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It was now 7pm. I was exhausted following the ten-hour hitch and getting a bit desperate as car after car passed me, despite the placard I held which read 'FRANCE: £10?' Just as the streetlights began to buzz a van screeched to a halt a couple of hundred metres down the road, I grabbed my impossibly heavy rucksack and lurched after them. "Ten Quid?" he asked, before opening the door of their small van. I was to share the back with several crates of beer that they'd just bought in the duty free...

European Tales: Switzerland 1996, a lengthy tale

Joseph Tame
2006-06-30 17:53:26

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Theology exam (enough to send anyone around the bend), when I decided that I'd had enough. I finished the sentence that I was on, before writing 'Fish' several times. I then walked out of the exam, college, and my formal education.

It was then that I began an unrewarding job in my local Supermarket and also I decided to move out of my parent's house. I ended up in the smallest bedsit built in the entire Northern Hemisphere. I couldn't quite fit on the bed, and I couldn't hang my legs off the ends of the mattress as the walls got in the way. Needless to say, I moved out of this mouse cage before five weeks had passed. It was then that I moved into Stanhope Street with Jo. Our rented house was quite large for just the two of us with no belongings, but most of the space was taken up with crawling damp and high-running emotions. Stephen, my brother who had recently returned from Ireland, joined us for the last couple of months of the tenancy to help pay the rent and cook the meals.

It hadn't been long since we'd moved into the house of the living damp, when I was offered a position as trainee manager of Wormelow Stores, the rural shop near my parent's house where I'd worked part time since 1991. This wasn't just another job. I was seventeen years old, and it was presented as a career opportunity. Accepting the five-year contract would result in me having to give up any ideas I had about travel until I was at least twenty-two. Not knowing what to do, I asked my friends and relatives what they thought. Most did not react over-enthusiastically, but always reminded me that it was a good career move if I wanted to work in retail. As I didn't know what I wanted from life (except at that time security), I accepted the job. Any plans of travelling to Australia were promptly scrapped, and I tried to put the dreams out of my head as I settled into my new routine.

Five months later in April 1996, Emma, ...