Take time to see the wonders of the world

Human League – ‘The Things That Dreams Are Made Of’

Full Time Students

In the UK in 1982 there was no such thing as a full time student, at least not at undergraduate level, full time wankers as far as most people were concerned. Students were part time but considered themselves full time, a bit like Members of Parliament. Students did 30 weeks a year at the most. Nearly all of them were in receipt of the ‘Grant’ from their Local Education Authority (LEA). The Grant covered their living expenses for these 30 weeks. Most home students would be hard pressed to tell you how much their University tuition fees were since these were taken care of by the LEA or Local Education Authority. They had never had it so good. Generous as it now seems the ‘Grant’ was not enough to cover extended jolies abroad during the nearly four month summer break. So if you were of an adventurous turn of mind you had to find some way of funding the trip.

A Clearly Defined Budget

Everybody needs cash to spend

Human League – ‘The Things That Dreams Are Made Of’

When people travel together it helps to have an agreed budget. The budget for this trip was £300 each, about the same as for the two previous trips. If two people have wildly differing ideas of how much they are willing to spend this can lead to lots of problems. Not a penny more not a penny less, we had a combination of cash and travellers cheques. This was in an era where money was not readily accessible, debit cards and credit cards existed, but were not quite so easy to use abroad. Even if we had marched into some foreign bank brandishing UK plastic our home bank accounts were pretty much empty and calling on family for money was unthinkable.

Whilst we agreed on the amount, how we got hold of the money was entirely a matter for the individual, as long as you turned up on day one with the necessary cash. I spent a month working in a Pork Pie Factory, the experience of which was to come in very useful in later life. Arthur had ‘simply’ and ‘simply’ was one of his favourite words at the time, gone to see his bank manager in North Shields and persuaded him to give him £300, an experience which was also to come in useful later on in life.

Two university students, a long hot summer in front of them, no student debt, £300 pounds, the back pocket, courtesy of a Nottingham pork pie factory and an easily persuadable bank manager at the Barclays Bank North Shields. As well as a clearly defined budget you need a clearly defined plan.

Preparation, Preparation, Preparation

To see things you’ve only ever heard of

Human League – ‘The Things That Dreams Are Made Of’

Looking back with hindsight, carrying things you are never going to use was not ideal preparation. Taking a travel survival kit for a country we wouldn’t get to visit, wasn’t the best of ideas. We had spent many hours in the pub trying to work out where in India we should go. We tried opening the book at random and reading that page, every time we did we found some unmissable place, India is like that. We were not organised enough to note down the place or page number but it certainly fed our appetite for the trip. At which point it was agreed that I should carry 540 grams of guide book eludes me, Arthur had his own book to carry.

At the time Arthur lived with a group of ‘arts’ students, studying subjects like English, Politics, R.E. ,rather than sciences. As a student of mechanical engineering, this put him at something of a disadvantage socially, though not vocationally. The problem was how to appear ‘deep and meaningful’ when you don’t read any ‘deep and meaningful’ books as part of your studies. Arts students have little capacity for listening to someone explaining Newton’s Laws on motion but can discuss gonzo journalism until the cows come home. This led to what I like to think of as ‘Operation Deep and Meaningful’. While I was worrying about carrying a heavy guide book, Arthur concern was choosing between Damon Runyon, John Irving and Hunter S Thompson. Authors, who no doubt had been recommended by well intentioned flat mates and which he would be able to discuss at length after returning in October. I’m doubtful whether there was any reciprocal reading of Newtonian physics going on amongst his artsy friends. Whichever deep and meaningful book was finally chosen it was likely to be lighter in grams than the lonely planet book.

Further planning meetings would take place at Whitley Bay Leisure Pool to the mens remedial suite and sauna. This was ostensibly to get us used to the heat we would be sure to encounter in southern climes, but it also provided a forum for us to consider ‘What If’ eventualities. The mens remedial suite had a number of endearing features. The facility was presided over by two elderly gentlemen in their fifties, Issac and Walter. If you were on the ‘full ticket’, which meant you got everything, sauna, turkish, solarium, aerotone, you could request a hot drink. You would sit, toga like, in the rest area and be brought your tea or coffee, in a turquoise cup, by Issac. This was an extremly civilised and encouraging place to indulge in flights of fancy with regard to the forthcoming travels. The favourite scenario we toyed with, ‘what if a fight broke out’. We thought it useful to develop a series of signals indicating what action we we about to take. We didn’t get very far with this, I recall a few sceptical eyebrows raised amongst those who were misfortunate enough to be in the room at the same time. A pity really, because far fetched as it seemed, we did find ourselves embroiled in a couple of fights, not of our own making and it would have been handy to have had a plan.

