On the Road to Nowhere. Hitching Tales.

Looking overjoyed to be on the road again, 1985

I recently read steve Ignorant's excellent autobiography 'The Rest is Propaganda' and had to chuckle when I came to this little passage where he describes the misery of his one and only foray into hitch hiking.

"From Bude it took us two days to hitch back to London. Two blokes hitching together don't get anywhere fast - I know that now. I spent the whole trip tired, hungry and wondering why I was doing it. Above all, I promised myself I'd never, ever do it again. By the time we walked back into Dial House any attraction hitching or camping could ever have held for me was stone cold dead. I've never been as glad to get anywhere in my life. A romantic way to travel? You're having a laugh."

That all rang so true. My hitching days were primarily between 1984-86, only a couple of years but our little Norwich crew were always travelling around the country going to gigs, visiting friends and whatnot and thumbing it along the highways and byways of this grey little island was our only way of getting around. Hardly anyone drove, certainly no one had a car and our meagre dole cheques couldn't stretch to the luxury of coach or train travel so getting out there on the slip roads and laybys and sticking out our hopeful grubby thumbs was the only option. Living out in Norwich didn't help, most bands didn't venture this far out East. It wasn't on the way to anywhere, there was no one passing through. Of all the many, many journeys I took I'm sure there were decent hitches where I'd get quick rides with nice people who took me right where I wanted to go but they are not the ones I remember. When I think back to those days I think back to being cold, being wet, standing by the side of the same stretch of road for 8 hours. Of cars pulling over a little way up the road only to suddenly roar off while laughing abuse just as you run up to get in. Of having to sleep in bushes and under bridges because you're stuck in the middle of nowhere, of getting picked up by creeps. Of constantly thinking as steve says "Why am I doing this?". I was happy when I decided it was no longer how I wanted to travel and I mostly think back to those journeys with a shudder but yet strangely it's still something I'm glad I did and certainly led to some fun times, seeing great bands and crazy times with friends from all over the country. 

I remember as a kid in the 70's you'd see hitchhikers all the time, even on the little local roads around my way outside Norwich, trying to get into the city. My dad never picked anyone up of course and I recall having this view that all hitchers were somehow on the fringes, hippies or whatever. It was similar to the tale we got told of squatters back then, I used to think squatters were people who would move into your house while you were on holiday and then it was impossible to get them out again. I vividly remember getting back from family holidays as a kid in the early 70's with a sense of relief to get home and discover that squatters hadn't taken over our house.

Anonymous stretch of road from an old roll of film. At a guess I'd say it's somewhere in the back end of beyond in the middle of the fens. I probably took this because it had been the same view I'd had for several long hours.

To get out of Norwich there were really only two main routes to go. If you were going to London (probably the most frequent hitch) then it was just a case of walking to the roundabout just on the edge of town and  getting on the A11 then onto the M11, unless you got dropped by Cambridge you could often get all the way there in one lift.  If you get stuck after an hour or so then you'd split up and hopefully meet up later at the destination. Even better than hitching alone though was to hitch with a girl, you'd let them stand in front and kind of lurk behind. I remember hitching with Mary a couple of times, she'd stand there, stick her chest out and you'd be guaranteed a lift almost immediately. She'd been a seasoned hitcher for a few years plus her somewhat outgoing and super confident personality was a bonus in getting attention.  Plus she'd always be super chatty (and a bit flirty) with the drivers which meant you could just sit quietly and enjoy the free ride. Occasionally if things weren't going well and there were a bunch of us she'd stand and hitch while we'd all hide in the bushes out of sight, cars would stop and she'd say "do you mind giving my friend a lift too?" and two or three of us would appear, sometimes they'd just drive off before we could get in but often they'd reluctantly give in, none too happy.

Leggo and Debbie taking the first hitch.

The other route out was by walking way out and hitching by the roundabout onto the dreaded A47 onto the A17, this was the route we had to take if we wanted to get to the midlands or anywhere North and was always such a lottery. Depending on where you were headed it generally meant lots of smaller lifts and knowing all the best hitching spots to get dropped along the way or you could very easily (and often were) dropped in the middle of nowhere by some farmer turning off onto some bumfuck village in the godforsaken Fens. First you had to get to Kings Lynn, get out on the outskirts and hitch on the slip road onto the A17 (one of the shittiest roads in the known universe) and then try and get a lift to Newark outside Nottingham where you would have to get dropped at a certain point before the town and then get onto the slip road onto the M1, once you were on that Motorway then you had the whole North ahead of you. This was the route of getting to Leeds and for many of the great gigs I saw at Adam and Eves.

