Travel Biography - Week 119.

A Lifelong Review and Two Remarkable Visions.

All photos here are of Stoneleigh Bible Festival 1999, where Alex arrived to spend a day together.

My travelling career began in 1972 when I flew to Spain with a college friend. At 19 years old, that was the first time I travelled overseas without my parents. It was also the first time in my life I boarded an aeroplane -  since my father was a caraholic and drove everywhere, even to Italy in the 1960s and right up to 1971 - which, at 18 years old, was the final year I travelled with my parents and my younger brother - hence, I have never flown with the family to this day. 

In 1972, I was there in Spain with a college friend free from parental supervision. But I felt empty and lost within. This was due to my former girlfriend, Sandra, after a whole year together, terminating our relationship just a few months earlier in April of that year. As a consequence, the easy availability of cheap Spanish wine left me sleeping in the hotel bathtub and soaked in my own vomit during one night of that holiday. Since 1972, I never gone on another package holiday until the year 2007.

My Christian conversion in December 1972 changed everything, including travel. In 1973, just a year after that Spanish experience, I was backpacking alone overseas for the first time. By visiting the ancient ruins of Pompeii, my interest in Roman and other ancient cultures began, and among other things including my first visit to Israel in 1976, I enjoyed a knowledge explosion without ever seeing the inside of a university. Travel itself became one of my tutors.

But as for a girlfriend, I had nobody throughout the years that followed 1972. As a long-term singleton, there were times of loneliness, boredom, frustration and financial hardship, especially after losing my full-time job as an engineer in 1979 and having to go self-employed. As a result, my life of travel, especially long-haul, was in two distinct eras - the seventies, from 1972 to 1978 inclusive, and again, from 1993 to the year 2000. During the nineties especially, I remained a committed singleton and prioritised my love for travel, both here in the UK and abroad, over wanting to marry.

Alex at my tent in Stoneleigh 1999.

Stoneleigh 1999.

At the grounds, Stoneleigh

The seven years that characterised the nineties were what followed a remarkable vision I had while I was up on a ladder one autumn, cleaning a customer's bedroom window. It was a prophetic vision of Jerusalem, with me standing on the Mount of Olives and praying over the Old City. From that moment onwards, everything changed. While before, I was struggling financially, with even a day trip to the seaside seen as a luxury, from that morning on, I was able to save up enough to cover my second trip to Israel, including airfare, accommodation costs, and spending funds, ten months later in 1993.

From the day I took off to Tel Aviv, the second seven-year Travel era began. Following that, I returned to Israel a year later in 1994 as a volunteer at a Christian Conference Centre in Isfiya, near Haifa. It was while I was gazing down at Jerusalem Old City from the Mount of Olives one afternoon, that I had another vision similar to the first one in October 1992. This time, I saw myself flying to New York to backpack America specifically to revisit the Grand Canyon after a camera failure resulted in disappointment during my first visit in 1978.

Just by sharing a hostel bedroom with an Australian backpacker in San Diego in 1995, the idea of visiting Australia two years later in 1997 was conceived. And so, in May of that year, the aeroplane I was in soared into the sky on its way to Singapore, a 5-day stopover on the journey to Australia, with the Great Barrier Reef as the star attraction.

I was watched while I was totally unaware.

But behind the scenes, something else was happening. A family with three young daughters, two of them in their late teens, attended the same church as me. I took no notice of them, but one of their daughters, Alexandra by name, noticed me, attracted by my long hair - a feature I had since I was seventeen and still have to this day. But at the time, nothing transpired. Alex was underage, and I was already in my forties. Besides, my heart was set on the coming 1997 Round-the-World, the greatest experience any traveller could wish for, and within the narrow window of opportunity before both the 9/11 disaster and currency inflation restricting such travel to the privileged.

Therefore, on the day I took off to Singapore that year, Alex was already watching me from a distance. On one occasion, shortly before take-off, after a service ended, I thought I overheard her father say to her that I should be left alone to backpack Australia. But I didn't give any more thought to that conversation.

Soon after I had returned from the Round-the-World experience, I was offered a lift by a fellow church member to spend a day at Stoneleigh Bible Festival 1997, near the city of Coventry. 

The couple in Love.

Festive spirit.

Members of our church at Stoneleigh 1999.

An Invite to Sunday Lunch.

1997 gave way to 1998, with its three short breaks - Hadrian's Wall, New York/Boston, and the attempted cycle ride to Llangollen in Wales. Sometime after returning home from Llangollen and Chester, I was invited to the home of Derek and Barbara along with another church friend, Daniel, who shared the Hadrian's Wall hiking experience with Tim earlier in the year.