As you left the sauna, there was a steel comb which someone had thoughtfully hung on a piece of string, next to a mirror. This allowed you to make any last minute touches to your appearance. As Arthur put it “Nowt wrong with that”. If we were still thirsty we could walk across the road to the Art Deco cafe, known as the Rendezvous, since used in many National TV commercials because of its unique interior. The cafe was and remains in the custodianship of the local council. If you were to ask for a cappuccino there in 1982, you’d be looked at with a mixture of disbelief and bewilderment. “You mean frothy Pet”? We knew we were destined for higher things. Still it would be many decades before we realised that asking for a capuccino after lunch in Italy is the act of a barbarian. We were ready to be sophisticated but not that sophisticated.

The Plan

The problem wasn’t deciding where to go, we knew which country we were headed for, nor was there a problem knowing which areas and cities to visit, we had an abundance of ideas on place to go to. The problem was how to get there and back, the back was important, on £300. In 1982 a cheap return flight London to New Delhi could be had for £350. Remarkably forty years later you can get the same flight for the same price. In 1982 we only had £300 total for the trip so buying a flight was a non starter. We had heard tales of people hitching lifts from Hyde Park Corner to Katmandu, but in the absence of such blinding good luck we needed something a bit more pragmatic than hope. The only solutions was to hitch hike through the expensive countries of Western Europe, then take buses and trains through the cheaper eastern countries. We would sleep rough, stopping only on hot afternoons, mad dogs and englishmen, to sit in cafe’s and solve a few of the world’s more pressing problems. We had got to Morroco that way the the year before so India should be a snip. What could possibly go wrong? Last year all we had to do was keep heading south, this year east. Journey to the east, but when faced with crossroads or a choice of directions how do you know which is the right direction. A compass is the simple answer, but without a map to confirm the direction? We had no map, we had no compass. How did we navigate? Remember this is 1982, no phones, no google maps, no GPS. I suspect though I don’t remember that we has a simple sheet of A4, with a photocopied map of Europe, even this seems unlikely, photocopying was in its infancy in 1982 and neither of us were working in an office, there were no personal computers unless you happened to be Bill or Steve and lived in southern California.

Well things did go wrong, but that, as they say, is all part of the journey. When things do go wrong you have to ‘pivot’ . Pivoting is easy, agreeing where to pivot, is not always so easy and there would follow some heated discussions, in between world problem solving, as to how to realign our ambitions.

We left home that year On July 13th, stopping in at the local pub, (Pheasant) before catching a bus to the Tyne Tunnel slip road. Luckily for us the day before Bastille day. Then itinerary went something like this :-

Part One – Hitch-hiking

Departure July 13th – The Pheasant

The hardest part about going was making the decision to go. The day you leave is not the day, you want to suddenly start realising all the good thing about the place you live. There will be plenty of time later to appreciate what you have left behind. The day you leave should preferably be a miserable day. The sun never shines in the UK in the summer unless you happen to be leaving. The place you leave from should preferably be a place you have come to associate with misery, failure and lack of ambition. In our case, rather unfairly this was our local pub, The Pheasant.

So before leaving at lunchtime on one of these trips we called in to our local, our way of saying goodbye. Don’t remember having a drink nor any leaving party, or even anyone else being there, we left unceremoniously and caught a bus to the Tyne Tunnel slip road, I think. Not exactly the heroes send off.

Hitchhiking – The Process

How to maximise your chance of getting a lift? Two males hitching together has it’s own dynamic, distinct from solo hitchhiking, completely different if one or more of the hitchers are females. First rule, only one person is stood up at a time, the other remains seated with or on the bags. The person seated, can read a book, make a sign to the next destination, or just lie on their back with eyes closed. The person standing has to face the traffic, stick their thumb out and look into the eyes of the passing car drivers, with what they hope is an agreeable expression on their face. Standing is more stressful, you had to endure rejection for one thing, you had to deal with whatever gesture the motorist sought to proffer, not always polite despite your good natured grin. Half an hour in the standing position and it was time to rotate.

