Wednesday, June 12, 2013

“Travel far enough, you meet yourself.”

I used to travel because it was fun...
the flights, wads of tickets, business class, suits. and whisky , lounges and smoking compartments in those days..a feeling of superiority...the haves and have nots...the wines...and of course romance in the air...
no not the mile high club (and yes I am a member)..no the romance of seeing a late evening sun setting through the clouds...the closing light whilst on an airport approach....the special feeling of delight as you settle in a warm and comfortable (air namib) full lay flat bed with eiderdown cover...after the whisky  and meal..knowing all is well.............

Seriously, i´ve well over a million miles.............done it and seen it............

but doing what....and why....making multi´s richer....so somewhere at 23,000ft I decided to use the game to do some good....losing my father and my family in the process....

I was a middle child.....let my brother do the role leading, matching up tp expectancies and watching the younger one fail at just that,,,the sister that came later I never really knew..

Social, well meaning, moderate, forgiving, was the summary my mother would later give of me...
...socialist, was my fathers opinion..student..the world isn´t fair...he would tone as I told him of the worries of others in far off lands like ..wherever...

I was a BEEB boy, no ATV for me...conservative, blue tie surroundings..and all so wrong..expectancies of suburbian life....and actually and really...a hammer, and saw would have suited me better...solid work, clean work....and 300 quid on the side and a Jag....I saw enough of it all around...

but to have dissapointed the role my mother wanted (Dentist)..and the success of his own failures (dad) led me onto a sort of studying..POLY it was called in those days as due to self pity and sheer inability a-levels were a thing I could attain...managed a OND followed by a HND and finally released...

went to Saudi Arabia.....(stupidly I thought thats where Awrence was filmed...turned out to be Jordan...went there later to to the WADI...fucking marvellous...)---and got a taste of a few things----

money, self made alchohol, old sweats, biggets fucking spiders I´ve ever seen. and pathetic injustice....

whites (europeans) in a/c huts, and asians in shitty housing...on site accomodations and penal servitude...

....it was an eye opener......

6 weeks later I was in Europe creating my daughter.....with a lovely bombshell blond thing...who I later divorced...or she me..whatever..

so now infected by the bigger open world. and anchored to a darling little creature (not the ex wife)...I began my elastic band travels around the world...

2 comments:

  1. I despise traveling myself but for those who like it, more power to you. If the traveler can tell a story, and you can, then you have my thanks as well.

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  2. I recall visiting you at Oxford and in the student bar being accosted by all your trendy lefty colleagues for being in the Army, them suggesting that I was nothing more than a right wing fascist bastard!

    If it makes you feel any better about travelling, consider the shithole my itchy feet took me to!

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