face”
A young man looking out on a world that is opening up for him
An old codger driving across Europe listening to the song!

Maggie May

Rod Stewart

 

 

A message from Joan comes through just as I’m being forced to drive at a 100mph on the Autobahn. I’m tempted to peep at it but that against the law and might well get me (and possibly others) killed. I hold off until my next rest break.
“Hi Tosser Kidman.
I’ve got your list
What are you on?
I’ve put it in the glove compartment of this lovely car without reading a word of it (okay I lie). I’m not going to look at it properly for at least a few days. You really don’t get life do you? There is no neat logical order. Two add two rarely equals four in the real world darling. There is always complications and a spur of the moment action can be better than all your tower building. That’s what it reminds me of. Pateley building towers out of his bricks. You do the same with ideas. Both fall down for the same reason.
We are on the road to Camber.
Big hugs with my gorgeous breasts against your chest -)
I know you mean well. You’re just a late developer, and a slow learner”.

On the same day in the late afternoon Barry Bridger, the man in the greasy Parka coat checks into the homeless shelter at St Georges Crypt on Great George Street, up the road from the back of the Town Hall and library in Leeds city centre. He talks to an older man, a long-time volunteer who carries the trace of a Highland accent. Barry tells him that he wants to travel to Hastings and visit a cousin who might help him get back on his feet. He doesn’t want to go scruffy though. Do they have any clothes for him and any chance that someone could cut his hair? The man’s wife was once a hairdresser, and she does the. She notes the scar that runs across the right forehead and temple.
Two hours later, Barry looks a different man. The evening is not unpleasant. He knows some faces, from other nights he has spent here. Men who had also been in the forces. They could in better times have headed off to the Vic Hotel down the street, a great Victorian palace of a pub, all mirrors and polished brass across from the town hall. Joan and he used to go in there for Pie and peas and rums. If he’d known now what he knew then? Slut and a bitch.

 

 

 

“Day 10
Tuesday 25th September 2018
Diss to Jerusalem in my ‘Mick Jagger look-alike Berlingo car’.
Distance so far 1486 miles
Today’s weather. Sunny. High of 13c. Overnight down to 3c…but my sleeping bag is warm.
Today’s Diss to Jerusalem Tune of the Day- ‘My Heroes have always been cowboys’ by Willie Nelson. It’s a kind of country music hymn.

Today’s journey: I’m driving across Austria in the direction of Hungary. Overnight I’ve been in Engelhartszell. The destination today is Zwentendorf. I may drive further. I have to get some miles in. You will notice from now onwards there will be a lot more ‘z’s in the town names.
I will be driving alongside the River Danube. The scenery is simple. Towering mountains that make you feel like an ant, all covered in trees and set off by the most intense sunlight to make it all crystal clear. Every ten miles or so there is a village of about 100-1000 people…on slightly elevated land but still hugging the river. Everything is in order and perfectly maintained. No inconsistency of perfectness. (Slightly worrying somehow but let’s not go there).
Its feeling cold out of the sunshine even in the early afternoon but I’ve brought plenty of warm gear
My church picture is from late yesterday afternoon taken with my economy model Smart phone. Eat your heart out high spending photography nerd Dave Bullman.
Onwards and upwards
I will update as the day progresses.

 

 

9.40. The power story. Part of my ever growing list of tasks each day is powering up all my essential devices-

1- The re- chargeable ones
Phone
Back up cheap phone
Backup power packs x2
My tablet (full of BBC Radio 4 podcasts. I’m learning all sorts).
Satnav
GPS gadget (backup if Satnav breaks)
2-Others
Kettle
Food warmer gadget

