Club News – Ian Payne
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A Trip to Greece by Ian Payne
When our first son was 1 year old we went camping in Brittany. It was a luxury tent already set up – today we’d call it glamping. We liked it, so we bought our own equipment and eventually upgraded to a trailer tent complete with camping beds, kitchen and sink units etc. We went camping on holidays all over Europe – France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Italy and Hungary. Two short stories from Hungary: We left the tent near Budapest for a day trip to Lake Sopron but hadn’t reconned on a gale which blew the tent down – a lesson well-learned; Waiting at a level crossing we were next to a DDR car. How is it in East Germany we asked in our faltering German – Nicht Gut! We had wooden boards on the floor at the back of the car giving a flat surface over the transmission shaft. The boys would get into their sleeping bags, one on the back seat and one on the boards, and we’d drive overnight with perhaps an hour or two at a service station and then arrive early at the camp site before it filled up. Off went the boys leaving us to set up our complex camping gear.
Our son was 17 in 1987 and able to help with the driving in some countries. So we planned a trip to Greece. First stop Salzburg, a favourite town of ours, and then towards the Yugoslav (as it was then) border. The traffic could not have been slower and when we eventually reached the major motorway from Zagreb to Belgrade we came to a complete halt. Just two quickies on Zagreb: Hottest open-air swimming pool ever (blood temperature); Shouting in English was very effective in a parked up one-way street where a local was trying to go the wrong way and couldn’t pass our car/trailer tent which I couldn’t reverse. Why so many cars with German number plates and (we eventually realised) Turkish occupants? We had picked the very day when all the German factories had closed for the Summer and the Turkish guest workers had decided to drive home for the holiday. It’s still a nightmare memory of those service stations – park anywhere and then try to get to the loos – desperate people with filth, detritus and stench everywhere. Eventually we reached the Greek border, most of the Turks having branched off into Bulgaria.
Ah! We breathed a sigh of relief – but it was not to be. Somewhere in northern Greece, the farmers were on strike and decided to close the motorway. They marshalled all the traffic away from the road and into a large field where everyone was going round in circles looking for a way out. This lasted for an hour or so, and then I, with my superior maps (no satnav then) found a complex route through a village that re-joined the main route further south. Just in time because, as we got back to the road, the farmers were just about to close off the next section – but we’d escaped. On the way to Attica, the good road ran out and we found ourselves on the coast road on a high alpine pass – one of those where you think you’ll fall off at every bend. “Look at the wonderful view”, I said. This was hardly re-assuring for Pauline who is terrified of heights and was hanging on for dear life and giving me impossible instructions. But there was no other route.
Greece was fantastic – we stayed in Attica, visited Athens for the Parthenon and Sounion for the sunset then off to the Peloponnese for Olympia and then across the Gulf of Corinth to Delphi for the Oracle. Finally we had to return home – this time via Venice. There are many more strange adventures to relate on our adventures abroad.
Bar room reminiscences – Feed the Hungry
“Your van is in the yard, pick up the route papers from the office”. Seems simple enough to an undergraduate earning a few pounds in the Christmas holidays. A quick glance at the van showed a number 11 stencilled in gold on the door. These vans belonged to my local council. It had a fleet of 20 green 5 cwt vans based on the Ford Anglia. I was allocated a partner to help with the deliveries of the hot food, bound for the homes of the elderly and infirm in the borough.
The office was unmanned but I found the number 11 file. The meals were stored in groups in the back of the van, on plates under aluminium lids. Mostly the recipients were pleased to see us. We worked fast as we were often double parked.
About halfway through our round Janet thought someone was following us. Exciting! Perhaps there was a secret network of criminals operating under the cover of welfare work and we were trespassing, alternatively it could be the police in an unmarked vehicle! I watched the mirror more closely and noticed that a blue Ford Anglia van mimicking our movements. It would stop near the places we had just visited and a man would run up to the house and then sprint back to his van just as we moved off. He never gained on us. Always being about two hundred yards behind. Then came a sharp left, he was out of sight! We sped up.
But two roads latter he was right behind us, flashing his headlights and we had to stop to do a drop off! He ran up to me. He did not look like a drug dealer although I guess they vary. I am told some are quite suave even graduates! He had an enquiring look tinged with frustration. “What route are you doing?” I told him number 11. “Well that is mine!” he replied. I denied it and pointed to my van number and showed him the paperwork, asking why he was driving a blue van. “Because it is the spare van; numbers don’t coincide with the routes”. I am not good with lists. Janet assisted with the logistics whilst the traffic was forced into one way working due to both our vans being double parked. As the chorus of bad language and motor horns in D flat and B sharp became seriously threatening a rescue plan emerged. We hastily shifted the vans. We would check and swop those who may have special diets otherwise they got potluck. At the first house. I was met by a somewhat deaf elderly lady. I explained that we had to collect her husband’s dinner. “Alf, they want your dinner back, I told you, you should have eaten it earlier”. Apparently he had not quite finished it but we could have what was left and he asked if it was poisoned. I said not to worry but he could have the one I was carrying. She looked bemused. Alf could be heard on the phone telling Mildred some men were coming to take her dinner away and she should eat it quickly and pass on the news. She thrust the remains of Alf’s dinner on a plate into my hand and shut the door. Some greeted us at the door with a triumphant smirk, “Too late I’ve eaten it”. Others saying “Thank God you got here in time I might have eaten it.”
We piled the containers into the back of the van. We nearly made it. But in the last few hundred yards an emergency stop was needed. A container hit the windscreen coating it with a rich layer of treacle and custard!