If hitchhiking is like standing with a fishing rod, when a car slows down and stops this is like hooking and landing a fish. Boredom gives way to a short period of intense excitement. It’s difficult not to avoid running to wherever the car has pulled up, there then follows a period of discussion, not really a negotiation. The driver asks “where you are going”, the temptation is always to respond with “Anywhere away from here”. We never turned down a lift that was going in broadly the right direction.

After a destination had been agreed, one person would sit in the front with the driver, the other in the back seat. Invariably we were picked up by solo drivers, many were former hitchhikers who wanted conversation and to tell you about their own youthful adventures. The part of the process was less like eating the fish and more like a job interview. As a freeloading passenger your aim was provide the driver with stimulating conversation, trying to maximise areas of common interest and skate over things you disagreed on. Many of the French drivers wanted to talk about ‘Thatcher’ Britains then prime minister. ‘Formidable’ we would reply and everyone would nod in agreement. If they insisted on pursuing this line of conversation we might even go as far as to venture ‘laissez-faire économique’, which tended to evoke a more muted response, at this point we were at the limits of our feeble French.

In 1982 there was no Euro, each European country had its own currency, our aim was to pass through each country as quickly as possible, so we didn’t load up on foreign currencies, we didn’t even have health insurance. It’s one thing to accept a lift of someone, another to accept food or drink. If it became clear that we were not just going to sail through a country then a bank would be sought out and foreign currency obtained, solely for the purpose of buying food. No driver ever asked us to pay for fuel, we were freeloaders, scroungers some people might say. Whatever, we contrived to somehow pay all these people back when we were drivers ourselves. We even had this idea of buying a van and driving around Europe expressly for the purpose of giving hitchhikers lifts. Hasn’t happened so far.

Tyne Tunnel Slip Road

England is not all pretty, and the tower blocks by the Tyne Tunnel slip road, which feature heavily in the Likely Lads film were guaranteed to make anyone think that ‘It’s grim up North”..

Still the UK is still the best country in the world for hitch-hiking, and within an hour we had left the local eye sore and were speeding down the motorway to London with an IT guy and former hitcher. Retired hitch-hikers like to give lifts to prove they are still cool. Rule One the driver is always cool and always right.

Late evening. After a brief walk down the Old Kent Road the second lift from a truck driver who was taking animal skins to a tannery in Italy. Even in 1982 there were no tanneries left in Britain, which was fine by us, we would have been happy to see the Italian one but he was only taking us as far as Dover. Caught the ferry as foot passengers to the french port of Boulogne.

Boulogne-sur-Mer – Bastille Day

Arriving early morning in Boulogne-Sur-Mer we were mystified at the absence of traffic. It was, it turned out, a French public holiday, Bastille day. That fact took us some considerable time to work out. Meanwhile we developed this technique for making signs on discarded bits of cardboard, as an indication to prospective drivers of where we wanted to be taken. That was the theory, in actuality it provided a diversion, even therapy from having to constantly face rejection from oncoming drivers. Arthur had worked out that two males standing up with thumbs out was too intimidating and that it was far better if one of us sat down and scribbled on cardboard.

Once we got a lift we would happily jettison the sign, only to have to make another one 20km further down the road, often to the same destination. Still there was no shortage of discarded cardboard and no shortage of willing scribblers.

It would have made more sense just to write one sign “New Delhi” and just hope for a miracle, it would have at least raised a smile from passing motorists. Over the weeks that followed we would come up with a plan that at some future date, we would buy a van, pick up hitchhikers and take them wherever they wanted to go, keeping them well supplied with food along the way. “Katmandu mate? no problem just take a seat in the back, help yourself to bread and cheese.”

Navigation

This time last year we had been ‘Going South’, this year we were ‘Going East’. In an age before mobile phones and GPS I don’t remember having any maps. How did we know where we were going? In the UK there are Motorways and ‘A’ roads, their corollaries in France Autoroutes (motorways) and Route Nationale (major trunk roads). We decided to stick with the Route Nationales, not sure why it had worked the year before, both sets or roads had motorists travelling reasonable distances. On Route Nationals there were always signs indicating significant destinations for that particular road.