I’ve just got one power point in the dashboard for all of them. And of course that only works when I’m in motion.
Spelling issues. I’m going to do a one off apology about my creative spelling and odd grammar. I normally depend on spell check and grammar correction software but I have neither on my phone which is what I’m using for all these messages and posts. I do an edit in the evening but most of the time it looks fine…when sometimes it’s not. Ps I caught Bob J. Spelling que with a C this morning. He was talking about cewing up for something. Der….
17.00. Changed destination today. The place I started from had a swarm of road closures so I was forced to take a wide detour. Long story short I ended up driving further on the detour than I planned so am now in Hainburg on the Slovak border instead of being in Hungary. It’s not a problem really. All these roads sort of connect up anyway.
I got some serendipity though. You might be aware that Richard the Lion Heart (of Robin Hood fame) passed through here in the 13th century on his way back from one of the later crusades. He was put in jail by locals until his brother John paid the ransom. After a year or two the money came through and Richard was released. The cash was used to build a defensive wall around the town I’m now in. So my spot for the night is an area next to Richards’s wall.
Thursday 25th September 1980 Leeds, London and Hastings
That morning Barry had found a spot at the top end of the covered market, the one furthest from Milgarth Police station. He does an hours A cappella busking, all Hank William songs. His voice is not bad. ‘Your Cheatin Heart’, ‘I’m so Lonesome I Could Cry’. ‘Take these chains from my heart’, ‘I’ll Never Get Out of this World Alive’, ‘Mansion on the Hill’, ‘Love sick Blues’ and everyone’s favourite ‘Jambalaya’. Country music fans give with their hearts.
Barry feels like he has found himself again. He stops in at the Levis Jeans shop behind Millgarth and buys a cowboy hat. The man is back. He whistles the tune to a much loved country music hymn. My ‘Heroes have always been Cowboys’, The Willie Nelson song
And then mouths the words-

“I grew up a-dreamin of bein a cowboy
And lovin the cowboy ways
Persuin the life of my high ridin heroes
I burned up my childhood days”.

“Well I’m back in the saddle and I’m riding out”. He says the words out loud as he walks past the people at the bus stop.
He doesn’t know exactly where he is going except he figures its somewhere near that town, a place on a sticky out bit of coastline. There are a few candidates. He has a map in an old Letts pocket diary he keeps for its phone numbers and addresses. He goes into the Town Hall library and looks at some bigger scale maps as well, tares a page out of a 1970 town guide in the reference section. It includes local attractions around the town. Feeling flush from the busking he buys some chips from a place outside Vicar Lane bus station before walking across town to Wellington Street coach station for the 1pm bus to London Victoria. He will connect there with the bus for Hastings, change at London Victoria.
The route to the coach station takes him down Kings Street, and past the Bank Wine Bar. Now that he is a modern day cowboy again, he thinks along these lines. The bar is a place for fakes and city posers and their girlfriends (and no doubt a few pansy boyfriends). All got cushy jobs in the insurance and money places. A guy called Tony runs the bar. That’s where that other slut worked. Cheyanne. What a fucking name for a Paki. Her and Joan hang out together, and go in that pick up place, just a little ways down from Lincoln Avenue, The Cherry Tree. All sluts and ‘prossies,’ the lot of them, and I was taken for a fool. “Well this drifter is back on his horse with a purpose and a ridin”. He says that last line out loud this time to a lady with a poodle although he doesn’t register her presence.
Barry changes coaches a little late at Victoria and doesn’t get to Hastings until 10pm (or 22.00 hours as he calls it. Staying true to his army training). He settles himself on the lee side of a sea front shelter. He is feeling good as he eats the last of his ham and crisps rolls. Then turns to the can of Barley Wine, and drinks it down in five tilts of his head, and waits for the warm feeling. No one is living finer tonight.
Out of season now Barry figures nobody will bother him. The coach ticket was £8, and that’s left him skint but he can earn a few bob tomorrow busking and at the same time get a feel of the place. Give his instincts space to breath. He is freewheeling. The cowboy hat helps with the punters. That’s a winner.

