Denis Kilcommons
  • Home
  • Books
  • More Books
  • Blog
  • Bits of a Life
  • Send a message
  • Links
  • Untitled
  • Untitled
  • Untitled

Hippy days are here again -in memory

9/30/2013

0 Comments

 
PictureHippy days
FORTY odd years ago, thousands flocked to San Francisco wearing flowers in their hair. Which was an attainable ambition if you lived in America but I lived in Blackpool. I wore the right gear – beads, flowing locks, an Afghan coat and a Zapata moustache – and had watched the film version of Woodstock. I was a weekend hippy about to hit 30 and saw my youth disappearing fast.
In a
final act of rebellion, my wife Maria and I sold the house and bought a battered VW campervan. I resigned my job as a journalist and we headed into Europe.
This gesture might have worked but for two things. The van was more battered than I thought and
we had a nine month old baby called Siobhan.
The memories of that summer of 1971 came flooding back this week with the news that production of the VW campervan is coming to an end.
More than 10 million
have been made since it first appeared 63 years ago. European production ended in 1979 because it no longer met safety requirements but it continued in Brazil, where they didn't care. Now they do and new safety laws means it will finally bow out at the end of the year.
Which is a shame because the VW campervan was the motorised symbol of hippiedom.
I paid £195 for a venerable old lady of a van. Our initial destination was Avelino near Naples where Maria's relatives lived. The first summer, we thought, could be spent in their beach house and I would become a writer.
But life doesn't work like that.
After crossing the Channel our trail meandered through Belgium and France. It was peace and love, man, until we reached Aachen in Germany, when Maria declared the trip wasn't working with a nine month old baby who was sleeping in a box covered with her bridal veil as a mosquito net.
Next day I drove non-stop back to Ostend. We docked in Dover in the early hours and parked in a lay-by to sleep. I woke early and set off to beat the traffic through London.
Maria and Siobhan remained sleeping in the back. We were in the city and stopped at lights when I noticed the passengers in the bus alongside were staring into the back of the van. The curtains were open and Maria had pushed the double sleeping bag down to her waist and lay as naked as Aphrodite.
“Don't look now but you've got an audience.”
It's very difficult to suddenly cover yourself with decorum in such circumstances
especially when you're a hippy. So she didn't. Not that it offended anyone: she was a beautiful 22-year-old. She feigned sleep until we escaped the bus and then got dressed.
The van broke down on the motorway to Manchester. Maybe I had pushed
her too hard, too fast and for too long (the van, not Maria). A mechanic filled the engine with the thickest oil known to man and said: “You might make it home if you take it easy.”
We ma
de it home at 20 mph. The old lady's engine then died for good.
It had been an enjoyable, if short, and memorable journey.
And as far as our life together is concerned (with Maria, not the van), it still is.








0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    About writing

    A blog about writing. And maybe other things that take my fancy.

    Links:
    Donkin Life

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Archives

    April 2019
    March 2019
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    July 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011

    Categories

    All
    Agents
    Death
    Donkin
    Donkinlife
    God
    Harold Robbins
    Kindle
    Newspapers
    New Technology
    Openwriting
    Peter Hinchliffe
    Publishing
    Reaper
    Sunday Sport
    Typewriters
    Writing

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.