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A London Ragamuffin Has To Get Real = Ten Lost Years
Leaving on a Long Train
We ran out of money as the tourist season came to a halt. We joined an exodus of backpackers, hippies and general detritus of youth from many European countries escaping via Port Bou at the French/Spanish border. Our friends from the local bar, Welsh Rugby training landlord and his ex-patriate wives all gave us a send-off evening and we were up early the following morning. We did our duty to the environment and used my boy scout training to leave the tent site as if nobody had been there. We scoured the earth for litter and replaced as many stones as we could back into the edge of the nearby trees as a form of mulch to keep the moisture in at their base.
The bus to Girona was full and we squeezed in and waved goodbye to our Welsh friend. We never kept in touch and that was the last we ever saw of them, but it was a great friendship while it lasted. Those memories of how the human race helps each other when some sort of camaraderie or hardship is there, it’s an uncanny thing that throughout my life experiences has happened time and time again. From Girona we got a train to the border, at Port Bou we bought trois simple billets, three one way, second class tickets all the way through to Victoria Station in London. Once on the train to Paris, we crowded quickly into a compartment along with others. It was…