Thursday 25th September 1980
Hi Goose. How did you get that name? I see people on Facebook calling you that. You don’t like that Jeremy Corbyn guy do you?
First the important News. We are at Camber. I still think it would have been better to have gone to the one at St Anne’s near Blackpool. It’s less than a third of the distance. It was a hell of a drive down here to Sussex. Two hundred and sixty six miles. Pateley was screaming his head off half the way. Odd but I realised that he has never been in cars much. It’s always been buses or a couple of times on my lap when I had the scooter. Anyway on the good side Scott’s car was doing a ton half the way, so it was faster than you might think. Scott says we won’t get as much fuss about being a mixed couple as most of the folk at Camber Sands will be down from London, and anyway it’s a Soul music weekend so there are bound to be black people there. Well he was wrong about the last bit, he is the only Blackman here!
Pontin’s treat you like sheep when you arrive. There is a great big hall were you have to get into lines A-Z to get your chalet key. Hundreds and hundreds of you. The noise level is awful and everyone is bad tempered after travelling long distances. We have got one of the better chalets though and it’s all inclusive. Fry ups every morning, fish and chips or Steak and Chips every night for us.
The bar is fantastic. Half the length of a football pitch with lots of tarty lasses serving on. Scott fancies himself as a Robin Askwith type in ‘Confessions from a Holiday Camp’. That’s what he says to try and wind me up. Then I tell him with what I’ve got I can get ten of what he’s got. That takes the wind out of him. He looks like a hurt puppy sometimes. Then I feel I should curb my tongue.
The Soul Weekender thing runs (I told you about it didn’t I?) from Friday afternoon at three till early hours Sunday morning. They say they have got some big name acts but I don’t know anyone of them, but so long as they do covers and not their own stuff I will be fine.
Saturday afternoon there’s a talent contest. I’m trying to get Scott to enter. The prize would pay for the holiday. He is useless as a black man though. Knows nothing about Soul music. He says he will only do it if he can do the ‘Crazy World of Arthur Brown’ act and that song ‘I’m the God of Hell Fire’. Do you remember him from the late 1960’s? Came from Whitby of all places. He used to look like the devil and act crazy with a burning bowl of petrol strapped to his head. We have got the words off the juke box. It starts off-
“I am the god of hell fire
I’ll take you to burn”
Scott says you have to be different and get people’s attention. I tell him the song is not a Soul one. Sounds more like druggie rock to me. He says he can do a Soul reinterpretation. He makes me laugh. We are having fun, I seem to never stop laughing when Im around him and Pateley has got more about himself as well.
Ps Pateley puked over the drum kit they had set up. I grabbed him and kept quiet.
So we are off into Rye this afternoon to see if there is a second hand shop. We are after a leather Balaclava that straps round the chin, a metal bowl we can bolt onto the hat in some way, and a pair of fire proof horns. If there’s nowt there we will after go into Hastings.
The beach looks nice but we haven’t been yet. We should do for Pateleys sake. He has never been in the sea or played on a beach.
About your list- And I’m only going to say this once. I will deal with Barry in my own way when I’m ready. I’m doing no planning now, and I probably won’t do any to speak of then. My experience is complicated plans don’t work. You like them but you are thinking about the world arse way round. In life you are far better just dealing with dangers as your instincts tell you at the time. You have the, instincts that is, for a reason. The way I see it, my worst odds (and Scott agrees) are fifty-fifty on surviving and if I do, it will be plain to anybody that Barry is the bad one, and he will get locked up for the rest of his life. Your underestimate me Kidman, like a lot of people do. I’m full of surprises. Watch this space. All I need to do is put on the Tina Turner song beforehand, ‘Simply the Best’ and I’m like Superwoman. It’s a goody. I found it on the 1991 YouTube hits thing. I’d have done that song with Scott but its ten years or more in the future. On the way to Tina’s video I saw a film of you speaking at some kind of conference. I can see your man boobs but you aint got tits like Tina!
Seeya Tosser XXX”.

Day 11
Wednesday September 26th 2018
Diss to Jerusalem
Weather. High of 16. Overnight low 3c
Today’s journey Hainburg an der Donau on the Austro-Slovak border to Tarjan near Budapest, Hungary via Bratislava in Slovakia.
Number of miles so far-1620. I think that means I’m more than half way to Turkey
Diss to Jerusalem, song of the day: Simply the Best. Tina Turner.

