Hitchiking

As a consequence of being extremely broke I’ve decided to try new things such as hitchhiking. Also want to get some hitchhiking experience in cause it really is the way to travel. During the summer I hitchhiked part of the way to Newquay and the whole way back and it worked a charm so I decided last minute to take a trip to Manchester to see my auntie, watch match of the day and the Arsenal match on the Sunday. This is the first time I’ve lived in a place without a tv and the first time Arsenal have made a good start to a season in ages so things like this have become important.

Got to Brent Cross around 9.30. This is the place to start if you’re heading north. It’s not a very attractive place, bit of a concrete jungle, plenty of motorway roundabouts everywhere, and a massive shopping centre. 

The Gooner

After about 10 minutes waiting at the designated spot a white van man pulled in and swung open his door. He was on the phone but told me he was going to Milton Keynes. I didn’t really know where that was but jumped in. He told me it was half way to Birmingham which is about half way to Manchester so that would do for now. He continued his phone conversation: “yeah I just picked up one of them people at the side of the road…yeah I’m going to chop him up like on that tv show the other night…ah only messing.”

After he hung up he straight away asked me who I support. What a perilous question, it could really make or break your journey depending on how hard core of a fan you meet. He pointed to his hat. I couldn’t really make out the lettering but could tell by the big smile on his face that he was an Arsenal fan too, and a proper one at that. He was delighted.

He used to be a footballer too and almost made it but for the injury, went to the same school as the donkey and his claim to fame was he made captain of the school team at a younger age than Adams. I could really relate to all this and filled him in on my time playing for Templeogue United’s U13 B team, and how despite scoring a header in my last game against league winners Jobstown I gave it all up for an indoor sport cause there was too many cold and wet days when someone toe bogged that rock of a ball at me and I bravely lifted my knee and turned away making my shorts rise up my leg in anticipation of the rock slapping me on the bare white thigh and turning it a bright pink. He filled me in on Arsenal hooliganism which I didn’t know anything about before, and didn’t really believe likely till he took a sneaky swig from his can of carling. Arsenal weren’t playing for 30 hours! Pity he was only going to Milton Keynes cause we could have yapped away all day, and pity he was going to Milton Keynes cause I checked it out on the way and it was supposed to be shit hard to hitch out of.

The Good Grandson

Until I came along. Only took about 20 minutes to get a lift off a very nice (maybe overly nice) 18 year old chap who was on the way to see his Granddad in Birmingham and had made lots of sensible decisions in life. He had always wanted to pick up a hitchhiker so after he passed me by initially he swung around again so he could fulfil his dream. I don’t think reality played out exactly the way he thought it would. After the initial few minutes of fun and inspiring hitchhiking tales I ran out of ideas and realised he wasn’t as much fun as the Arsenal fan. There was a long while of quiet before we finally stumbled upon some great conversation material. It appeared a good few cars were pulling onto the hard shoulder, seemingly in a spot of bother. “I wonder what they’re up to” I said. It wasn’t long after that that our car started getting all wobbly and we had to pull over too with a puncture.

It was absolutely roasting in the car so as soon as we stopped I took my jumper off over my head. Unfortunately my phone was in the pocket and fell onto the hard hard road. I’d dropped my phone a ton of times without any problems so when I picked it up and noticed the smashed screen I thought: that’s funny. I slid the screen to unlock it and cut my thumb on the broken plastic. The screen didn’t unlock. My thumb did bleed. It was a short but deep cut. Luckily I had one square of toilet paper to stem the bleeding. Otherwise I’d have had to use a sock. For the rest of the day I was to wonder whether or not there was plastic inside my thumb. In an instant I had lost two hitchhiking essentials: a good clean thumb and a phone with internet. I hadn’t exactly told my auntie I was coming and since the last time I was in her house was 18 years previous, although I knew her address I didn’t have much else going for me.

Birmingham was half way there. Do I give in and turn back, say cheers for the lift buddy, sorry about the tire but could you let me off at the next exit? Or do I boldly go in search of adventure, without a phone and without a clue into the wilderness that is Manchester City Centre?

My good driver burnt his arm on the exhaust getting the spare tire. Boy did that make me feel bad. I always feel bad when I mess with fate like that. What if I stayed at home and he got to Birmingham without having to fork out 50 quid for a new tire and bandage his arm? What if Granddad was sick with worry cause he was late for the first time? Or that time I was going down to Newquay and this doctor picked me up. She was working nights and was so drowsy most of the time that she used to stand in the supermarket looking at the cheese for ages before a shop assistant would come over and snap her out of it. She went out of her way to leave me at a good spot at the side of a road that cars were just flying down. As she turned around and pulled out she waved to me instead of looking where she was going and a guy had to jam on his breaks and left a skid mark about 20 feet long while she drove off in dreamland. What if she died? What would I seriously have done? Or that time I missed my flight to Portugal and had to get 7 buses. I was walking out of a car park along the middle of a road cause I was too tired to care and a guy driving in slammed on his breaks (very unnecessarily it must be said) and then a bus smashed right into the back of him. What if I just got on another bus instead of looking for the train station?

The Quiet Russian

Well we went to a service station for air and I really should have gotten out then but he assured me he’d leave me at a great spot further on. It was 12 when we got there and I was thinking I could be in Manchester in record time, but that great spot turned out to be a load of shit. I was in the area for about 2 hours, hope slowly slipping away. Then it got worse. A car driving from behind me started beeping its horn real fast; I turned in anticipation and was greeted by some jerk with his face plastered against the window waving and smiling like a fucking lunatic. Next thing a big huge fly flew straight for me and wapped me right in the cheek. I wouldn’t mind but it came from the whole way across the fucking road, its hardly like I came out of nowhere. Talk about kicking someone while they’re down. Fuck was this getting embarrassing. Then a car crept up behind me and let out a little beep. I approached the car slowly, how was it so quiet? This Russian guy said he’d bring me back to the service station I was at earlier; I would have more chance from there. He didn’t say much else. Again I was faced with the decision to go to Manchester or cross the bridge and head home. If I had of been waiting around for more than half an hour I might have gone home but luckily a very old man stopped for me.

