Travel Biography - Week 3.

Up to and throughout the 1960s, it would have been normal to take a summer holiday at a British seaside resort. Here, I envisage the overcast sky with a breeze driving light rain along the shiny wet promenade, people strolling along under their umbrellas casually, as if familiar with the weather. The battleship-grey sea crashed its white, foamy waves onto the nearly-deserted shingle beach, with perhaps one, maybe two, hardy swimmers some thirty metres out at sea. Along the resort's main seafront, fish & chip bars are making a roaring trade, customers leaving the takeaways with their snacks wrapped in white sheets of thick insulating paper. Within the amusement arcades, lights flash, bells ring, and music plays whilst the many gaming machines gorge on our cash like hungry monsters under the guise of entertainment.

Typical British Summer...

Therefore, with dismal summers year in, year out, it was no surprise that sooner or later, some clever individual or group of people thought up the idea of cheap travel overseas to bathe under warm Mediterranean sunshine. As such, I was around to watch Court Line launch its two daughter holiday companies - Clarksons and Horizon, along with other independent companies taking their place in this new market, including Cosmos Holidays. Unfortunately, Court Line ceased trading in 1974 after failing to make a profit and its need to go bankrupt.

In 1972, after our booking at Butlins was rejected due to us being an unmarried couple, my girlfriend Sandra and I settled for an 11-day Spanish holiday with Cosmos, after our booking was accepted by them. Not that she was that keen on Spain, but was still happy to go along with it. The resort was a little coastal town of Tossa-de-Mar, on the Costa Brava. The port of Barcelona was the next major city further down the coast.

However, as the holiday began to draw nearer, our relationship deteriorated, and after several disagreements, she decided to call it a day. Left by myself with a foreign holiday booking, the getaway was saved when I asked my best mate from college, Andrew Stevenson if he would like to take Sandra's place. He was willing, and Cosmos accepted the amendment on the condition that Andrew paid his full airfare.

A Recap.

As narrated in my last blog, I wasn't unfamiliar with foreign holidays. To recap, in 1966, Dad attempted to drive his family to Turin to spend three weeks with my maternal grandparents. Unfortunately, his car broke down in France and Dad and I had to finish the journey by train whilst the rest of the family had to travel in Grandad's car after we all met in Paris. However, in 1969, we completed the journey by car successfully, and that was repeated for the last time in 1971, the year I was with Sandra. At least in 1971, rather than go to the play park outside, I took the tram several times to check out the city centre on my own, including the banks of the River Po, and the ascent up Mole Antonelliana, giving a splendid view of the city from approx 90 metres, hence just over halfway up the full height of the tower which is 167.5 metres high.

Spain, 1972.

August 1972, at age 19, I boarded the train at Bracknell for London Waterloo. And from Waterloo, I had to take the Underground to arrive at Victoria Station, as our train never stopped at Clapham Junction in those days, a convenient station for changing trains without using the Underground. Furthermore, roughly halfway, the train came to a halt at a red signal and stayed put for around twenty minutes, although it seemed forever. I began to feel panicky. Would I miss the flight?

Eventually, I met Andrew at Victoria, and together we boarded a train to Gatwick airport. We arrived in time for checking in, with me feeling excited yet nervous. This would be the first time I had ever boarded an airline. My father, who loved motoring, was averse to flying, hence to this day I have never flown with my parents or family members. This flight to Spain's Gerona Airport was to be my first ever flight - and that with one other person, a college mate. I sat by the window and I was able to see the dawn over the horizon, even if it was still dark overhead. It was an astonishing phenomenon and added a new dimension to the world of travel.

After landing at Gerona Airport and passing through passport control, we were bussed to our hotel at Tossa-de-Mar. Hotel California looked smart and had all the necessary facilities, but I wouldn't have rated it as luxury. It was suitable for budget holidaymakers such as Andrew and me, and we were assigned a room on the second floor, complete with a balcony overlooking the street. The hotel boasted a waiter-served restaurant, with two meals a day - breakfast and evening meal. We shared our assigned table with a courting couple, thus making a foursome. However, the couple respected my college mate but found me to be too overwhelming and intense. After two or three days, we found ourselves dining on our own. Either the couple skipped their meals (at their own loss) or had chosen a different time. Or perhaps even moved to a different table.

