The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the A1

I find myself on another taper, with little of interest to tell you about.  So I’ll tell you a different story instead, one that has nothing to do with running.  The time that I hitchhiked to Sheffield.  Stop me if you've heard it before.

I have to provide a little bit of background. Before I got back into running, I used to play a regular game of 5 aside football on a Thursday night.  Grant, Neal and Craig from the club used to play in it as well.  In December 2005 we had a Christmas night out that involved a meal and then a pub crawl along Dunbar High Street, with the usual rounds of shots being bought.  My round was tequila, which a lot of the guys refused.  I ended up drinking 6 or 7 of them to “avoid wasting money”. 

I have a pretty low tolerance to hallucinogens.  I vaguely remember running home, and thinking it would be a good idea to see how far I could get with my eyes closed.  About 30 yards before slamming into a stone wall and giving myself a gash on my thigh.  But I have no recollection of what happened next.

 

Jo says she found me at around 3am, lying stark naked, sobbing uncontrollably, in the foetal position, on the flag stones at the front door.  With a recently deceased field mouse lying beside me.  And my clothes strewn around the garden.  My belt was hanging from a hook on the bird table, and my father-in-law found my keys buried in the flower border about 9 months later.

Unsurprisingly, and not unreasonably, Jo banned me from further football nights out for a while.

So when we arranged a game of 11s against a team from Haddington one Friday night in the following June, I deliberately didn't take a towel and change of clothes, so that I’d be forced to come straight home.  I was playing left wing and midway through the second half I collected the ball out wide before breaking into the box.  Just about to pull the trigger, their right back took my standing leg for what seemed (to me at least) like a clear penalty.  But the referee waved play on.  Incensed, I jumped up and chased after the defender who was preparing to launch the ball upfield.  I booted him up the hole for his troubles.  Quite hard.

The referee saw it as a good value yellow card, but for me (Clive) it could easily have been red.

By the end of the match I was feeling like a complete tool, so knew I had to go into the clubhouse at Hallhill to buy the guy a pint and apologise to him.  Which I did.  And then promptly got very very drunk.

I got home to find that Jo and the kids were already in bed.  I dumped my wallet on the kitchen table and went upstairs to let her know that I’d got back ok.  But I wasn't ready for sleep yet, so decided to go out for a walk, unshowered and still in my football gear – shin pads and all.  A few weeks before, I’d been walking the dog down near the A1 and found a trestle table that had literally fallen off the back of a lorry.  I thought I’d take a wander down that way again, in case there were some other treasures to be found.

I've always considered hitchhiking to be quite an appealing idea, but at this point had never tried it.  For some reason, the sight of an approaching van made me stick my thumb out.  And, would you believe it, he stopped.  He asked where I was going.  Not wanting to be rude and admit that I was just mucking about, I simply said “South”.  He said that I was in luck, as he was delivering a truck gearbox to somewhere in Derbyshire and could take me most of the way.  Grrrrreeeeaaat….

Now in the cab, I figured he’d probably stop at Berwick or some other place not too far away, and I could make my excuses and just about rescue the situation.  He was friendly though and offered me a cup of tea from his flask and a pillow to get my head down if I wanted.  Although an apparently genuine guy, I suddenly imagined myself being dismembered and then dumped by the side of the road.  I texted my brother to say that I was on my way down the A1 – a clue to help catch my killer perhaps.

I was so concerned for my safety that I fell into a deep sleep and did not wake until 5am the next morning at the southbound Woodall Services.  Located to the south east of Sheffield.  Some 200 odd miles from home.  And some 200 odd miles away from the kitchen table where my wallet still sat.  The van driver explained that he needed to leave the M1 soon, but that I’d probably get a lift from someone if I asked around in the café.  I thanked him and waved goodbye.

And then crossed the bridge to the northbound side of the road.  I had a scout about in the car park, but decided I didn't really fancy chapping on the windows of the parked lorries.  Instead I started walking down the on-ramp to the hard shoulder of the motorway. 

The sun was up by this point, and it was a glorious morning without a cloud in the sky.  But it was hellish noisy as three lanes of traffic rushed by at close quarters.  The next hour dragged on for an eternity as I walked very slowly backwards with my thumb out.  No one stopped, obviously.  It was a difficult first mile of my return leg.

Shortly after 6am I decided to phone my brother and ask where he was.  He’d been working alternate weeks in London and Leeds, and I figured that I could go and see him in Leeds and plot my next steps.  But he said he was in London, so I said “never mind” and hung up. Once he’d woken up a little more, he called back and wanted to know why I was asking.  When I told him, he went into a bit of a panic and said that I should go to a train station where he could buy me a ticket over the phone.  But I’d got this far without spending any money, so decided that I wanted to get back without spending any either.  He did what any self-respecting little brother would do, and phoned my Mum and Dad to grass me up.

While he was doing that, I was having my own separate conversation with the Highways Agency. Or at least two of their number who were busy informing me that it was illegal to hitchhike on a motorway.  Every day is a school-day.  After checking that there were no warrants out for someone matching my description (and I remind you that my appearance was fairly distinctive given the football strip and shin pads), they offered me a lift up the road.  They explained that they had a 40 mile stretch of the road that they go up and down all day, and they could take me to the northern end.  I gratefully accepted and jumped in their 4x4.  They were something of an odd couple – a grizzled bearded veteran type who did all of the talking, and his young protégé who did a fine line in silent looks that put me in mind of Tim/Martin Freeman in The Office.  They dropped me off at the bottom of a fairly steep on-ramp, and the older chap bid me well with “may all of your lifts be from big breasted women in convertibles”.