The Engineer

He looked a lot like Jack Charlton and sounded a lot like him too. He had dropped his wife off at a hospital and was on the way back to Wigan. You could tell they were still in love, ah. The road to Wigan crosses the road from Liverpool to Manchester at about the half-way point, and they aren’t all that far apart so I’d be there in no time, or so I thought. He had just got a new hearing aid and it was acting up on him a bit so with my low voice he decided to carry the conversation for most of the way, which suited me down to the ground.

In a fb world of shit regurgitated one liners it was nice to hear a bit of old fashioned story telling for a change. Back in the day he was in the shipping industry around the world and spoke about a time before pollution was considered a bad thing…”ah it was a great job for a man, the hardest part is the wife. Before I got married I went off to sea for 10 months to finish my apprentice, and made £41 a month. The guys with wives would send maybe £25 back home and I sent a bit back to me muddah. When I got home I had £90 in them big white £5 notes and that was the first time she had seen that much money at one time. I went out and bought myself a made a measure suit, cost me £14…we spilled 20,000 litres of oil in the sea but (with a wave of his hands) people didn't worry about that kind of thing back then. We ran aground up in Sweden and were filthy from head to toe, there’s a cleaner for the oil tanker that presses water into the tanker and pushes it down until it cleans it out. Sure what do we do with this oily sea water, just throw it in the deep tank. There’s plenty of room in the deep tank. That's what we called the sea, it was back before people cared about that sort of thing, oh we would throw everything in there, oil, metal, timber, just stick it in the deep tank…an oil company in Nigeria were looking for a white man to teach their crew. The guys were coming on the boat and didn't know which way to turn the taps for the water. I went around on the ship for a bit but it kept breaking down all the time, then we stopped at Cork one time and I said that's it I'm getting off. I went to Australia, Africa, that was a life..”

Well I started to get very warm and cosy in my coat and with the new car it was quite a smooth journey. Then I fell asleep. Sleep feels no embarrassment or shame that a man 3 times my age can stay awake for the whole journey, it comes when it wants to. It was one of the ones where you know you're asleep and try snap out of it but fall asleep again straight away. A couple of times I knew I had my mouth wide open, it’s not a good look. I woke just before he dropped me off at a petrol station on the road to Manchester.

He said to start walking and hitch a lift along the road but I knew it was a bad idea after about 2 minutes cause there was no hard shoulder on my side. No path either so I was walking cross country through big tufty grass that was a killer on the legs and ankles. I alternated between both sides of the road cause on the other side there was a nice path and cycle lane the whole way, crossing back over a couple of times when I passed a place where drivers could pull in, but no one really wanted to. I stopped a cyclist at one point and was surprised to hear him say its about 14 miles to Manchester. That was a blow and at about 6pm knowing it was going to get dark soon I packed in all efforts of getting a lift and pushed on with the walk. At one point I stopped to get a stone out of the bottom of my shoe and re-opened the cut on my thumb. I was beginning to look bedraggled.

The Dog Walker

After 10 miles I came to a turn off the main road and the glimpse of a city bus. I stopped to talk to a dog walker old man in a suit. He was startled when I said I'm going to Manchester and said in his Fred the butcher voice “you cant walk it, you cant walk that, its about 8 miles, will take you about 4 hours, no get a bus, its regular and its not expensive.” I walked down to the next bus stop, there were 5 different buses but they all came once an hour or less. He walked around the block and met me again and talked a bit more and said what buses I can get. I thought I was going to Trafford and saw that one of the buses was too so asked him should I get that or go to town. Is Trafford in Urmston or is Urmston in Trafford? Well he told me something but I stopped listening cause he really did like the sound of his own voice. Then I heard him say he’s bringing the dog back and then getting the bus himself to the wine bar hence the whistle and flute. A few minutes later that bus came, I hesitated, didn’t stop it and just watched him looking out the window at me with a very confused look on his face.

I began to think I wouldn’t be catching match of the day and might even have to consider getting a hostel in town. A while later I jumped on a bus to town. I got talking to a couple of people on the bus who had totally different opinions on what I should do. One said I should get off at the next stop and get two more buses. That was a lot of information to take in in 30 seconds so I went with the other option and stayed on til town to get the 15 right to the door. I got off at Piccadilly, walked to the 15 bus stop and was sad to see it had just left and the next one wasn’t for an hour. It seemed to me that there were a lot of crazies in town so I opted to get the 225 which left sooner and went to somewhere in Urmston too. Turns out Urmston is a big place but some guy told me which way to go to the house and I got there in half an hour, just after seeing the next 15 bus fly by and in time to catch the last 20 minutes of match of the day.

The Loud Whisperer

I decided to get the bus home on the Monday seen as it was only £6 when booked in advance but I almost immediately regretted that decision. It was 45 minutes late, cramped and stuffy, boring, and worst of all there was a loud Indian woman up the front of the bus having an argument with her husband for the entire journey. She had this whispery gravely voice and repeated everything she said 3 times. She was giving idle sounding threats about divorcing him and said such things as I will divorce you, I will divorce you, I will divorce you, put your mother on the phone, put your mother on the phone, put your mother on the phone, put your son on the phone, put your son on the phone, put your son on the phone. It was hell.