Living Rough

Given the strict constraints on our budget, a place with cheap food was something we had to figure out early on in the trip. In France there is a chain of ‘hypermarkets’, Géant Casinos, most of which were conveniently located just outside towns. The cheapest way of filling yourself up was to buy a french stick and a tin of pate, this was before vegetarianism became popular. After polishing this lot off we would try and get a lift. When when the sun became too hot and assuming we had not got a lift we would find a café and stay there for a couple of hours. The technique for making a cup of coffee last two hours is a skill that stays with me to this day. After nine in the evening when it began to get dark we would start looking for some place to sleep. Paying for accommodation was never considered, we had no tent just sleeping bags. After two or three weeks of living like this, the world begins to seem a little different, primarily because of the number of hours in any twenty four that you are outside, either under the stars or a burning sky. Learning to live outside is in many ways a transformational experience, one difficult to describe.

Paris

Paris is the capital of France. Like nearly every big city, it’s difficult to hitch-hike out of it. Paris is even more difficult, since the ring highway (périphérique) is relatively small.

How could we know? There was no wikipedia for hitchers back in 1982, after 3 days trying to get a lift out of Paris we were on the brink of despair. A train to Lyon would have been the obvious solution but it was not even considered because of the tight budget. Finally we got a lift from Jacques and Emmanuel. The fact that we can both remember their names 40 years on is less an indication of the preceding 3 days of desperation and more down to their ‘joie de vie’. Jacque worked for VW, he demanded we strap in and away we shot. Rear seat belts were unknown in 1982 outside of racing cars, but this was a racing car. Travelling at speeds up to 240km/h we reached Le Mans in no time. Indelible memories, this is what we had left home for.

Tours

One night leaving Tours we were looking for a good place to sleep, it was getting dark. There was a lot of trial and error in this process. Beaches were good, under bridges on motorways also good especially in the rain, but sometimes there was no obvious place to sleep. This is what happened walking out of Tours, we couldn’t find anywhere that wasn’t someones garden or grounds, eventually as the light faded we found what looked like waste wooded ground. Unfortunately we were not alone, no sooner had we bedded down than we realised there was an animal or something horrible in there. We had to leave, ‘rapidement’, I said. The long years of French at school were starting to kick in.

Pimpmobile

What happens if you meet a nutter on the road? This driver wore one of those shoelace ties, like they do in Westerns and a shirt which matched his car colour, the only thing he didn’t have was a stetson, perhaps there was one in the boot. After some preliminary conversation during which it was established that we were two red blooded males on our way to the Riviera in search of women. Where else would two healthy males be headed for at this time of the year? Having established that we were interested in women, though perhaps not the Riviera, he stopped to car, rummaged in the trunk and returned with a folder. The large red well organised file was full of pictures of semi naked women, positioned alongside high denomination notes. None of the women looked particularly happy. Were these women conquests or his girls? Why were the original bank notes in the folder and not in the women’s pockets? We never found out.

We had been making slow progress, geographically speaking and at this point in our journey our resolve to get to India was weakening, perhaps the Rivieria was a better idea. However how long was £300 going to last in Juan-Le-Pins during tourist season. Returning to Newcastle in early August was unthinkable. Another option had to be found.

Lyon

It was always a surprise that a single woman would choose to pick up two grown males, perhaps we just looked harmless, but this was a not uncommon occurrence. In Lyon a lift from a young, attractive, french, female doctor, ought to be a safe bet. You wouldn’t even conduct a risk assessment. This was the nearest we came to having a bad accident, when she decided to do a ‘U’ turn on a bridge in Lyon. We were incredulous, the other motorists were furious, she shrugged. Still if that’s the worst thing that happened what else can you do but shrug. ‘Sacré blue’, we thought. By now we were even thinking in French. A shame we would soon be leaving France, the language was coming on nicely.

Coffee in Italy

One minute we were walking up in a field near Grenoble and wondering if we could legally eat a nearby peach from an overhanging tree, the next we were being spirited over the Alps into Italy by our stylish Italian driver who had agreed to take us all the way to the Adriatic.

We stopped for a break, this was to be our first experience of Italy and Italian Coffee. Our driver insisted on buying us coffee, he didn’t have to insist very hard. One day we were going to pay all these people back.

Coffee consisted of 15 minutes, standing up in a cafe looking thoughtfully at a thimble of espresso, then as if responding to some hidden cue, downing it in one and walking out, very sophisticated. We felt very Italian after that. In France we had mastered the art of making a café au lait last most of the afternoon, whilst we solved the worlds problems. Now we were having to adapt to light, polite conversation for 10 minutes, then a down in one with the espresso and off again. Another culture shock

Pescara

The English have long joked about the French being ‘frogs’, but the French have a parallel insult, calling the English ‘roast beefs’ or ‘rostbif’, a term whose linguistic origins stretch back centuries. When drivers saw Arthur they knew what they were getting, I on the other hand cultivated a rather more sophisticated and cosmopolitan air, I had no trouble mimicking French or Italian intonation, what I lacked were the words.

