Hitchhiking has always seemed to me a good way to get about. It is cheap, some drivers even treat you to coffee or a meal, and it is always companionable. What’s more, the knights of the road who stop for you are often people you would otherwise never meet. My first experience was when I hitched from London to Athens and back in 1951. South of Florence, en route to Rome, I discovered that not all drivers were knights. I was wearing, I am pretty certain, grey flannel trousers, a tweed jacket and a tie (this was the 1950s). After a short time of putting up my thumb, a Fiat Cinquecento swerved over to where I was standing. The window on the passenger’s side was wound down and a woman’s voice said: ‘I can see you are English and I need someone to protect me. There are banditti on the road through the mountains.’ She was a designer from Milano going to Rome and, took me all the way. Needless to say, we met not a single bandito.
There was nowt for it. I raised my trusty, and indeed rusty, thumb
Fast forward to last year when my wife and I, both octogenarians, were in Dorset walking on the Isle of Purbeck. We were based at a hotel in Corfe and, on day one, after exploring the castle, set off westwards. It is fine walking country. Once you are up on the ridge you can go for miles across gentle undulations with views southwards to the sea and northwards across to Wareham. We had a picnic, chatted up some men launching gliders, and kept going. Come about five o’clock we debated what to do. We had only gone five or six miles but it did seem a long way back to Corfe.
There was nowt for it. I raised my trusty, and indeed rusty, thumb. The effect was electrifying. We were beside a country lane with few cars passing but the first going in the direction of Corfe, stopped, asked if he could help, and gave us a lift. Our driver was a former naval rocket launching technician. He was not going to Corfe but willingly took us a bit out of his way. We persuaded him to drop us at the edge of the village and walked the last few hundred yards to our hotel.
The following day we set off eastwards and took the path which leads up onto Nine Barrow Down and, in due course, to the cliffs that overlook Old Harry Rocks. (These are Dorset’s answer to the Needles which can be seen by the Isle of Wight.) We admired the view, walked on around to Studland, looked at the time and decided to try for a second lift. No problem. This time our driver was a smiling man from Hertford who was in charge of the biggest mobile home we had ever seen, let alone travelled in. He was coming out of the car park of a village shop, got out of the driver’s door and helped us, via the passengers’ side, into two huge armchairs located immediately behind his seat. A sitting room, bedrooms and en suites stretched away behind us.
We had not gone more than a few hundred yards before he explained that he was seeking a caravan park in which to spend the night. By then we had also learnt that he was a used car dealer, had several children by several women, and that it was difficult to find overnight slots big enough for his monster machine. My wife got to work at once on her phone, googling caravan parks, found one on the way to Corfe, and gave our new friend its phone number. Now we were to discover his charm. The receptionist was, of course, a woman and our driver, who had pulled into a layby, at once asked her name: ‘Darling Suzanne,’ he went on, ‘what a beautiful name. It is one of my favourites and I am sure you are beautiful too.’ The charm worked and soon he was giving his registration number and booking a place. He turned to us and said: ‘I didn’t tell her how long it is. I never do. If I told her that she would not let me in.’ On to Corfe we went and, after we had jumped out and thanked him effusively, he managed, with some difficulty, to turn the huge mobile and head off into the gloaming.
It was all a far cry from my return trip from Athens in 1951 but no less educational. There I was advised not to try hitching across mountainous Macedonia: the problem was not banditti but too few vehicles. So, I took a train from Salonika to Skopje in Tito’s Yugoslavia and, for a time, sat next to a farmer with two live chickens on her lap. She was going to market though the train was billed as the Orient Express.
A farm truck with half a dozen labourers standing at the back took on my next lap. Tassels of maize bobbed in the fields to right and left and, for clogs, the men wore sections of car tyres tied across the instep with cord. Germany, of course, has a speedy autobahn and in Munich, I was taken all the way to Stuttgart by the director of the city art gallery. He was charming and, at one point, put his hand on my knee and invited me to stay the night. In my entire life, it was the only time I have ever been propositioned.
Sixty years ago hitchhiking was, for a student, not just the best way to get about but, because of its cheapness, the only way. And it still is. The surprises are endless, the friendliness heart-warming, and the number of driver-only cars, ridiculous. Dare I add one of my hobbyhorses? It is also green.
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