I’ve found out that in the 1980’s a radio station in the north east of England used the song in a jingle add for ‘South Cleveland motor garage’. Just a place where you go for your MOT and to get your car fixed. I like that. I know somebody else who could use it. It’s all yours J!
The plan was not to go to Slovakia but I missed a turn off south of Vienna and so ended up here in Hainburg. But it supplied some serendipity (finding out good things by accident). I’ve been parked up outside the walls of this town. They were paid for by the hostage money extracted from the English for return of King Richard 1st (Richard the Lion Heart). He had been captured by locals as he returned from a 12th century crusade to Jerusalem. It took England almost two years to pay up.
I’ve chosen a noisy spot to park. From 3-5 am the traffic was as busy as Victoria Road in Diss at 8am on a weekday. Mostly cars and shabby looking minibuses. I figured at first the Austrians must be a hard working lot, but then I realised these were Slovaks coming over the nearby border to work for the day. One chaps car broke down last night. A mini bus full of workers tried to tow him away but it was a shambles. They had nothing to tie the tow rope onto, and so they used the cars bumper and it buckled.
Its 6am and the traffic from the border has slowed to a trickle. Mostly trucks.
I’m now over the half way driving point to Turkey. Doing this trip has been a lesson in human geography. It’s obvious when you see the route on the ground. The first highway across central and South-Eastern Europe was the River Danube. The establishment of the first towns and villages followed the course of the river. The first roads came later with the Romans. I noticed yesterday around here the train lines follow the roads…side by side and so for part of their stretch the river as well. Neat.
So far this trip has been through the highly developed side of Europe. Austria and Germany look a lot smarter than Britain. Even the industrial bits.
The countries coming up have modern urban centres but in the rural districts it might as well be the early 20th century or possibly the 1950’s. It varies. Rural Serbia is the best example of that as I saw last year (before the rat bit me).
Onwards and upwards.
I will update as the day progresses
7 am. The borderland between Austria and Slovakia is Gordy. Casinos, brothels, massage parlours, night clubs (one advert was as big as a three storey house). The women look Thai. All oddly set against a rustic farming backdrop which made me laugh. It was like a mini Las Vegas had been dropped on a Norfolk village or Yorkshire market town, a Garboldisham or an Otley. Masseurs taking a break for a fag by the village pond.
Driving toward Slovakia was driving right into the rising sun. And it was on a single lane road. I slowed down as I couldn’t see but all the drivers behind me got angry. Why would they even consider doing 50-60mph when blinded by the sun?
Driving the inner city motorway in Slovakia’s capital, Bratislava is a high Adrenaline experience at 8.30am. Everyone thinks they are an urban warrior. Lots of shouting, revving and blaring of horns.
9 Am. You can’t judge a nation by the customers in a motorway service station. If you did Slovakians would all be twenty something, trendy types in designer clothes. Their cars would be new speedy little things, and their dog’s muscular or fluffy rare breeds. Everything is shiny, clean and works. Everyone looks a lot happier than they did in France, Germany and Austria. They were miserable buggers back their now that I think back.
9.45 Entered Hungary. Lots of border guards checking covered trucks and cars for illegal migrants at the fully operational border post (despite Hungary being in the free movement area of the EU). One glance and they waved me through. As rough as I look I obviously didn’t match the STOP profile.
My priority needs are to get cleaned up and then buy some Hungarian Florins. I use the disabled toilet at one of the road side rest areas to do the former. Wash myself head to foot with a Jay Cloth and a bar of soap. Then use lots of deodorant. My clothes fell off the hook onto the floor. It’s hard to feel clean.
I end up in a small town called Tarjan for the night. It’s the perfect place to stop. I’m guessing it’s an absolutely average place for the region and the country. If I walk around it…which I do I’m getting to see a slice of real Hungary, and I like it. I walk the whole town and sort of relax into the place. The community is in a valley surrounded by tree covered hills that rise steeply up. None off the shops in town are above the size of a couple of rooms. People look comfortable rather than well off, but they are out on the streets and talking to each. They look different from the people I’ve seen on the days before in two ways. They look happy and laugh and talk to you. And some of them look a little like red Indians.

There is a memorial in the churchyard for those who died in the failed 1956 uprising against the Soviets. There is no war memorial for those who died in the second war, and at first that confounds me a little then I remember that Hungary had a Fascist government and fought alongside the Germans and Italians in the war. These thoughts, the memorial to the men who fought the Soviets in 56’ and the absence of a memorial for the men who died fighting for Fascism gives me a little shiver. This is an embodiment of history right here in everyday things. And that’s why I do these trips if Im honest. I’m looking for evidence of change in everyday things.
Another trace is a path through the village. I am still following the route and sketch map from the book written by the American Quaker who walked to Jerusalem from Dijon in France. He came through here. On the outskirts of the town, besides a lane that looks out over wooded hills and farm land is a building with separate rooms arranged around three sides of a courtyard. I’m guessing from a board illustrated with maps that this place might be some kind of hostel and information point for walkers going south-east or west. The route was established centuries before the Quaker came through. The lane at this spot is the present representation of an ancient pilgrimage track that links up many hundreds of miles to the west with several of the Spanish Camino routes to Santiago de Compestela in Galicia, and south eastwards runs through the Balkans and onto Jerusalem via, Turkey and Syria. This is only an educated guess because the inscription on the board is in Hungarian and German, but the maps were clear so I surmise all if this.