That day, we headed for the beach. Nearby was a promontory with a ruined castle on its headland, thus giving the impression that we're really in a foreign land. After a dip in the sea, we went to explore the historic feature. Not only was a stunning panorama of the Spanish coastline but also a shell of a ruined church or abbey still standing within the castle's grounds.

One day, I took a coach excursion to Barcelona to watch a Spanish bullfight. Andrew wasn't interested, so he stayed at the hotel. At Barcelona, we were first treated to a harbour cruise before being bussed to the city arena. Once settled, I saw that the arena was similar to a football stadium, however, instead of the pitch, I was looking into a large circular space where bulls were to be tortured by a well-dressed skilled matador - all for entertainment. Indeed, maybe because I was, and am a Briton, I felt ill at ease watching how these beasts suffered a prolonged, agonising death as part of a cheering Spanish tradition.

But it was during the evenings that the worst came out of me. It was as though the Spanish were encouraging us to buy and drink cheap wine which was my undoing. Whilst Andrew had the sense to remain at the hotel and tended to avoid nightlife in general, I went out to "live it up". As my college mate knew how to keep his emotions under control, mine were all over the place. The loss of a girlfriend, and the new-found freedom from my parent's restrictions and their unintelligible natter in a domestic setting, only intensified to seeking this new liberty by downing large quantities of cheap Spanish wine.

Some people, when stoned out of their wits, claim that "they can't remember a thing" when drunk. But I do remember, at least some of it, no matter how intoxicated I was. One late evening, after downing a whole bottle of wine, I found myself staggering along the street. A group of men were enjoying themselves, and just as an ego booster, I floored one of them with a single punch, staggered back to the hotel and crept into the bathtub, spending the rest of the night there. Andrew woke me up after daybreak, and I couldn't even remember how I ended up in the bathtub, my shirt soaked in stinking vomit and in a bad state. I had to have a thorough clean-up before going downstairs for breakfast.

Ruined abbey or church, Tossa de Mar, Spain.

After that, I had to watch for any possible reprisals from the locals as I lay sunbathing on the beach. Fortunately, none occurred. Also, I became the talk of the hotel staff, with rumours that the cleaners are refusing to clean and tidy our room. However, despite my appalling state, I was fortunate enough not to see the inside of a police cell. Indeed, it must have been some relief to them when we were, at last, all bussed back to the airport. 

Soon after the Spanish holiday, I joined the Reading Life Saving Club, held at Arthur Hill Pool at Cemetery Junction, Reading. Perhaps it was a way to reform my life, lift my self-esteem, and contribute something back to society. Each week, I practised towing a distressed person in deep water back to safety whilst fully clothed, practising resuscitation and also learning about human anatomy. By December of 1972, I had succeeded in collecting the Bronze Medalion qualification award and therefore afterwards I was suited for a job as a lifeguard.

At about the same time as qualifying as a lifesaver, I was also converted to Jesus Christ as my Saviour whilst reading a Bible in a London pub. My conversion to having faith in Christ had dynamically changed my travel plans as if beyond recognition! No longer was I a Sunseeker - although no insult to those who wish for balmier climates or beach relaxation, but rather, my conversion means the end of such drunken orgies whilst abroad.

Italy, 1973 - a Gateway to Backpacking.

