The River Of Words (3): The Lost Art Of Hitchhiking

Where was I going? What was I doing? I'd soon find out. JACK KEROUAC On The Road

You rarely see hitchhikers any more, but back in the 1960s and 70s it was much more common. To get around I hitchhiked regularly from the age of seventeen until well into my twenties. Few young people owned their own car in those days, and trains, even buses, were normally outside your budget, unless your parents had coughed up the fare in an untypically generous mood. Besides, I liked hitchhiking. I thought it was a pretty cool thing to do. I liked the freedom and the unpredictability of it. I liked its air of unconventionality and whiff of danger. I liked pretending I was some kind of outlaw on the edge of society. And I liked the intoxicating romance of the road.

My bible was The Hitchhiker's Guide to Europe by Ken Welsh, which I stuffed into my rucksack along with Jack Kerouac's On the Road and Michael Horovitz's Children of Albion: Poetry of the Underground in Britain. (These last two books I have still, but sadly Ken Welsh fell apart on an autobahn slipway near Düsseldorf.) Ken was full of bright and breezy comments . . .

Hitch-hiking is a game of chance. In this world where we expect things to run on time or to be in a certain place by three o'clock, it is a refreshing experience. Just because the ninth car doesn't stop doesn't mean the tenth will; nor the hundredth, nor the thousandth. But you'll get there.

 . . . and sensible advice . . . 

Look keen and friendly and try to smile at each vehicle, even when they pass by at high speed. The key is to look like you really want to get somewhere. While you might get a lift lying in the grass by the roadside, nonchalantly waving a thumb in the air while swigging from a bottle of French red wine, frankly, it's unlikely.

Occasionally I hitched with a companion, but mostly I travelled alone. One of my best trips was a one-day, two-lift journey from Frankfurt to Paris — first in a smart Mercedes, then in a beat-up old van driven by two French hippies, who picked up every hitchhiker en route. My worst trip was a scary but exhilarating ride with a couple who were stoned out of their minds. I did eventually get them to slow down and stop, whereupon I almost fell out of the car with relief.

When I was seventeen I hitchhiked to the South of France with a friend called Nick. The photos below tell some of the story . . . 

The pic top left shows an overnight camp (note the improvised fireplace! — not bad, huh?) on a rough patch of land above the Roman town of Vienne (which lies just south of Lyon). Continuing clockwise, that's me with the hat, the long hair and the naked chest (gosh, was I really that thin?) next to a makeshift table we'd constructed, and there I am again with Louie, the owner of the field and a mobile knife grinder by trade. He gave us a lift down to Orange in his camionette, from where we hiked to Tarascon and camped by the river Rhône. Next we have Nick making roll-ups next to our tent, and then you can see the two rather lovely French girls we were pursuing — trying to escape, not from us I hasten to add, but from the Camargue bulls which were terrorising the streets during a traditional bull running festival. The last shot is of Nick and I saying goodbye; we both went our separate ways back to Britain. 

 

I was surprised, as always, at how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibility. JACK KEROUAC On the Road

On The Road With A Towel

Where was I going? What was I doing? I'd soon find out. On The Road JACK KEROUAC

The problem with the rat race is that, even if you win, you're still a rat. The Hitch-hiker's Guide To Europe KEN WELSH

On the drive back home from the Lake Distict I picked up a hitch-hiker in Ennerdale and dropped him off near Windermere railway station. He was a young climber and would-be climbing instructor and had never been to the Lakes before. His method was simple: decide on the direction you feel like taking as soon as you wake up, then walk, scramble and climb all the high ground you encounter on the way, regardless of footpaths. He was travelling as light as possible, but sensibly carrying a tent, stove and maps with him.

I tend to pick up hitch-hikers (not that there are many around these days) for I was once one myself. In the late 60s/early 70s hitch-hikers were a lot more common than they are now. It was quite usual to see them congregating in a shabby line at the top of motorway slip roads - thumbs in the air, Ban the Bomb and Che Guevara motifs on the rucksack, and cigarette papers in the top pocket of the blue denim jacket.

I'd like to believe this 'sharing a car' philosophy was a pursuit of 'green living' way ahead of its time - but the reality is: we were all completely skint. That - plus we entertained excitingly seductive hippie notions about Zen and Jack Kerouac (his book On The Road was our Bible) and interacting with strangers and the randomness of life. Hitch-hiking was a way of life itself, an existential attitude - going with the flow, rejecting convention and the rat race. On the road we felt closer in spirit to our Beat heroes.

Apart from On The Road, the other book poking up out of the side pocket of our rucksacks was The Hitch-hiker's Guide To Europe by Ken Welsh. This was a cult book of the 1970s. First published by Pan in 1971, I can't believe the final edition came out as late as 1996 - by then it had surely long since had its day. Among the book's many claims to fame are these: its youth-oriented and budget-conscious style makes it the forerunner of today's Rough Guides and Lonely Planets; it was the inspiration for Douglas Adams' The Hitch-hiker's Guide To The Galaxy; it was the book most stolen from public libraries in the 1970s; and its lightweight philosophy was far ahead of its time - remember Ken's 6 uses of the towel, for him one of the most important items of kit? (Scarf, groundsheet, extra layer of clothing, poncho, flannel - oh, and something to dry yourself with!)

My own much-used, grimy and beer-stained copy disintegrated in the back of a truck on a German Autobahn many decades ago. But I still retain an affectionate place for it in my memory. It was invaluable for its sound advice on when and where to hitch, and where and how to find cheap food and accommodation; for giving the low-down country-by-country on food markets, flea markets, youth hostels and campsites; for its useful list of addresses of embassies and suchlike; and for what seemed at the time its shiveringly dangerous knowledge of pawnshops, black markets and red light districts.

The early 1970s were golden hitch-hiking years for me - and I covered many miles this way in Britain and Europe. I remember Britain and Germany were always pretty good - but France was a hard nut to crack. A friend and I spent more or less one whole day fruitlessly sticking out our thumbs on the Parisian ring road. In the end a young student in a 2CV took pity on us and invited us back to his parents' house where we camped in the garden. He turned out to be a skilled maker of custom-built guitars. The next day he drove us to the Porte D'Italie - an egress from Paris where he (and Ken Welsh) assured us we would get a lift without too much trouble...

After several hours we gave up and caught the train to Lyon - then later camped in someone's field in Vienne. (You know how it is when you're young - it doesn't enter your head whether something is 'private' or not.) We made a kind of barbecue out of some bricks and metal grilles which were lying around. The next day Louis, the kindly but eccentric, Frenchly mustachioed owner of the land, told us some thieves had come in the night to hide their stash in one of his outbuildings. In fact we'd heard them and seen their car lights. Amused by and (I think) secretly admiring our effrontery at camping without permission on his property, he offered us a lift down to Avignon in his dusty old Citroen camionette. He was an itinerant knife grinder, and had all his knife-grinding equipment in the back of the van. It took us all day to reach Avignon on back routes through a wonderful landscape - I remember the miles and miles of vineyards - and it felt good to be speaking French with a genuine Frenchman.

These are the kinds of things that used to happen when hitch-hiking in those days. I could recount many more. But things got a little heavy when I had several unpleasant experiences - a string of lifts with some total weirdos, and one with a couple of guys out of their minds on drugs. Finally I packed it in after a crazy lorry driver tried to scare me a little with a knife. I got out the cab rather hurriedly and hardly ever hitch-hiked again.