The occasion was just a social over lunch, nothing more. Daniel's invitation, to me, was nothing more than further company to enrich the occasion. The conversation was mostly between Derek and Dan, as the two had something similar in common. Dan was a financial advisor while, at the time, Derek worked for Tim, an accountant who also accompanied us along Hadrian's Wall.

After lunch, Derek settled for a conversation with Dan while Alex approached me to ask whether I would accompany her to a copse of trees cornering a field which was just across the road. I was rather surprised at her gesture, but I agreed to go along with her, apparently with her parent's blessing. Later, I returned home feeling rather surprised by that afternoon's events.

As the weeks went by, there were occasions when I returned home from work to find a bar of chocolate posted through the door along with the mail. This occurred several times. On another Sunday, Derek approached me with an offer of some drinking tumblers he was giving away. Alex then arrived, by herself, to deliver the glasses. I invited her in, and she stayed with me in my apartment for quite a long time before returning home. Back then, I never considered any relationship, as our age gap was too wide, and she was still underage. I recall saying that I wasn't ready for any relationship but agreed to be friends.

All these things were occurring while I was planning my next Round-the-World backpacking trip, this time to South Africa, Australia, possibly New Zealand, and although I was already very familiar - California, or elsewhere in the Americas. One Saturday, I took a train to London to visit the Trailfinders travel agent in Kensington High Street to collect the latest magazine which contained details of RTW trips on offer, and began to lay down my plans.

Alex called at my apartment several times. She was approaching her 18th birthday in the late summer of 1999. The year 1998 passed after an uneventful Christmas with the family, and Alex was committed to seeing me frequently in 1999. During that time, our affection for each other began to grow, and I finally got around to having a relationship despite our huge age difference.

It was the Spring of 1999, and I arrived at a crossroads. What was it to be? Travel or Marriage? While she was in my apartment one Sunday afternoon, I took the Trailfinders magazine, deliberately tore it in front of her, binned it, and then sat next to her on the sofa. Sitting by her, I proposed, and she accepted. During the Easter weekend of 1999, Alex, with a few others, was baptised in water at our church. It was then that I announced to the congregation that we were engaged to be married, much to the surprise of some.

Just a note here. In bygone years, when I attended what was then Bracknell Baptist Church, I watched some graduates in our singles group pair up with their girlfriends. Some of these graduates already had girlfriends they met at university, and living in other parts of the UK, they often turn up to spend weekends or days with their boyfriends. Hence, one of our elders was a self-made chaperone who, at times, acted more like a gooseberry whilst the two were together. The chaperone himself was married and had children. If the ladylove arrived to spend the weekend together, the chaperone always insisted on offering his spare bedroom for her (or him) to spend the night. The majority happily complied. But on one occasion, one young man told his elder in no uncertain terms to mind his own business. Instead, he insisted that his girlfriend slept in his own apartment, although in a separate bed.

But as for us, Alex and me, there was no chaperone around in our church at Ascot. Throughout our courting days, we were left to ourselves, and she spent much of her time in my apartment. It was no surprise that one or two of the old boys who were chaperoned looked at us with disdain!

Members of our church, Stoneleigh 1999.

Reflection on the River Avon, Stoneleigh.

Reflections on the River Avon, Stoneleigh.

At Stoneleigh Bible Festival, 1999.

Although Alex and I were engaged to be married, travelling on my own wasn't yet over. There was one more holiday that I would be taking on my own before we stood at the altar. This was to be in two halves. The first week was to be at Stoneleigh Bible Festival, and I'll be having my own tent among other tents and caravans owned by members of Ascot Baptist Church. The tent was a recent acquirement that I bought secondhand from a window cleaning customer just a couple of weeks earlier. The second week would be a solo hike across the Lake District from Kendal to Keswick, and staying in YHA hostels along the way. But more of that next week.

I was on my own throughout most of that week in Stoneleigh except for one day in the middle of the week. That day was one when a small group from our church arrived to spend the day with us, just as I spent the day at Stoneleigh two years earlier in 1997. Among this group of day visitors was Alex, who ran towards me and embraced me. We spent the whole day together, including attending seminaries and strolling together around the grounds. We even enjoyed some privacy in the tent before she left with the rest of the day's visitors to return home.

At the end of the week, we all packed our caravans and tents as all the churches throughout the camp were preparing to return home. But not me. Instead, one of my church friends offered to give me a lift to Coventry Station, just over five miles away. It was where I would be dropped off in readiness to board a train to Kendal, around 170 miles (273 km) northwards from Stoneleigh.

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Next Week: The final lone Hike and the last of Hostelling.