When we would get into a car in France, Arthur was still in denial linguistically speaking, ‘Cheers Mate’ was still his greeting of choice. In Italy Arthur finally began to feel comfortable thanking Italians with ‘Merci Monsieur’ and later Greeks with ‘Gracias Amigo’.  English, logically speaking should be the language of choice for everyone. 

Language never seems like a big deal until you actually arrive in a new country and then realise you have no idea how to say anything. We use the normal excuse, that we would be travelling though dozens of countries, well at least four and we coudn’t possibly be expected to speak all of those languages. The few word we did know we rather feared were not Italian but Spanish.

In Italy we had even less of a clue about the language than in France so we would practise Italian by reciting names of 1982 Italian World Cup winning team, conflated sometimes with types of pasta. Not many Italians remember the Napoli right back Alfredo Linguine. Despite these confidence boosting measures, Arthur still contrived to arrive second at each stopped vehicle, compelling Richard to take the passenger seat, while he made himself comfortable in the rear. Within 10 minutes of getting a lift, Arthur is usually asleep in the back, while Richard attempts to impress the driver with his knowledge of Italian footballers.. and pasta.

Italian Haute Couture

Our clothes, didn’t bother us in France, but in Italy we were immediately recognisable as ‘Inglese’. I don’t remember people pointing at us and laughing, but it felt like that. We didn’t even have a pair of sunglasses between us. Arthur’s high cheekbones and my mahogany tan just didn’t cut it amongst the designer cool Italians.

A year earlier we had stumbled unwittingly into France on Bastille Day and were surprised that everything seemed to be shut. Arriving in Italy for the first time we seemed to have arrived in National Fashion Week. How else could you explain the clothes most people were wearing, it soon became apparent that this was a permanent state of affairs and not confined to one part of Italy. Italians were incredibly fashion conscious in a way we could not hope to be.

Very soon after arriving it became clear that our selection of clothes was completely inappropriate. You could see people looking at us, open mouthed and thinking, do people really dress like this. We were looking back at them, open mouthed and thinking, do people really dress like this? If challenged about our clothes we might have said ‘minimalist cool’. It was summer after all, we hadn’t packed the linen jacket, much favoured by our colonial predecessors.

Arthur was sporting a multi-coloured crap hat, which I think he was secretly proud of and I like to think was the primary reason for the open mouths. I was wearing my newly earned 1982 Great North Run teeshirt which I was definitely immensely proud of. Sadly no one had yet asked me about the run, but when they did I had a little speech prepared. 

Italy the seedy underbelly

Although it would be nice to think of Italy as being filled with urban fashionistas, there was another side, there is always another side, a harsher, seedier underbelly. During many spells in the Pork Pie Factory I’d worked with a group of elderly Italian men, they were probably about 40, whose job was wheeling stacks of pies in and out of hot ovens all day. They had been living in Nottingham for 20 years or more, I used to wonder if they had ever left the factory. Their vocabulary consisted mostly of swear words. Terse instructions were normal conveyed using a mixture of gestures and the ‘F’ word. If they could speak a sentence of English I never heard it, they certainly displayed no more fashion sense than anyone else in the factory.

In the course of hitching we would often stop in a small towns and where possible choose a less than salubrious looking cafe in the hope of finding cheaper prices. On one such occasion we were sitting peacefully trying to make our espresso last when a fight erupted out of nowhere. As part of our preparation we had discussed this eventuality in the sauna, whatever we decided there was of little help, our only concern, not one we could have anticipated was preserving the newly purchased espressos. There was no way in the world we were going to leave without getting full value for money. A furious, one armed man in a string vest looking a lot like the Scottish character ‘Rab C Nesbitt’. This one armed ‘bandito’ had for some reason that shall forever remain a mystery to us, decided to take on all comers using cafe furniture as a weapons. Perhaps he was angry about his arm, who knew. Eventually the proprietor was able to placate him, we returned out drinks to the table and peace was restored.