And the difference couldn't have been more manifest than my first solo trip to Italy by train, a year later in 1973. It was still the days when the words, Gateway to the Continent were painted on a large board fixed outside London Victoria Station. And so it was. On the Kent side of Victoria Station, the special platform was sealed off, with the need to pass through passport control before boarding the train. Once on board, the train ran non-stop to Folkstone Harbour, where I boarded the ferry to sail to Boulogne-sur-Mer. At the French harbour railway terminus, I boarded the Ferrovie Dello Stato train which runs continuously from Boulogne to Roma Termini, stopping at Amiens, Paris Gare du Nord, Paris Gare de Lyon, Dijon, Chambery, Modane, Bardonecchia, Torino Porta Nuova terminus.

Then back out for Asti, Genova, Pisa, La Spezia, Livorno, and Roma Termini. It took about 24 hours from boarding the train at London Victoria to alighting in Rome, with the dusk somewhere between Paris and Dijon, and the dawn at the time we emerged out of the 8.5-mile Mt. Cenis Tunnel to stop at the Italian station of Bardonecchia. The rest of the journey was in daylight. After this, I caught another train to Napoli Centro terminus. After arriving, I walked across the open square and found a hotel. I walked up to the reception and asked if there was a room. 

At the age of 20 years, my career as a backpacker has just begun. In the days to come and from this hotel, I was able to find the Circumvesuviana Line and on this route, I travelled to Pompeii Scavi dei Misteri to visit the excavations.

I sense the feeling of sadness as I walked the ancient streets of the city that was destroyed in 79 AD by the eruption of the nearby Mt Vesuvio, or Monte Somma, as the Romans called it. At il scavi, I visited several houses with their columned gardens, the two theatres, a small, covered theatre known as the Odeum, and the large main theatre, where I sat comfortably as if waiting for the show to begin. I also walked into the amphitheatre, an oval structure not unlike the bullfight arena in Barcelona, except that in this arena, gladiators fought each other to the death in front of cheering crowds.

Next to the amphitheatre was the palaestra, or exercise yard. It featured the natatio, or swimming pool, in the middle. I also visited the ancient bakery, which included a carbonised loaf of bread, freshly baked on the day of the eruption. I also walked through the Forum and peered inside some of the pagan temples still standing. There was even a bar, so well preserved that it could have been trading only the day before. But most striking of all, and arranged in a neat row, were the plaster casts of those who died during the eruption. Their deaths by asphyxiation were so sudden, that some were even crawling along when their bodies were suddenly covered by hot ash. After decay, a hollow was left behind, taking the exact shape of the body that once occupied it. When the archaeologist filled the cavity with plaster, the exact form of the body was revealed.

The whole trip was not only more enjoyable than the previous year's sunshine holiday, but it was more adventurous and at the same time, educational.

The next day, I decided to climb, or rather, hike up to the crater of Mt. Vesuvio. So I took a train from Naples city centre to alight at Ercolano, or Herculaneum, to begin the hike to the crater. Eventually, I was not very far from the summit when, all of a sudden, the heavens opened.

This was no drizzle but raindrops almost as big as a toy marble fell on the mountain and quickly drenched me. Fortunately, there was a natural alcove or cave in the cliff facing the road, and I dashed into that. As I waited for the rain to ease, a car heading downhill screeched to a halt in front of me. A young Italian at the wheel beckoned me over.

Dove stai andando? He asked.

Il cratare. I answered.

No, Oggi non posso.

He then beckoned me to get into their car and offered me a free ride back to the city. Later, at the hotel, I felt impressed by the Italian's generosity and their duty to save someone in distress.

The next day and encouraged by the hazy clear sky and warm sunshine, I made another attempt to reach the crater. I took the same route as the previous day. But this time, as I was hiking up towards the summit, the sky suddenly turned a sharper blue. I had left the haze which covered the city behind and had entered the clear zone of the atmosphere above it.

Eventually, I reached the rim of the crater and peered into it. Although dormant, I still found it to be nerve-inducing. So, this was the tool God used to bring judgement on Pompeii. A tour guide was nearby, leading a group of people. From where he was standing, steam was rising from the rocks. He was literally splashing water on the hot ash, causing the steam to rise spectacularly.

Plaster casts of Pompeii victims.