I then had quite a long wait.  At 9am I thought I better check in with Jo.  I hadn't wanted to call earlier in case I woke her up.  I'm a big believer in perspective, so opened with “I haven’t killed anyone, and I haven’t cheated on you, but… I'm in Sheffield”.  She was more than a little surprised to discover that I wasn't just sleeping it off in the spare room.

The first chap to stop was a boxer from “Brat-ford” called Gary, who was on his way to rip out a kitchen to help finance his next fight – the decider in a series of three bouts against the same bloke that stood at 1-1.  His van was so clapped out that it barely made it up the ramp – the pair of us rocking back and forth in time to urge it up the slope.

This was the start of a string of interesting and diverse characters – I was lucky to get some really great lifts.  Next up was a rep called Paul who said that he’d once run out of money on holiday and had had to hitchhike all the way back from the Greek islands.  His experience was that most of Europe was good for lifts, except for France.  “The French are bastards” was his considered opinion.

My experience of hitchhiking in England was turning out to be pretty positive it has to be said.  I think it helped that it was a gorgeous warm day (it would have been an entirely different proposition in driving rain), and that it was the first Saturday of the 2006 World Cup.  England were playing Paraguay later that day, and the whole country seemed to be surfing a mood of good-humoured optimism, which translated to charity and kindness towards indigent travellers.  

I did still suffer rejection from large numbers of motorists, but at least they looked apologetic about it – Dads gesturing towards their wives and kids in their cars and indicating that there wasn't any room for another.

A young electrician called Sam from the West Country picked me up, and explained that he was on his way to a job in Middlesbrough.  He wasn't too sure of the way, so handed me the road atlas and asked me to direct him.  Which gave me something of a dilemma.  The road atlas was fairly unequivocal that he should be taking the A19.  But the A19 was not where I wanted to be.  I'm ashamed to say that I constructed an argument that he should stay on the A1, and effectively turn right along the A66 at Darlington.  The argument was along the lines that the A19 looked narrower and seemed to weave its way through towns, whereas the A1 was wide, fast and unobstructed.  Slightly longer distance, but probably less time overall.  He bought it.  I am not terribly proud of that.

My penultimate lift was from the supervisor of a security firm called Woody.  The supervisor that is, not the firm.  Woody would normally spend his Saturdays in the central office, remotely monitoring the various sites that they covered.  But today, spookily, a large number of his security guards were phoning in sick.  So Woody was having to go round each site in turn himself to check that things were ok. Bad news for Woody, but good news for Nick, as he was able to take me just beyond Newcastle.  On leaving the van, Woody chucked me his bottle of Lucozade.  I said I couldn't take it, but he insisted, saying “it’s hot out there mate, so you need it more than I do”.

He wasn't wrong about the heat.  If I was ripe before, then I was becoming steadily less fragrant.  My final lift was from a young couple in a Punto on their way to a house party in Port Seton.  Brilliant – a 90 mile lift all the way home to Dunbar!  The rapid rolling down of both of their windows suggested they were suddenly less enthusiastic about the idea of spending over an hour in the car with me.

The lad said that he always tried to stop for hitchhikers because he’d lived in Norway for a spell, and it is much bigger over there.  Because, over there, waiting too long for a bus in the wrong weather could see you dead.  Fair point.

A longer journey with them meant that there was more questioning of who I was, what I did, and how I came to be hitchhiking in football kit.  I didn't think that admitting to being a corporate lawyer who’d got stupidly drunk and thought it would be a laugh to hitchhike was the most sympathetic story I could come up with, so I lied and said that I’d be on a stag night as my brother’s best man and had been pranked.  Who knows if they believed that.  I also told them that I had a job in the workshop at the cement works.  The guy said that there was a Lafarge plant near them in Tunstead.  “Is there?  I mean, yes, yes there is.”  I was cut out for a career in MI6 as you can see.

They dropped me off in a lay-by just outside of Dunbar, and I ran over a couple of fields back to the house, getting in a little after 12.30 in the afternoon.  To be met in the kitchen by Jo, and my Mum and Dad.  My Dad (who was apparently so worried that he had walked off the golf course mid round) proceeded to rip through me at volume and at length.  “You’re a father now, you have responsibilities…”!!!  And so on and so forth.  I listened to this without putting up much of a fight, aware that the opinion of (a very quiet) Jo was going to mean more.  Amazingly, when my Dad had finally run out of steam and fury, Jo simply shrugged, said that my Dad had pretty much covered it all, and that she was just glad that I’d made it back ok.  Thank God for that!!!

The mood softened quite quickly as I related my adventures.  Sensing that I was going to get away with it, I became more animated and enthusiastic.  And although perhaps not something you would necessarily plan, I ended up getting a huge amount out of it.  It was an extremely life-affirming experience, and one that helped to restore my faith in people.  Although it sometimes might not seem it, it turns out there are still a lot of decent, kind, generous people out there who are willing to offer a helping hand. 

My Mum thought that it all sounded “very exciting” and suggested that I should write a book about it, at which point my Dad growled “don’t encourage him Margaret!”  Hmm, I’d need to do a hell of a lot more “research” to spin it out into a book…