Otranto Weigh-In

Otranto had a ferry to Greece. Who knew? Brindisi was the obvious Inter Railer’s choice for the Italian-Greek Ferry crossing. Perhaps it was the urge to be different. I remember being surprised that there actually was a ferry when we got to Otranto. Otherwise we would have been headed back to Brindisi.

Prior to boarding the ship our luggage weighed in at; Arthur 5kg, Richard 10kg. The decision to bring the voluminous ‘India a Travel Survival Kit’, was poor. In addition to carrying a useless guide book, I had a nearly new Pentax SLR camera, another bulky and heavy object. Added to which I had no idea how to use the camera. I figured I’d work out the camera as we went, but there never seemed to be time.

Corfu

After two weeks on the road, getting stuck in France, we decided a well earned rest in Corfu was well within our budget and it would give us the opportunity to catch up with two friends who inexplicably had decided to fly rather than walk to Corfu, Carl and Barry

The trouble was we couldn’t find them, this was the second time we had lost Barry, though it was a first for Carl. We made good use of the hotel facilities where they were supposed to be staying in the hope that we might bump into them We lounged by the pool, read other people’s newspapers, even went so far as to leave our towels ostentatiously on sun loungers.

We developed this rather cunning chat up line. Ask someone a question to which you already know the answer and hope they ask you it back.

“How did we get here?”

“Well funny you should ask. We hitchhiked actually, all the way from Newcastle, apart from the watery bits of course”.

Such a novel response should have led to immediate popularity and success with the girls. It didn’t neither in Corfu or later on in the journey. People must have thought what a couple of wankers. We might have had more success confessing to some communicable disease or even mental ilness. We went to lots of discos, Duran Duran were all the go in 82, it felt good to be a tourist at least for a while.

Onwards and Upwards

The morning after one of our unsuccessful nights at the Disco the Pension host came to the mistaken belief that we were more trouble than we were worth. A lock had accidentally broken and apparently we hadn’t kept up with the housekeeping. This much was true, I don’t think we had had the dusted once. Our own Corfu residence was a privately owned modest pension which the owners felt we had not given due care and attention to. Using our limited diplomatic skills we managed to negotiate a 24 hour extension so we could leave in a civilised manner and on amicable terms. The British stereotype unfortunately was reinforced at least in their minds. Taking an overnight bus/ferry and the next morning we were in Athens and the debate started as to where we should head for.

Athens

Returning to the Plaka in Athens and it felt like the journey was just beginning again, the guy in the Milk Bar greeted me like a long lost friend.

We had cleverly avoided 1000 miles of the then communist Yugoslavia with the ferry crossing from Italy to Greece. There was a daily train to Istanbul from Athens or there were Ferries from Pireaus to many far flung places. There were nothing but possibilities. We decided in the end to catch a ferry to Israel, Alexandria would have been preferred but that would have meant a much longer wait.

Crossing to Israel

Sometime before boarding we bumped into this fit looking guy on the quayside who was very interested in our plans. Once he established our motivation for going to Israel he lost interest he vanished but not before uttering the eternal phrase “you understand why I must ask you these questions” , then we understood.

Three days sleeping on deck were a lot less arduous than you would think. We met some other prospective kibbutz volunteers who had decided that a bottle of Johnnie Walker black label was all the sustenance anyone could possibly need for such a journey. This would not be the last time we would meet people whose idea of self deprivation and partying hard would way exceed what we thought was reasonable.

Part Two Kibbutz Afek

Welcome back

Staring at the port of Haifa as we waited in the bay, the first thing we notice was amount of purposeful activity on shore. One of those rubber boats approached with divers as it pulled along side the divers entered the water and swam underneath the vessel, presumably checking for mines. The customs officials approached in another boat and boarded. We were back. ‘Welcome back’ said the customs officer who seemed delighted to see our 3 month extension visas which we still had inherited from the last trip.

By the time we disembarked it was nearly the middle of the day and painfully hot. There were only two priorities, first, a falafel, the healthiest fast food in the world. We found a falafel stand at the bus station, refilled the pita numerous times before we were satisfied. Only buying one falafel but refilling it many times, kudos to Arthur for that particular technique.

Took a bus to Tel Aviv, the kibbutz office was closed, so we found a hostel. Hostels were still cheap then as was beer, so we enjoyed our second priority a Goldstar beer at the hostel that evening. All we needed now was a kibbutz, which the Tel Aviv office duly provided the us with next day.