The tool used in God's judgement on two wicked cities - Pompeii and Herculaneum. A repeat of Sodom and Gomorrah all over again? I stood in awe at this vast yet dormant hole in the ground, at the summit of a 1,281-metre high mountain near the sea in southern Italy.

Travel and the Christian faith. I have now turned a corner, and the twain will be as one. No more drunken orgies!

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NEXT WEEK. An Ancient City with a 2,700-year-old water tunnel and a sheep skinned alive.

Travel Biography - Week 2.

The Early Years at Bracknell.

We moved into a semi-detached, two-bedroom house in a Bracknell district of Easthampstead, once a village in its own right with its own parish church - St Michaels C. of E. - before the village was assimilated into Bracknell town by its Development Corporation (now replaced by Bracknell Forest Borough Council.) Our new home was a vastly different environment from the city life I grew up in. A modern dwelling without a basement, without cellars, a front lawn without any fencing or hedges, and a private back garden was a delight to Dad, as the plot was a source of developing new skills, including transforming a bank of dirt into a delightful rockery. Beyond the garden, our bedroom window looked across a field on which a lone horse happily grazed.

A. Stevenson at St Georges Square - my childhood home. 

Then, in December 1966, we moved again to another of Bracknell's districts, Bullbrook, a residential estate named after the brook that flowed underground, to emerge as a stream at nearby Binfield, to wind its way eventually to join the River Thames. This house has three bedrooms, which means that for the first time in my life (then aged 14) I had my own bedroom.

Having Italian parents, Dad always dreamed of driving a car all the way to Italy, using the cross-Channel ferry from Dover to Calais. And so, in 1966, he began to fulfil his dream.

A Family Trip to Italy.

In August of 1966, whilst still living in Easthampstead, all the luggage was piled on the roof of our silver Riley. We waved goodbye to a couple of neighbours and we set off. Our destination? Turin, in the Piedmont province of Northern Italy. But, as I will eventually realise, it was nothing like a beach or an adventure holiday. Instead, we would be staying at la casa di Nonni or the home of my maternal grandparents who cannot speak or understand a word of English.

The highlight of the holiday, at least for me, anyway, was the Channel crossing. Unfortunately, it was done late at night, but I still remember the street lights of Dover receding into the distance as the ship rocked gently as it traversed over the waves. Around ninety minutes later, we docked at Calais. 

We drove out from the ferry's parking deck, onto dry French ground. As we eventually left the French port, we saw a large sign which read: Facon, in large red letters over an illuminated white background. We all gasped, and then laughed. We then realised afterwards that Facon is a brand name for a beer, just like in the day, Watneys dominated our English brands of ale. But the way the sign was placed at that location, beside the road out of Calais, gave the impression of an incorrectly-spelt message ordering us to move on with the rudest of vulgarism. Some years later, I actually ordered a glass of Facon beer at a bar during a solo trip to France in the 1980s. The beer tasted really good!

We stopped a little further on to sleep in the car for the remainder of the night. From outside a house, a dog began to bark. Annoyed, Dad drove further until we reached a quiet spot on the road. Then we parked the car at a layby and settled for some sleep. Hence, a foreign holiday on the tightest of budgets. No hotels, no amusements, no beach, mountain or beauty spot. Just a long drive across France to reach Italy to spend with Mum's parents.

The next day, we managed to reach Paris. At the French capital, a pre-arranged agreement was made to meet Mum's parents, probably at the Gare du Nord railway terminus, as Nonno was intrigued with the nearby Basilique du Sacre Coeur. So, after plenty of hugs and kisses, Nonni climbed into their car and we into ours, and both cars made their way to the Church of the Sacred Heart.

The church is built on a hill known as the Butte Montmartre, the highest point in Paris. Thus, I recall the splendid view right across the city, not much different from the view of London seen from the summit of Parliament Hill in Hampstead Heath. We spent a considerable time looking over the view before setting off for a quick visit to the other city attractions until it was time for us to proceed with the journey to Turin.