When there were 5 or 6 of us all going to the same gig it would be a case of deciding who was going to go first and then taking turns and see who would get there first. It was always a drag if you drew the short straw and you had to watch your mates getting picked up and off and away but then equally such a blast when after getting picked up yourself you'd pass your mates at the side of the road stuck at some roundabout an hour down the road and give them a cheeky wave as you zoomed by. Very occasionally if you had a cool lift they'd sometimes stop and pick them up too if there was room. Then we'd all meet up in dribs and drabs with our dossbags and tales of our lifts in whatever city we were heading. It was such a blast to get an easy, drama free ride and then be able to just relax and get drunk. Then it'd just be a case of hoping you could find someone who'd put you up at the end of the night. In London that often meant jumping the tube and hossing off to some squat or other. If not it was a case of finding some cardboard and trying to find a quiet corner in a train station or something. Wherever you ended up there'd always be that horrible sinking feeling the next morning, waking up with a hangover knowing you had to take a ride out on the tube to Redbridge station, the last stop on the east bound line, where you could walk to where there was a slip road and long layby as the M1 motorway left London. Often, unless you got there super early there'd already be tons of hitchers waiting to take their turn and get out. It was always particularly grim if it was late afternoon and you still hadn't even got your first lift out of London yet. Oh the many, many miserable hours stood at Redbridge roundabout. Home never felt so far away.

I remember one time me and Snapa had hitched to London to see Antisect, it was out in Woolwich somewhere. When we finally got there we found out it had been cancelled at the last minute (always a risk back then) There were still a bunch of punks who'd travelled out just hanging about on the streets so we just got drunk anyway, Colin Jerwood from Conflict was there, I think maybe he'd been the one putting the gig on, anyway he said me and Snapa could doss round his flat for the night. He had to go somewhere and do something so just gave us vague directions and said he'd see us there later. it was somewhere way across London so we ended up taking a night bus with our little scrap of paper with directions. Of course we managed to both pass out on the bus and totally miss the stop, we woke up with the driver telling us to get off as he was parking up in the depot for the night. We had no idea where we were, what part of London even it was so we just wandered around looking for somewhere to sleep. We eventually spotted a horsebox attached to a car parked up in a car park. We were able to clamber up over the back doors and drop inside. At least we'd be dry for the night. We did manage to get a couple of hours kip but I was super paranoid about the owner arriving the the morning and driving off to god knows where without realising there were a couple of stowaways so we hopped out at the crack of dawn. Unfortunately a couple of hours curled up in the hay we absolutely reeked of horse shit. We did manage to find our way out to Redbridge and get a lift to Thetford, within 30 seconds of us getting in the car the driver had to open all the windows. I bet he was chuffed sick.

These two pics were taken from a trip me and Snapa made down to Brighton to see Antisect. I remember we decided to hitch the day before, probably worried that if we left on the same day we might end up getting stuck and not make the gig. A wise decision as these were taken the morning after a particularly cold and uncomfortable night spent under a motorway bridge somewhere south of London. I remember that Snapa had a sleeping bag but for some insane reason I'd decided to bring nothing but that small, thin and painfully inadequate yellow blanket. I don't think I got a minute of sleep. As was often the case we'd travel with a marker pen and leave little messages for other hitchers that might get stuck or for mates who we knew might be travelling the same route. Here's what we deigned worth leaving at this spot.

We successfully made it to Brighton later that morning and here is Snapa taking a bracing stroll along brighton beach.

