Young men like a bit of adventure. Some simply walk out the door and keep walking travelling far and wide over large acres of the world, often with little forethought. Others are forced by the call of King and Country to adventure in places they would rather avoid. In days of yore young lads often as young as twelve or thirteen years of age would wander through the docks finding work on ships travelling to foreign fields, the better educated grabbing what contacts they could might find a trail across Europe making the most of the smattering of French and German forced down their throats at school. The attraction was the same, to go out there, over the horizon to places untouched and unknown always hoping for adventure, well adventure that didn't hurt at any rate, and finding excitement that cannot be obtained by staying at home.
My limited adventurous streak showed during the close season, that once upon a time situation when the football season closed in May and did not reappear until August, then I would travel. Bored as I was I went to the Bus station on St Andrews Square and got the bus to North Berwick. This is not a long journey but I was only eleven or twelve at the time and my money was limited. After this I went further, Kirkaldy in Fife or Leven a wee bit further over, just to see what was there.
As I got older football's close season got shorter and by then we played football during the spare time rather than wander about. Of course when fifteen I also had a job that the grace of God and inept management meant I kept, I would have fired me, and with good reason, several times before I jumped ship. The travel bug was satisfied I realised by the bus trips to football matches in Dundee and Glasgow. While we went for the game I just enjoyed the trips outside of Edinburgh and being somewhere different, even if cold and wet as it often was.
I did of course take a very badly thought out journey in 1974 when working at the Royal Infirmary. This was the year I bought a bike for £18, the owner had 'Gone to Australia') and then a few weeks later set off on an epic journey to London. This is not something I would do today.
However when based in a Swiss Cottage slum during 1976, though I may have moved to exciting Willesden Lane by then, I took it into my head to go to Cardiff. Why? I have no idea but there again I had always wished to go abroad. So off I traps to Paddington Station, pay through the nose for a ticket and clamber aboard the 125, only used on that line then, and sat back.
One notable aspect of the trip was my questioning mind. We entered a tunnel and while this is to be expected after a while, a long while I thought, we were still in the tunnel. It took me a while to realise we were in Box Tunnel (either than the Severn I canny say which both looked dark to me) and I was surprised as I had forgotten the difficulties encountered when creating the railway back in the 1840's. Isambard Kingdom Brunel constructed this tunnel and it appears like me many think that on one day a year the light shines straight through the tunnel and that day happens to be Brunel's birthday. It appears we are wrong in this, it occurs a day or so earlier on his sisters birthday. That is what I call a present, what she called it is not known.
In spite of the overnight stay in Cardiff, where nothing happened, and my desire never to go abroad again I did in fact make an interesting trip to Jerusalem just before the 1st Gulf War, the one in which everybody was scared of Saddam, and with the weapons the USA had given him they ought to have been scared! That was interesting and provided plenty of photos even though most were taken on slide film, still sitting there waiting to be shown but no good on here! One day I will transfer them to digital and bore you as I bored others in 1990. The one inescapable incident of that trip was visiting Megiddo, the ancient city that goes back several thousand years. From the name we get the term 'Armageddon' and it was in 'Armageddon' that I got locked in as the lack of visitors (the Yanks were scared to visit in case of war) meant the caretaker locked up and went home. I eventually found an unlocked gate before I had to climb over the wall.
These days I find it difficult to go anywhere. This year has been a bummer physically and while I wish to wander about have been unable to, local transport has not helped either, road works, and rail works have closed things on weekends. Age also means I lack the adventure to see over the hill as I once wished to. Having been over the hill for some time I have a degree of cynicism that youth does not possess and this limits adventure to some extent. However a free gift of a car and the money to run it will I'm sure change my opinion. Hmmm looks like my opinion will not be changing any time soon.