 

A few minutes previously I had come close to crashing into a badly driven motorbike and sidecar on an elbow bend near a farm. I was still shaken up by that, but the thoughts of the route calmed me. All those thousands of people walking through here over the centuries. Right on cue a couple of cyclists and a walker came past whilst I was sitting on a bench and having ‘A Contemplate’. Just to confirm my guess.
To be frank up to this point I had found the countries I had passed through a little disappointing. Either the scene they presented was over familiar or just naturally bland in and of itself. From this point on my interest grew. The people seemed more alive and happy. Rural Bavaria had felt like Stepford Wives in Lego land. France looked tired or just smug. Hungary and its odd looking smiling people felt intriguing. My surroundings were sufficiently different and unique to bait my interest, and the people didn’t mind taking a risk and talking to this odd looking, unusually tall and slightly smelly Englishman.

 

Barry
Friday 26th September 1980
Barry awoke just before first light. He had slept just about all the way through. His body was used to being in exposed places. He swung his feet over and had the first cigarette of the day. He kept his tobacco in a little leather pouch tied up with a draw string. Fresh orange peel was mixed in with the tobacco to keep it moist, otherwise it’s a devil to roll. The hit of the first smoke is welcomed. The day looks 25% better already.
He wet shaved by touch using the water from a fountain at the centre of a fading formal sea front garden. Brushed his teeth, wet his hair in order to brush it back. Today it would be important to look his best. He broke his nights fast with a dry bread roll. Next up he seeks out the first coffee of the day. And then another cigarette. All that was completed whilst the rest of the town still slept. Anything else would have to wait until he could busk some money. To fill the time and just on the off chance, he tours the phone boxes and cigarette machines, checking for uncollected change in the little metal trays. Nothing.
The pages he tore out of the Hastings guide in Leeds Central Library has details of the towns market. It opens at 10.15 and it’s in a hall next to a church. Mostly fresh food but also general goods, and some second hand, bric-a-brac. The address is there as well. Barry feels tempted to busk outside the railway station for half an hour first but there will likely be police there and he will get moved on. The same could happen at the market, but the police will only respond to a complaint so that gives him more time.
He has got good at waiting since he’s been homeless. It’s all a matter of seeking comfort, just find a bench, drop your chin and look out at the sea. Just empty mindedness really.
Barry hopes it doesn’t rain. That puts the kybosh on people being generous. Sort of dampens down their mood. Makes them shrink inwards.
The walk to the market takes him past the Tourist Information Office. The window is full of posters under a bold heading, This Weekends Attractions. (He had forgotten it was Friday). Further down and across the window a sub-heading ‘Nearby Attractions’ there was a single handbill.

 

“Pontin’s. Camber Sands Holiday Camp. THE FIRST AND THE BEST GREAT BRITISH SOUL WEEKENDER. 26th -28th September. None residents welcome. Day entry or weekend saver tickets.

Just as one knows the key you hold is the right one for a lock a half second before you try it, Barry knew where Joan and Scott and Pateley would be that weekend.
He takes the cowboy hat out of his hold-hall and strides with real purpose now toward the market hall.

He will kick off with the Roger Miller song-

“Ah, but, two hours of pushin broom
Buys an eight by twelve four-bit room
I’m a man of means by no means, king of the road”,

