Hitching Sept. 9, 2006

Back to hitch-hiking. Remember : the plot is not just to get a lift in the quickest time from A to B, but to slow things down, observe, meet people. Feel one with all around. I remember when I first hitch-hiked in quantity, more than 20 years ago, lorry-drivers, soldiers, just about everyone and anyone at the wheel, even abroad, invariably used ‘football’ as a talking-point and a marker as to where they were really from.

I heard stories. Grass roots stories. About real football love affairs. Years on I began mine like never before : I began The Homes of Football.

Now, though older, and perhaps not a student anymore, and probably shouldn’t really be doing such things, I feel that this approach is again valid, particularly for the Cumbria Surrounded project. Take today : I had a lift from along the road at Ullswater by two guys taking place in tomorrow’s triathlon, The Helvellyn Round. It involves 500 people, starting with a swim in the Lake, a cycle around Helvellyn, then a run up and down it. Finishing where they started, by the water. Now I knew nothing of this event, albeit on my doorstep.

The next lift was from a gentleman who stopped on the busy A66 dual carriageway. He was returning (to Nottingham) from an Old Boys reunion at St.Bees on the Cumbrian West coast, where he was a boarder just after the last War (the World War). He told me about the school, that it was now co-ed (girls as well as boys) and that they played an annual fixture against a school on the Isle of Man, from across the water.

The third lift was from a young (everybody is beginning to look young to me) doctor based at Carlisle (who wants to relocate to Darlington). He was off driving away from the Lakes to fetch his wife to take her back to a campsite on Ullswater given the splendid weather.

The fourth and final lift (of the day) was from a self-professed ‘fairy’ from Workington, going up to Gretna (where I too was bound) to have a look at that old anvil and generally join in weddings and be given the chance to wear that old posh frock (her not me). And quite beautiful it was. As was she, (something of a Joni Mitchell from the Hejira period).