HItching back down south from the many gigs in Leeds always first involved taking a bus out to the busy Wetherby roundabout where you could hopefully get a lift from traffic jumping onto the M1. It was a popular hitching spot and also had a bit of folklore, I remember being warned about the 'Wetherby Willy watcher' (my memory might be betraying me on the exact nickname but it was definitely something like that), apparently a notorious wrong un'. I have no idea if I ever came in contact with this fabled fellow but I did get a couple of dubious rides from there. First time I really can't remember anything about the guy who picked me up just that there definitely seemed to be something 'off' about him. He just seemed a bit jumpy, asked me a bunch of odd questions, then suddenly took a strange turn off the Motorway and headed out into the country on a small b-road, I questioned where he was going and then he hurriedly said he had to make a pick up somewhere. He then abruptly stopped at this little junction in the middle of nowhere and told me to get out. He said he'd make the pick up and then come back this way, get me and we'd be back on our way. I was never particularly quick on the uptake so I remember actually standing there after he'd sped off for a while until the penny dropped....oh, he's not coming back. I'm guessing he'd decided he'd stopped for the wrong person for whatever he had in mind, or just lost his nerve, probably a lucky escape but I was still now stuck in the back end of beyond. There was no traffic at all so I figured all I could do was try to walk back to the motorway. After a couple of miles I could see it in the distance across from a few fields of farm land. Once I'd made it there obviously there was no actual stopping places on the motorway and it's illegal and dangerous to walk on the hard shoulder so I just had to struggle along through these fields parallel to the road until it came to a junction or service station or somewhere I could hitch from. By now it was already getting dark and I couldn't see where I was going. I then came across a rather large irrigation dyke across a field which I had to attempt to cross, I made a running jump and just about cleared it but then I lost my balance because of the rucksack and sleeping bag on my back, fell backwards and landed in the ditch getting soaked through. I remember just standing there in the dark, in a muddy field, hundreds of miles from home, wet and tired thinking "Fuck my life!!!" I finally came across a service station but it was derelict and no longer in service so no traffic was pulling in or stopping. I decided to give up for the night and tried to find somewhere sheltered to sleep. I found an old disused bus shelter and settled in only for a police car to pull up, they told me to get up and move along (where to?) saying there were a lot of rats around (?) and I couldn't sleep there. Of course they could have just given me a lift to the next roundabout but didn't. I just waited til they'd gone and went back and crashed. I can't remember how or where I finally got a lift but I do recall I finally got back to Norwich late in the evening the next day, at least a full day after everyone else I'd been with had got back.

Steve from the Disrupters trying his luck to get back south. We'd hitched up to Leeds together, not sure who to see, possibly Conflict.

Another time, also hitching from a gig in leeds. A  bunch of us were hitching down to Nottingham, where Leggo was living at the time and I'd started the hitch on my own first. Amazingly I got picked up pretty quickly and also the guy was driving directly to Nottingham, result!!! Getting to the destination in one lift was always a rare treat to savour. The dude who picked me up was an older businessman type, he was pretty jolly and very chatty although his conversation was a little strange. He kept asking me if I was a dancer, "Have I seen you before? Are you sure you're not a dancer?", I was thinking, I have no idea what sort of dancers you might have seen that look like me in my raggy clothes but whatever. Anyway, I was telling him that I was ahead of all my mates and I'd probably have to find a pub to kill some time in until the others arrived, he then said that he knew a good pub and he'd buy me some drinks if I didn't mind the company. I guess my brain didn't go much further than 'free beer!!!', so I was "sure, why not". However when we got to the outskirts of Nottingham, he said "actually, let me just drop past mine and we can have a quick drink there first"...errr, okay, he lived in this massive house with a long drive in a nice leafy middle class suburb of the city. I was still pretty clueless as he seemed friendly and above board but it was beginning to feel a little off. We went into his posh house and he said "let me get you a drink", he had one of those fancy big globes that open up and act as a drinks cabinet and he poured me a huge vodka, without getting himself anything, then after handing it to me he walked over and locked the door. What the fuck? I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was along the lines of "so....can you help me out??" as he pulled some notes out of his wallet. It was only then that the penny finally dropped!! yeah, after I was in his locked house!!!! It still makes me roll my eyes right into the back of my head to think back to how utterly slow on the uptake I was. I mean, what was it going to take, him standing with his trousers round his ankles before it clicked. I put the drink down and said "please unlock the fucking door", he looked shocked and thankfully walked over and opened it. I don't think anything else was said and I just made a hasty exit, I was a slight, skinny 19 year old and he was considerably larger than me and I was in his locked house where no one knew I was, it really could have gone so badly. To be honest I think he was so compliant in letting me out because he was probably a little dumbfounded and had assumed that surely I was aware of what was going on. I finally managed to find my way into the city and to Leggo's where everyone had arrived and relayed my tale to much mirth. I did temporarily think about going back in the evening and fucking up the guys car but even if I'd have been able to find my way back it was a stupid idea and in truth I was really just angry at myself for being so naive. You live and learn, it just takes a little longer for some.

I do still have a little diary from 1985 which has a good few little hitching notes in it, they're all pretty much the same though. I never seem to be recounting a positive experience. This sums up a typical entry. This was a hitch I did with Mark (D.I's second drummer, who played on the Terminal Filth demo). I think we'd gone up North to see the Subhumans. 

Thursday July 25th 1985
Well after yesterday's abysmal hitch you’d think a straight hitch from newark to Norwich would be a piece of piss, well we got a lift after 2 minutes to Sleaford roundabout, good so far and then stood there for 5 and a half fucking hours, then at about half eight in the evening we started walking and we walked and walked and walked. Cold, hungry and wet, really great fun! After about 3 small lifts we finally made it into kings Lynn at about 1 in the morning. We tried hitching it a while but as a thunder storm approached we hit it into Kings Lynn to shelter and freeze to death. God it was awful just sitting under a shop front in the early morning waiting for the sun to come up. We then started hitching again around about 5am and "yahoo!!" got a lorry all the way to Norwich, what a relief, plus he was playing Marillion all the way.