Kibbutz Afek

Coffee on the Kibbutz

Kibbutz is a Hebrew word which means ‘gathering’. The work day invariably started with a gathering for a cup of coffee. A simple thing being invited to sit down and have a cup of coffee before you did anything, displayed a more relaxed work environment than any we had ever discovered at home. There was a choice between Nescafe and Turkish coffee, I tended to go for the Turkish, which usually left you with coffee bits in your teeth. One day at breakfast a French volunteer explained how to turn Nescafe into a cappuccino. The method is ingenious but takes 5-10 minutes of hard stirring until the coffee powder and just a touch of water turn into a white paste. It’s quite the party trick if you find yourself stranded without a cappuccino machine. During these early morning work chats we would discuss all sorts of things. The first Indiana Jones movie was touring and more than once I heard it described as “The Raiders have Lost their Ark”. I wondered at the time if this was down to the inverted nature of the Hebrew language or just a more accurate depiction of the contents of the movie.

Returning to a Kibbutz, even though a different one, immediately felt familiar. Midway between Haifa and Akko, with an outside pool and all the usual facilities, within hours of arriving we had met all the volunteers, we had our work clothes, an improvement on what we were wearing. In no time at all we discovered that work was going to be on ‘chickens’. What was not to like?

Working with Chickens

The most important thing about the Kibbutz is the work. Volunteers work lists were posted on the notice board near the dining room and were often the subject of animated debate. I soon became a regular on chickens and that suited me fine. After travelling across Europe the reliability of a routine was extremely welcome, I think I enjoyed to work more than any other facet of life and when the time came to leave, it was the job that I missed the most. I was never happier than loading up the trailer and driving the tractor to the tip. At the tip there was a dead cow with a massively distended belly. I was always careful to dump my stuff on the other side of the tip. I didn’t want to be hit when that belly exploded. After two weeks of working in chickens I felt like I had been there all my life.

Fond memories of the chickens too, after six hours, often at 34 degrees with an over powering smell of ammonia, I would walk happily to lunch. On the way to the dining room, a brief stop at the shower block, take a shower fully clothed, wash clothes, put them back on and continue to the dining room, sit down to eat by which time the clothes would be dry. Job done. Go to the beach in the afternoon. A simple life but a happy one. A day littered with meaningful conversations and interesting people.

The Joy of a Simple Routine

Volunteers on a kibbutz began work around six in the morning, take a leisurely breakfast at eight and were all done by lunchtime, leaving the afternoon free for more leisurely pursuits. It’s a routine I’ve been trying to replicate ever since. By lunchtime you felt like you owed the world nothing and that meant the rest of the day was a gift to enjoy. The day is yours, your life is once more your own.

During particularly hot days in the summer, I would emerge from my stint on chickens, clothes dirty and smelly and head straight to the shower block. Once inside you would realise how bright it was outside and how hot you were. I would turn on the shower and march straight in fully clothed, grab a bar of soap of the shelf and start rubbing it up and down my clothes. The I would take the clothes off and press them to the floor with my feet, so replicating in a very clumsy way what I thought to be the motion of a washing machine. After cleaning myself I would reach down and pull the clothes back on rinsing all the soap off.

Five minutes later I would emerge cool and clean from the shower block and walk in the heat for another five minutes to the dining room, by the time I arrived there my clothes were virtually dry, perhaps steaming just a little. I used to think what a fantastically simple routine and life.

One lunchtime someone remarked that there was a horrible smell. Well it can’t be me I thought, I’ve just had a shower, but it was. I had a pair of canvas shoes which had never been part of my routine, never made it as far as the shower. It was the last day I wore those shoes, the most comfortable shoes I ever had. I miss them still.

Afternoons on Akko Beach

After work, lazy afternoon trips to Akko Beach. It was a short journey from the Kibbutz and there were plenty of buses. A towel, swimming suit and water bottle were all you needed, no money, no cafes, no music, no phones. 

All we did was lie on the beach and intermittently go into the sea to cool off. The average temperature of the sea in August is 29ºC. The waves were gentle but big enough to make rising up and down on them fun, rather than scary

Swimming in warm seas is a luxury you never take for granted, particularly if you grow up by near Whitley Bay where the average temperature of the sea in August is around 14ºC.

There was a military camp by the beach, the trainees would be doing some punishing physical exercises when we arrived, 2 hours later when we left, they’d still be hard at it.