It was on a fast freeway, so straight, that we were moving faster than what our car was designed for. So, in the middle of nowhere, a sudden noise from the engine and the vehicle ground to a halt indicating a major breakdown. With our grandparents forced to stop behind us, it was agreed for our car to be towed to the next town, which was Chalone-sur-Saone, not too far from Dijon. There, the family split at the town's station. Mum, along with my brother, joined her parents and drove all the way to Turin. Meanwhile, due to the lack of space in my grandparent's car, Dad and I had to take the train for the rest of the journey, much to his disappointment with an unfulfilled dream.

As Nonni set off, Dad and I had a six-hour wait for our train for Turin to arrive. After a walk around town, we spent the rest of that evening in the waiting room. Throughout that time, several trains stopped at the station whiles others thundered through. It was well past midnight when our train finally arrived.

The 1960s Riley. Ours broke down in France.

The train was chock-a-block packed, mainly with college-student-type passengers, most of them just a few years older than me. Although Dad went from compartment to compartment via the side corridor, not a single seat was unoccupied and we were left standing in the corridor as the train thundered noisily along. That night, neither my father nor I had a wink of sleep. When the train pulled into Modane Station, it was still dark outside. When we emerged out of the 8.5-mile, 13.7 km Mont Cenis Tunnel, it was beginning to get light when the train stopped at the first Italian station - Bardonecchia. Eventually, the train journey ended at Torino Porta Nuova (Turin Newgate.)

The rest of the holiday, to be honest, was crushingly boring! Stuck in a top-floor apartment overlooking a square lining Via Giacomo Dina, the constant flurry of Italian words flying through the air from mouth to ears made me (and my brother) feel excluded from the family. With boredom came frustration, and more than once my grandfather shouted at me with a torrent of words I couldn't understand. Fortunately, as if a gift from heaven, a swing playground was nearby, and each day I went down the series of steps to escape the commotion of Italian domestic life. The return journey homeward was entirely by train, from Torino Porta Nuova to Bracknell. Later, Dad had to return to France on his own to collect his repaired car.

College Days.

Eventually, I left school without any qualifications at Easter 1968, then aged 15, and began work as an apprentice wood finisher. And "wood finisher" is the appropriate title, as French polish wasn't used at this family-owned business. Instead, synthetics were used, and much quicker, using a spray gun rather than the prolonged application of shellac by hand. My first task? To sweep the floor, a duty I had to engage in every weekday morning for the next three of the five years I worked there. Also, by working in an all-male environment, I had to endure teasing for being Italian, and also I had to absorb a lot of smut.

It was during this time, under Government law, the boss had to grant me a day's release to attend college, the London College of Furniture, located in Pitfield Street, in the London borough of Shoreditch. Before me, and leading up to my day, every apprentice attending college took the early morning train from Bracknell to Waterloo, then took the #11 bus to Old Street. I had to be different. I was the first-ever apprentice in the history of the business to take the Tube from Waterloo to Old Street, changing trains just once at the Elephant & Castle interchange station.

My method of travel caused pandemonium in the factory! Being the first-ever employee to use the Tube instead of the bus to get across London, other students began to follow my example, until the bus route was forgotten and the Tube journey to Old Street was standardised.

How did this come about? Due to becoming very familiar with the London Underground when I was still at school. Back then, my parents allowed me to travel to London for the day, mainly to walk the Chelsea Embankment and visit Battersea Park. But at the same time, I became familiar with areas around the West End and as far as the City, and thus, by choice, I familiarised myself with the London Underground. Having grown up in Pimlico, I might have left London at eleven years of age, but London had never left me.

And so, at age 16 and in my second year at college, I met a classmate named Andrew Duncan Stevenson. We became fast friends, and 52 years later, we still keep in touch, even to the extent of spending a day together in London like any two boys. 

