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THE TRAINEE TRAVELLER
(Peter Rosier)
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The twelve year old boy sat at the table covered with a red and white check plastic table cloth and pushed away an empty plate that had once held his lunch. Reaching into a pocket, he removed a battered red notebook and a pen. Carefully, screwing up his face in concentration, he wrote in the back ‘Tulip Bowl Café, pork sausage, peas, chips, 3/- .’ (The last part meant three shillings, 15p in today’s British decimal currency.)
I had had a desire to travel ever since I could remember. By the time I was old enough to attend secondary school, I felt that I was old enough to travel around a bit on my own, too. Luckily, my parents agreed and if they did have any misgivings (as I am sure they must have done), they were kind enough not to say so. As it was, I came to no harm in those early days of the nineteen sixties in ‘Swinging London’ (although it wasn’t called that then, it came later) and points beyond.
Sometimes, friends from school and I would travel around London together and that was fun, too. But what really counted in my mind were the trips I did by myself. These were my own adventures, arranged by and for me and whatever happened was down to me and me alone - I liked that. So much so that I started keeping a diary of where I went and what I did. This ran from 1960 to 1963, from age 12 to age 15.
Perhaps by the time I stopped keeping these diaries, travel in the UK had become more mundane to my, I fondly imagined, sophisticated mind and writing it down seemed unnecessary, even gauche. Or maybe, I had travelled as far as I could on the limited funds I then had available and to write about visiting the same places more than once would have been fruitless. I would have to wait for the riches of actually working for pay and, eventually at age 17 and not a moment too soon, the benefits of owning a car, for my horizons to be expanded again, culminating in foreign travel in later years which still remains a pleasure today (well, sometimes a pleasure).
I was very much encouraged by my late Mother who herself loved travelling and retained an interest in, and curiosity about, all parts of the world right up to her death. Sadly, she was from a class and financial background where foreign travel was simply not possible when she was young - unless it was for military or domestic service, but never for pleasure.
I can remember as if it were yesterday whenever we walked along a particular suburban road near our home in South London which suddenly plunged downhill so one could see for miles over houses, trees and open green spaces stretching to the horizon, my Mother would say, ‘Imagine, if we had a helicopter and could fly over there…’
I was very young when she first said it, maybe five or something like that, but I never ever forgot it or the deep welling emotion of so wanting to do that very thing and fly, travel, just go to somewhere new and far away and…..exciting!
As it was, in its own small way, travelling around London and then further a-field was a real adventure and something that in retrospect I was so lucky to have been able to do. Had I grown up in a rural location, it would not have been possible to explore what was then one of the most sophisticated and cosmopolitan cities of the world whenever I had a spare Saturday. Had I grown up in earlier years, any casual travel would have been more difficult or the cost too great as in my Mother’s younger days. In later years, such as today, it would probably be perceived as far too dangerous.
Whether 1960s Britain was really less dangerous than today, I don’t know. As a teenager, no-one has much perception of danger. It’s true there were no Middle Eastern terrorists anxious to plant bombs and few Irish ones either, that was to come a decade or so later. Drug addicts must have been much fewer, I don’t recall it ever being an issue and there were still the old Victorian mental hospitals to contain the more violently disturbed patients who, modern cost conscious politicians have felt, are just as well catered for if abandoned in hostels and cheap lodgings and left to their own devices.
In any event, in those days it was both fun and instructive to travel around and I made the most of it.
Looking back at those old entries from forty something years ago, I suppose the most obvious thing is that they are not really very informative. I seemed to specialise in writing down prosaic lists of places and things rather than making any attempt to capture much of the feel of a place. But it was only ever intended as a record for myself, I didn’t set out to write a guide book, and anyway what can you expect of a twelve or thirteen year old? Even so, some things stand out even today: prices for one plus a strangely recurring interest in food. Most times I seemed keen to ensure that posterity would be aware of what I ate:
January 1961, Jasmin Café, Brighton, cheese omelette, chips, peas, tomato -3/6d (17½p).
January 1961, Fortes café, London, cheese omelette, chips, tea - no price.
April 1961, unspecified café, St Albans, Welsh rarebit and poached egg - no price.
May 1961, Lido Café, Southend on Sea, egg, chips and tomato, 2/6d (12½p).
July 1962, unspecified café, Cowes (Isle of Wight), poached egg on toast 1/6d (7½p).
And so on.
