Читать книгу A Life of Pride - Alan G Pride - Страница 25

A week of that December I spent seeing a bit of Europe with my friend, Allan Ireland, a NSW swimming champion, and his wife Beryl. I’d served my apprenticeship with him in Broken Hill and once helped him to cover his yard with green concrete, because he hated lawn-mowing.

We crossed the Channel on the steamer, M.S. Dinard, all vomiting like mad in the rough seas, and headed to Paris. It was hard to be understood, but we learned fast and the French were very polite. They couldn’t tell us how to get to the “Eiffel Tower” though! Then one of them twigged: “Ah, the Toor Iffell!” and pointed us in the right direction. Up we went.

Notre Dame, the Arc De Triomphe, coffee in big bowls, crook-smelling French cheeses; beautiful meals and tree-lined boulevards – Broken Hill couldn’t have been further away.

We hopped on the wrong train to Brussels but caught the right one eventually, and there was our first-ever view of snow, as we crossed the French Alps. And ice on the ground when we arrived, and blazing fluorescent lights – how modern! The ice was even thicker when we reached Holland; the very canals were frozen. I rushed excitedly to break the ice with my foot: yes, it was real!

A lot of Rotterdam was still open space, where bombs had fallen during the war. Our cash was nearly exhausted and Allan and I both had diarrhoea, but we enjoyed the lack of food rationing. We returned to London in mid-December. Allan and Beryl sailed for Australia a few days later on the Strathmore (P&O, 23,000 tons) and I went back to dating Pat. Luckily, my family sent me £10 for Christmas – I’d gone through £27 on the trip and was nearly broke – so I took Pat to Brighton for the weekend, by bus and train.

I’d now gone without a motorcycle for FOUR MONTHS! This couldn’t last. In early January, 1952, I bought a 350 cc 1947 A.J.S. for £100. I put down £33 and signed up to pay off the remaining £66, at £1 per week. Pat hopped straight on the back that afternoon and we raced off. Guess what? I wasn’t used to riding on icy roads! Within 5 minutes, we had a spill. Pat never let me forget that my first reaction was to run to the A.J.S, pick it up and call, “It’s OK! The bike’s not damaged!!” as she lay on the freezing road.

Nevertheless, she was game for a 7-hour ride the next day and we had 200 k’s of sunny weather and lovely scenery, with no accidents. She was just as silly and reckless as I was and would hang on behind me screaming, “Faster! Faster!”

I fitted panniers to the bike and later painted kangaroos on them, copied from an Australian ha’penny. During my time in England I rode around much of the country, from Land’s End in Cornwall in the west, to Fullerstone and Margate in the east. I went north as far as Glasgow and Edinburgh and as far north-west as medieval Shrewsbury. The distances were piddling after my travels in Australia, and the roads were usually a lot smoother.

Beryl Ireland and I at the Eiffel Tower.

With Allan Ireland in freezing Rotterdam.

The SS. Dinard, the scene of rough sailing to Paris.