Yet it was unfortunate for Andrew to have seen the weaker side of me. It was the end of college exams and the end of term, that we celebrated in a pub, despite still being underage. I got drunk on several glasses of whisky, and eventually lost all common sense and the self-preservation instinct needed to stay alive. We entered the Underground station at Old Street and acting as a drunk would, I swaggered as we made our way to the platform. I then stepped off the platform, onto a ledge along the tracks, a little way under the edge and inches from the rail. One slip and I would have burned literally to cinder from electrocution, had I touched the live rail. Instead, I climbed back onto the platform and staggered up the elevators.

Why did I behave like that? Really, because deep inside I was miserable. I was locked in a job I grew to hate and endured filthy smut, and relentless teasing from fellow employees. Furthermore, my apprenticeship was far from fulfilled, as the older employees who were meant to train us were reluctant to pass their knowledge on. Little wonder the firm eventually went out of business a decade or so later. All I was good at was pushing a broom - as well as the feeling of worthlessness within my own family.

By the time I was 18, I was taking a girl out, a ginger hair female with the name of Sandra. She had a younger sister, Alison, and one Sunday, Andrew coupled with Alison and I with Sandra, and we as a foursome took a train out from London Victoria to the coast, where we spent the day. It was to Sandra that I first asked how would she feel about spending a week at Butlins Holiday camp and sharing a chalet there as an unmarried couple. She was keen but Butlins wasn't. So, in 1972, our booking application for Butlins was rejected.

Feeling at a loss, I began to look through foreign holiday brochures. One holiday was within our budget, a hotel room at a Spanish holiday resort, a small town bearing the name Tossa de Mar on the Costa Brava. I then attempted a booking with the holiday firm Cosmos for the both of us. To my amazement, the booking was accepted. Apparently, Cosmos didn't hold on to the puritan morality of Butlins!

As the Spanish holiday began to draw near, our relationship began to deteriorate. The reason for this was that she wanted to tie the knot and feel the security of a married wife. I was too immature to take such a responsibility, but I agreed to marry her anyway. Then, in April or May of 1972, she eventually ditched me. I pleaded with her father at her Wimbledon home, but all he did was tell me to beat it, you're finished, and closed the door. As I sat alone on the train heading back to Bracknell from London, I was weeping.

Tossa de Mar, Spain.

I then visited Andrew at his home in Southall, Middlesex, and I wept in his presence. I then asked him how he would feel if he came with me to Spain in place of Sandra. He was willing. Furthermore, Cosmos was willing to make the booking amendment on condition that Andrew paid his full fare. August 1972, saw Andrew and me flying out with Dan-Air from London Gatwick to Gerona Airport, a two-hour flight that will be the start of a massive turning point in my life.  

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NEXT WEEK: Two Contrasting Holidays - A Bathtub and a Volcano lets off steam.

                                                           *****

Note: Permission was sought and granted for Andrew Stevenson's name and picture to be published here.

Travel Biography - Week 1.

Since I started writing for this Blogger page, there have been several readers who have either asked me or suggested that I write a book about my travel experience. However, there are a couple of problems with this idea. First, are there enough experiences in my life to fill a book with, for example, 326 pages, the exact number took up by Simon Reeve's travel biography, Step by Step? Indeed, Reeve had some extraordinary life experiences which were very unique for an individual who never attended a public school, nor ever seen the inside of a university - the normal steps taken by any average journalist, especially one who hosts his own TV documentaries.

Simon Reeve.

The second problem is the extreme difficulty in getting the book published, especially without the aid of an agency. As I said in an earlier blog, most aspiring authors have their manuscripts winging their way back to them after rejection from a publisher. The same goes for journalism, especially on TV and the fame that comes with it. It's a profession nigh impossible to get into. Therefore, having developed a desire to write a biography on my travel experience out of encouragement from others, I hope that I will make an effort here on this Blogger page which will result in an enjoyable read.

It will also be noted that many of these events featured in this series have had a mention, even several times, before now. Therefore, as I intend to highlight more of the background on which these events occurred, I hope to create a more coherent picture - the one showing that my travel experiences are intricately linked with my Christian faith.