And then “I know where I’m going”, Judy Collins. Not really country but Irish, but it will work a treat to loosen the pennies and maybe some silver from peoples grasp. And the suns out.
At twelve Barry gets moved on. Someone has complained. The copper is not unpleasant but is also not up for a negotiation. No hassle, he has made enough. Fifteen quid. It’s the hat that does it. People know he is real.
Barry calls in at a sit down fish shop and treats himself. Cod, chips, peas, two slices and a pot of tea. Then he walks out of town on the road toward Rye and Camber. Positions himself at lay-by up from the Camber exit on the first roundabout he finds and starts hitching. He covers the sixteen miles in two lifts and then buys some supplies from a grocery and general store. The makings for sandwiches, a bag of nuts and raisins and a Victoria Sponge, A Daily Mirror and half a dozen Barley Wines. And some lighter fluid and matches.
The weekend’s campers are parked up in line at a kiosk on the road into the camp. Waiting to show their booking receipts to gain entry. It’s simple. Barry just walks up the off side, and shielded by a plumbers Bedford van full of pissed up thirty something ravers from Macclesfield singing ‘I’m a Soul Man’, he walks into the camp. These places are on the decline. There will be chalets in mothballs waiting for the upturn in popularity. Just got to figure where they are. Best guess furthest away. Will know them by the stacked up mattresses against the windows.
Joan and Scott-
5pm. Message form Joan-
“Couldn’t find nowt in Rye. Went to a second hand market in Hastings. They didn’t have a balaclava’s (who wears them now) but there was one of those stalls that sells military and ex-army stuff. They had a pilot’s leather helmet…proper name is Aviator caps. And it was perfect except it had a peak, which might turn out for the best. You wouldn’t have thought it but really hard to find a metal bowl of the right size. They were all too big. In the end we settled on an enamel pie dish. A lovely chap from Lutterworth who was part of Little Richards Sax section when he toured the UK in November/ December 1966 helped us out. He had a stall making jewellery out of battered copper. Big dangly earrings and so on. He made us a wraparound crown with flat horns, and then fixed it onto the aviator’s hat with two discs and a little bolt. And that is what is going to give us the edge over everybody else in the contest. He knew about Arthur Brown, an old girlfriend had been his tour driver. She told him Arthur had learnt from experience lighter fluid was better than petrol for purposes of the burning helmet. More controllable. The trick was buying it in large enough quantities, and having a supply of wicks. The kind they use to light fireworks at big displays.
Pateley likes it. We are making one for him out of a cowboy hat and a Tupperware dish using water obviously, not lighter fluid. Scott bought a tape deck from a shop in town, and then we went to Woolworths and got a number one hits of the sixties tape. We are being lucky. Or maybe having some money makes you lucky.
And then we practiced all afternoon. In our chalet. Scott is almost hopeless as a black man. His stage moves are like a robot on a zebra crossing but Ive got him on a programme. So we have been watching Soul Man by Sam and Dave…and doing the moves again and again and again. Reminds me of that film The Full Monty. We watched that for homework too. Like it was a guide book. Fancy all that industry going from Sheffield. One time you need to tell me what happened.
And tonight we are going to get out and enjoy ourselves…and get totally wrecked. I don’t know any of the bands but once we have settled Patley in his bed we can head out and groove to the toons. They have microphones in the chalets for those who have kids, and special Blue Coats listen out for kids crying and do an announcement over the Tannoy, so the parents can run back to the chalet and sort the kid out, or bring them down to the Entertainments Hall. My heads racing. A proper night out. Scott has bought a homburg hat. He says it helps him look black”.
And then another message from Joan at 1am.
“Famous boxing quotes. “Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the mouth” Mike Tyson (Scott and me are time travellers on the internet)
“Tonight I’m going to party like its 1999”. Prince is WOW. Love from Scott and me. PS how was your end of the century.
PS. Cigarettes and whisky and wild, wild women. They’ll drive you crazy, they’ll drive you insane”. Just saying”.