I didn’t have a camera so I bought postcards instead and these are still stuck in my notebooks albeit the sellotape is yellowed and coming off and the cards are a bit dog-eared. If you look very closely, you can see that the postcards are as much a product of the times as are my written words and memories. Some cards are in black and white or even sepia; ‘leisure wear’ clothes are from another era entirely with men still in their suits and ties and women in dresses and coats; one rather garishly coloured card from Southend on Sea (well known and loved as a ‘cheap and cheerful’ seaside resort with the longest pier in Britain) shows two young men in leather jackets and drainpipe jeans accosting two girls wearing headscarves and toreador pants, so much the fashion then.
Parked cars are few and far between even though some photographs were clearly taken at the height of summer and, parked or moving, not only is the traffic density less than today but, whilst some of the cars are modern (for the time), far more are old and often pre-war models still kept going by loving or just desperate owners.
It’s easy to forget what underlay these pictures. That at that time a huge percentage of British cars went for export to boost foreign currency reserves depleted by the second world war and that Government policy made it difficult to buy a new car. First, the delivery times were months with so much production being earmarked for export; second, by law the cash deposit had to be at least one third of the purchase price and the hire purchase paid off in two years - no more! Interest free credit, bulging car showrooms and years to pay off the bill were a long way in the future.
In addition, we had Purchase Tax and Import Duty not Value Added Tax in those days. The tax on a domestic car, even though no doubt very onerous, was a fraction of that on a foreign import so a European Fiat, Alfa or Citroen (even if more readily available) would cost twice as much as its British built equivalent.
Austere, maybe, but it did mean that public transport got a fair crack of the whip. I rarely travelled by train because, although there was a reasonable network then and it all came together under British Rail operations and not umpteen private firms like today with dozens of weird and wonderful fare options that no-one can understand, travel by rail was still comparatively expensive. Buses and coaches were far cheaper (some things don’t change so much, then!).
For local travel outside London, Town Councils ran their own bus services heavily subsidised by the rates (local taxes) and with the popular routes helping to pay for the less used ones. I vividly remember Lowestoft’s chocolate brown and cream fleet, Felixstowe’s red rattling single deckers with the horribly vibrating windows and so on. They may not have been state of the art buses even then but they ran - and reliably, too. That way, every remote village or hamlet had some regular access to a bus service, car ownership was not essential and an important social service maintained. Privatisation of bus routes, allowing commercial firms to cherry pick the most profitable and leave the remainder to be abandoned, has done so much damage and I think no-one, back then, would even have imagined such a thing would be possible; the spirit of public service not yet having been eroded by cynical money-grabbing politicians.
I still remember the thrill of travelling from London to Birmingham on the M1 motorway by Midland Red coach (18 April 1963) who boasted that they maintained 80 miles per hour for the entire journey and who, my diary records, arrived half an hour early both going to Birmingham and on the return trip to London. You’d be lucky to do that today.
I found it worth noting that a bus journey from Birmingham to Walsall cost only 1/8d (about 8½p) and that trolley buses still ran from Walsall to Wolverhampton. I clearly liked the new Bull Ring city centre then being developed (probably the only person who did as it has now been demolished).
Oh, and I had bacon, chips and peas and a lime milk shake for lunch in a Woolworth’s cafeteria for 4/3d (21p). Jamie Oliver, healthy eating? Unheard of then (thank heavens)!
Finally, a few words of wisdom from my diaries on various of the places visited:
Aylesbury, Bucks: Quite a nice little place; steam engine from Rickmansworth for final stage of journey (Sept 1960).
Ongar, Essex: As it was raining, I did not see it at its best; in parts, very quaint (October 1960).
Shadwell and Wapping (stations), East London: Cold, dirty, half-open and damp (December 1960).
Cockfosters, North London: In the middle of country, modern shops, wide roads (December 1960).
Brighton, Sussex: Sunny but fairly cold (January 1961).
Mill Hill (station), North London: Small, dirty, next to gasworks (January 1961).
Watford Junction, Herts: Nothing but houses (February 1961).
Hampstead Heath: Dew sparkling on the grass (March 1961).
Forest Hill, London: Nothing much there and it was raining (April 1961).
Clacton, Essex: Nice sandy beach (June 1961).
Westgate, Kent: Quite nice, quieter than Margate (July 1961).
Felixstowe Town (station): Still lit by gas (April 1962).
Midlands (generally): People are much friendlier than in the South (April 1963).
OK, I know it’s not exactly Michael Palin or Bill Bryson but they weren’t twelve or thirteen years old when they wrote their books, were they!
THE END
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