In case you're wondering, the fact he was playing Marillion was a good thing.

Sean during our unsuccessful trip up to Newcastle to see Anti-Cimex. We had such a crappy hitch we spent the night under a bridge, missed the gig and finally got to Newcastle the day after. Thankfully I'd already seen them ripping it up in Leeds supporting (and blowing away) Grave New world era Discharge.

I think we all pretty much decided we were sick of hitching at the same time, lifts seemed to be getting consistently worse, people seemed to be stopping less often. Thankfully D.I was playing out around the country a lot more now so that took care of most of the travelling to see bands itch. Also for a while we figured out a pretty good coach ticket scam where we could get tickets on National Express for next to nothing. Obviously this was all way before any sort of computerised, printed ticket. To book a coach journey you had to go up to the third floor in Jarrolds (Norwich departement store), where the guy selling coach tickets (who kind of looked like Sam the eagle from the Muppets) had a little desk in the corner by the purses and handbags. Tickets were those big ones that were printed on a handheld carbon duplicating gizmo that he had to push this lever back and forth to print the ticket. We'd usually get Snapa (as he was the smallest) to go and buy one child's ticket (if he could get away with it), then we'd be able to alter it by adding several adults on the ticket in pencil, which kind of looked similar to the carbon, you just had to sort of rub it and smudge it a bit and then crinkle the ticket up a bit and hope they'd not look too closely. This way we'd often forge a ticket for 5 or 6 of us for the cost of a single child. I don't think we did it very often as we didn't want to push our luck, the drivers would look at the messy scrap of paper with some suspicion and sometimes ask "so, who's the child" but I don't recall ever getting actually refused.

I wish the road signs were in shot so I figure out where these were. it's probably somewhere along the A17, i think this was the day that we were having such a shit time we invented the 'hitching dance', this was one of those rare journeys where getting stuck didn't really matter. I think we were coming back from a gig, it was warm and the weather was good and we had company so it was just a laugh. We were getting absolutely nowhere so were taking it in turns to do ridiculous dances as the cars came past figuring out if we were already weren't getting anyone to stop, looking demented couldn't hurt. it certainly kept our spirits up anyway. 

Looking back it's amazing to think how far out of my comfort zone I'd put myself. Prior to leaving home and moving into the city at age 17 I'd been living in a small village and had grown up as an incredibly anxious and painfully shy kid. In 1984 I'd very quickly thrown myself into new situations, living in a squat and suddenly befriending and dealing with a whole city scene, of course, in the punk scene my shyness and general social awkwardness was easily hidden and helped with copious amounts of alcohol. Not really an option when you're out hitching. I just threw myself into it as I wanted to be part of the crew and get out around the country but if my shyness wasn't quite as bad as it had been I was still a very quiet person. I still am, small talk isn't my thing, I'm more than happy with a comfortable silence. This probably made me a terrible hitcher to pick up, a lot of drivers, especially the truckers often picked you up as they just wanted some company. They'd often been driving all over the continent on gruelling haulage routes and just wanted some conversation or someone to help keep them awake and there'd be me, after a few awkward introductions I'd just fold in on myself and settle into a silence, to which they'd no doubt sigh and just have to turn the radio up. That was another reason it was also preferable for me to hitch with a  companion as I could leave them to do the chatting while I just settled in and watched the world go by.

Me and Amelia taking a break while stuck on a typically bad hich trying to get back from london

Another little Diary entry, travelling back from a couple of days in London with Amelia.

Friday May 31st 1985

So we started hitching, yet another bad hitch, because of the problems on the M11 or A11 or whatever we had to go via the Cambridge road where we got stuck for ages plus we kept bumping into this twat who was hitching to Norwich n'all. He obviously thought he was king of the hitchers. Then we got stuck in Newmarket, a real bummer, we ended up walking about 6 miles. Sat in a flower field and was happy, if I wasn't with Amelia I'd have been really pissed off. We saw all these signs with DD and Snapa written on them so we obviously weren't the first to get stuck there.

I'm sure tales like this were the same and each and every one of us back then getting around the country by our thumbs, in fact I'm sure I probably got off quite lightly and everyone would have at least one situation worse than anything here. (Please feel free to share them in the comments.) Though I think some are just more suited to it and would go with the flow, I mean I never hitched abroad or around Europe as many did, i can only imagine what throwing foreign roadways and languages into the mix would mean!!

Okay, so then who's taking the first hitch? See you there....

...hopefully.