I wrote back
“Last night of the twentieth century I drove up the A1 to Leeds after work. The road was totally empty. I stopped in the fast lane south of Doncaster and ate a Gamesters Cornish Past and necked a can of Orange Tango.
My mum had dementia for years but that day she had a heart attack. Ended up in Bradford Royal Infirmary. Confused out of her head. Jumping out of bed when she shouldn’t do, and walking up and down the ward. In her head she was minding a loom at Moons mill at Guiseley in 1940. It was the oddest thing to see. My mum aged 14 (in a way…that had been her age in 1940).
I stayed over in her house. At midnight I was in bed, fully dressed with some miniature brandy bottles watching the fireworks out of the window (it was my bedroom when I was a kid). Most folk said Millennium Night (that’s what they called it) was a big rip off and a disappointment. I’ve never met anybody who enjoyed it”.
Diss to Jerusalem
Day 12
Thursday 27th September 2018
Miles so far: 1732
Today’s trip is from Tarjan to Baja which is the last big town in Hungary before Serbia.
Weather: it will getting warmer from today as I’m heading south. At Baja it will 25c (9c overnight. Last night here it was 1c).
I’ve booked a campsite tonight. That gives me a chance to clean the Berlingo out and get my washing done (and for myself to get a proper long, hot shower). I dream of these things.
HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY NOTE
I’ve been educating myself. Hungarians call themselves Magyars. Originally they were different to every other European ethnic group as they migrated from central Siberia and the Urals between the 5th-8th centuries BC. The other people around here were Slavs. That wasn’t one big trek but lots of smaller leap frog like journeys made by seven tribal groups over scores of generations. Over the last two thousand years they have inter married with the Slavic people who were already in the region but essentially of course they are still related to the Siberian peoples who went to the Americas via Alaska. Present day Native Americans. It would be silly to go too far with that but it’s a good story.
I’ve had my Y chromosome done and over thousands of years my male ancestors have moved across Europe to Galicia in Spain and then onto North-western Ireland. They turned up in Liverpool, England in the early 1800’s and were working as hairdressers (yes I know). My nearest gene match lives in upstate New York and is called Cogan. That begs a question.
I like the idea that we all move around and have done so since we came out of Africa.

On the odd side I got a phone call from a man called Peter in England who asked if I wanted to increase the premiums on my life assurance policy. I told the man I didn’t have one and asked how he got my details. He rang off. Obviously a scammer but he spoke very nicely and must have gone to a good school.
Onwards and upwards. I will post as the day goes along.
2.30pm arrived in Banja…and by the wonders of Google maps, I found the campsite in minutes. Right next to the Danube and besides an avenue of trees on a footpath. Works out the owners also run a cheap travellers hostel with single rooms for only a couple of pounds more than it costs to camp. Feels decadent but I opted for a real bed. Done some washing in the sink (against the rules) but I was down to my last outfit. Going for a walk around the town now. Got to find a statue of a man named Andras Jelky…
It’s the suggestion of an old friend David Bullman suggestion. Jelky was an explorer and traveller from Baja who travelled the world in an accident prone way in the early 19th century. I will do a proper write up tomorrow when my brains working. I’m a bit shattered.I get so tired that I can barely add two and two.
I found the statue next to a Spar shop.
A little later after a can of Hungarian beer.
I like the oddness/ garishness of border towns. This one is a little distant from the border with Serbia so might be more respectable. Someone needs to write a book about borders. I once got ‘arrested’ near the town of Livingstone in Zambia. I’d been taking photos of a famous bridge over the Zambezi near Victoria Falls. It was the 1980’s and the border guards thought I might be a South African spy (there had been concerns the bridge would be bombed). I had to pay a R50 ‘release fee’ aka bribe.
I’m going to have a Youtube evening with a Soul Music theme. First up Mustang Sally, Wilson Picket. Me and three more bottles of Dreher (I should have bought export instead but too late).
BARRY
Saturday 27th September 1980
Friday night went well. Barry had found two rows of chalets near the far fence that had been mothballed. Flimsy locks. Easy to get in. The rooms were stacked up with mattresses still in their plastic covers as well as bits of furniture. Barry made a space in the middle of the mattresses. Looks a little like a nest. He figures anyone checking won’t see anything. Just got to make sure the outside door looks normal from a distance.
Yesterday, during the day he had a walk round a got the details of today’s programme. Studying it again now. Nothing much on this morning. This aft some kind of talent show, then tonight the weekends big acts, starting at 8pm. He feels tempted to try and get in the Dining Room, It will be a full English breakfast and he could murder one, but it’s probably a risk not worth taking. Better just to keep a low profile and focus on why he is here.
He needs to find our which Chalet Joan and that black man are in. That means either finding in whatever they are doing, and then following them back to the Chalet or getting their chalet number by asking somebody at the desk. Otherwise he could spend hours just wandering around looking for signs of them and be no wiser at the end of it. Simple is best. There was some risk but not as much as say hanging outside the restaurant for up to two hours and hoping to catch sight of them as they go back to the chalet after breakfast. He just needs an excuse to be asking at the front desk about where Joan Arcroyd, a little lad and a black feller are.
And that’s the point. She hasn’t just run off with anybody. She has run off with a black bastard. They had a name for women like her when he was in the army.
Each should stay true to their own kind. That is the law in the rest of nature. Squirrels don’t mate with Rabbits or horses with elephants. So neither should blacks lay down with whites. It’s there in Genesis, in the bible. “And God said let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seeds, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its own kind on the earth” and so it was.
And the blacks are cursed. That’s also in the bible. About how the blacks are the descendants of Ham, and they have got a curse from God. Barry opens his bible and touches the page. In Genesis. The Table of Nations. Ham was a son of Noah but did something to Noah and god said that all four of his sons, and their descendants forever would be cursed. They would be known as the burnt or black people and live in Africa and would become the slaves of the world for as long as this world lasted.
They don’t teach that in church anymore but he had read it for himself and its obvious when you think about it. The blacks were always slaves. And that’s because their begetters sinned way back in the times of the flood and Noah.
He, Barry was righteous and he had laid with Joan and that made her righteous (even though she was partly unrighteous before) but now she had laid with a black man and was no longer righteous (in fact entirely unrighteous) and unless he did something he would be infected by her stain. It would flow backwards to him. Some days he felt it.
But it was not enough just to kill her. She had to know the hurt he had felt all these months, before she died and went to hell. He would take away the most important thing she had in the world. Then when she went insane with grief he would abolish her life in its entirety. And his, the Blackman as well. He knew what he was doing. Seeking out a white woman, and staining her. The world had gone to the wicked, but righteousness would prevail. One person at a time. Amen
He, Barry would then retain all his righteousness and God would give him some more for doing his work. It’s an imperative. That means something you have to do.
Barry placed the Cowboy hat over his eyes and preyed