I came to associate ‘Echo Beach’ the song with these happy afternoon forays. It was a good time

Kibbutz Swimming Pool

The kibbutz had a swimming pool. At night lights shone in the distance, it was an entrancing view though I was never able to work out quite what I was looking at. Was it Haifa? Not knowing what exactly I was looking at made it more mysterious and alluring. Earlier that year I had read the Great Gatsby and it reminded me of the scenes where Gatsby is looking longingly at the green light across the bay. We were spoilt, we even had parties by the pool. The pool is still there, but the surroundings, at least according to Google Maps, all look very different like a convention event space, it’s difficult to believe that it retains that beauty, quiet and tranquility.

There was a time and a place for such opinions concerning a view and its resonance with some great work of literature, the volunteers bar on Friday night was neither the place nor the time.

Friday Evenings – Volunteers Bar

In 1982 music was played on cassette driven ghetto blasters, the CD had yet to arrive. Some of the more fancy ghetto blasters had lights which moved with the music, providing a visual representation of the beat, this was powerful stuff before MTV and music videos became widespread. There are some moments when you hear a song for the first time that stick in your head forever. One such moment was listening to an extended edition of the B52’s Loveland which was released that year, a song made to be represented by lights moving up and down.

The kibbutz had a volunteers bar, open on Friday nights, which is where music was played. Like most bars it varied a lot one week it would be quiet and subdued another week it would be wild. There was trouble one night, a group of outsiders were visiting, never did find out where from and the bar erupted like an old John Wayne movie with chairs being smashed, punches thrown, don’t think anyone got hurt, so there was obviously more restraint than you would have found in a bar at home in Newcastle. I got hit over the head with something hard, no permanent damage was done and the scar vanished within a few years.

Visit from Home

My sister came to visit, a good experience. We met her at the airport, she was unsure if ‘Ben Gurion’ was in Israel, but got off the plane anyway. Good preparation runs deep in the family. Her visit was an excuse to undertake some rare cultural activities in Jerusalem, though I don’t have much memory of this. As a student nurse she was able to assess my head wound (from the Bar fight) and didn’t seem too concerned. The scar didn’t last, much to my disappointment.

Special Job

One day I had to take a bed to the tip, the bed belonged to a young 20 year old Kibbutznik with a rather large physique, and an alluring young blond Dutch girlfriend. It didn’t take much imagination to work out what they had been doing to cause the bed to collapse. I had previously collided with him on the football pitch when I had been careless enough to get in his way, we both ended up winded on the floor in a tangle of arms and legs. He was built like a rock.

Rosh Hanikra

Rosh Hanikra is small town on the coast by the border with Lebanon, we were there for an educational trip, another one to remind us the length and breadth of the country. It was the summer of ‘Operation Peace for Galilee’ and ‘Sabra and Shatilla’. Our attention however was focused on other things. There are cliffs at Rosh Hanikra from which it was possible to jump into the Med. At the time I was into water jumping, the only encouragement I needed was for someone to say “you can’t do that”, and I did do that. Can’t remember who I was trying to impress.

Goodbye to Arthur

Arthur left a couple of weeks before me, he had more pressing commitments at home. Hitchhiking across Europe had been intense and action packed, some of the best memories had been sitting in cafe’s drinking coffee and trying to solve the worlds problems.

Being on the kibbutz was different, lots of people, lots of different relationships, like a large extended family, you made lots of new friends, speak with lots of people every day. Arthur was happy enough to go and we promised to meet up soon in Leeds.

Golan – More water jumping

There are wadis up in the Golan Heights, I went there with a few volunteers and Israelis from chickens on Yom Kippur, September 27th 1982. The big guy, the one with faulty bed and aggressive footballing skills, came along with a weapon, just in case Syria decided to invade, as they had done 9 years earlier. We spent a happy day walking up hills and splashing around in the wadis. There was even a waterfall from which it was possible to jump. The big guy couldn’t bring himself to do it. Weakness or common sense? Perhaps he just didn’t want a get his gun wet.

When the party had to stop

It would be fair to say that there was a fairly vigorous party atmosphere, at least amongst the volunteers, more so on this Kibbutz than the last one. ‘Come on Eileen’ was the song of the summer and the one, which more than any other I would come to associate with this period. October 1st was the turning point, I had no choice but to book a flight If I wanted to be back for the first day of Autumn term. I was far from sure I did want to be back, It was with a heavy heart that I returned home, it felt more like a funeral than a coming home. The party had ended, at least for a while. It had been a summer never to forget.