10 am. It was all very easy. Barry stepped over a painter knelt over a skirting board and entered the Reception office
“Hiya . I’m trying to find a mate, and her chap, a Jamaican feller. They came down here from Leeds beginning of the week. Her names Joan Arcroyd. I think her sons here as well. He’s called Pateley. After Pateley Bridge in Yorkshire. You’ve not been there. Gods own country. Great little market town, lovely streets and Nidderdale all around it is beautiful. Tell them Hank sent you!!!
Anyway we were supposed to meet up this morning for…”
The helpful young girl on reception interrupts… (She’s a looker Barry thinks, even with the gap in her teeth) “Is that for the talent contest this aft. We have all been laughing at their get up. Bloody Brilliant. They are in B4, up in the Supreme Class chalets. The little lad’s brilliant as well isn’t he”.
Barry agrees, touches the rim of his hat and tells her she has been a darling, and thanks her ever so much, then heads out of the door. Pulls out his red Silverline note pad and writes… JA D4. Supreme Class. Talent Show.
Message from Joan and Scott
10am on Saturday 27th September 1980
“Bloody hell Kidman, I’m sore. Sore from laughing, sore from dancing and sore from passion shagging. I’m walking like John Wayne and talking like Fanella Fielding in Carry on Screaming. All husky and femmy fatal. Do you remember that gag where she is seducing the detective Harry H. Corbett, and asks if he minds if she smokes. He says no problem then all this smoke starts rising up from her body. Classic.

Brilliant night last night. Booze boogie booze boogie booze boogie solid till 2am. The last band was doing Soul Man, and these crazy fellers from Macclesfield (we got chatting) were doing the moves all in a line, and in sequence. Brilliant guys.
Pateley, the darling slept all the way through. Up bright and early this morning though. Wants to go for a donkey ride on the beach. I’m gonna need some sun glasses.
Talent contest this aft. Starts at 2.We are going to nail it. I feel it.
PS got a joke for ya. Two VD germs on a train line. They hear a train coming. One says to the other “I’m a gonna here”. Get it. Gonorrhoea. Boom-boom. Oh god I’m turning into Basil Brush now.
PS Daftest of all I’ve woke up this morning singing that old Roger Miller song, ‘King of the Road’. You know…”Trailer for sale, or rent, room to let fifty cents…”
Funny how your brain works.
Catch you later.
J”.