The Beginning - Growing up.

I was born at Westminster Hospital in London on September 16th, 1952, to Gaetano and Laura Blasi, both full-blood Italians who met at a post-war Italian community at the Barbican and married a few months later in 1951. As the story goes, when Mum was giving birth to me, two weeks past her delivery date, it was said that an English midwife at the delivery ward cursed us for being "foreigners" settling in England during the food rationing while the country was still recovering from the war. Hence, it came as no surprise when my brother was born six years later at St George Hospital, a different site chosen from where I was born. After my birth, we then settled at an apartment in Lillington Street, off Belgrave Road, until I was two years old. In 1955, we moved to a basement apartment of a swish Victorian townhouse at St Georges Square, Pimlico.

My parents and I shared the one bedroom, we used a tiny kitchen, itself barely larger than a telephone kiosk and featuring a disused coal cellar, and a dining room with the old coal fire blocked and an electric heater standing in front of it. Next to the dining room was a windowless corridor resembling a mine shaft, leading to the basement next door. Beyond that was our inclusive bedroom, followed by a disused chamber, possibly another bedroom, its floor littered with discards from other tenants, including a perfectly-working spring-powered gramophone, and some wax records piled next to it. The corners and the window of this room were covered with huge, black cobwebs, and I wondered how these spiders managed to survive without any apparent bugs crawling everywhere. A straight staircase led one from the servant's quarters, where we lived, to the far more ornate first floor. Past the foot of the stairs, the corridor led to some disused cellars.

In the 1950s, many buildings in London were blackened by soot before the great clean-up instigated by the Clean Air Act of 1963. During Autumn and into the Winter, smog polluted the city air, and I wondered whether this thick and dirty fog had an effect on me during gestation, thus, according to my parents, I was born "mentally deficient" as it was known during those days. Yet, I loved thrills, such as climbing onto the bannister and sliding back down it. Yet, Mum didn't hesitate to send me to a corner shop around the block to buy items she had forgotten to buy earlier or had run out of before time. This was an important turning point which eventually led me to be an independent traveller.

Walks completed on my own included a frequent trip to the adventure playground in Churchhill Gardens, an estate of then newly-built high-rise apartment blocks. Actually, the adventure playground was for the immediate residents of the estate, therefore, living outside the estate, I shouldn't have been there, but there was no apparent by-law banning entry by outsiders. At least, my parents knew of my visits to the playground. What they weren't aware of at that time, I was walking further on to Battersea Park, across the river Thames over Chelsea Bridge, itself overlooked by the four huge smokestacks resembling an upturned table, that was Battersea Power Station. When they eventually found out, they were shocked, but not horrified, and I wasn't even told off.

Being "mentally deficient", I was sent to a special school, Wedgewood Primary at Marinefield Road in Fulham (now known as Ormiston Courtyard Academy.) I was happy there. Contrary to being mentally deficient, I was able to read and write quite well - well enough to be asked by the teacher to show my fellow pupils to read. As for maths, I was taught the Basic Four - addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division - and I received more red ticks than crosses on my finished work. In short, for one whose supposed to be "mentally retarded" I was actually quite bright.

At Wedgewood Primary, I was impressed with the four chimneys which overlooked the playground. Unlike those at Battersea Power Station, these four smokestacks were arranged in a straight row. These, I found rather fascinating. There were actually three power stations straddling the River Thames within my area during the fifties and sixties. Battersea Power Station on the south bank, Lots Road Power Station on the north bank in the western end of Chelsea. Like at Battersea, this building also boasted four chimneys arranged at each corner. Lots Road Power Station supplied electricity specifically to the Metropolitan and Circle Lines on the London Underground. Finally, Fulham Power Station, also on the north bank, had its four chimneys looking into our school playground.

Battersea Power Station as I remember it.

Grosvenor Road and the Chelsea Embankment (the same road on either side of Chelsea Bridge) linked two of the three stations - Battersea and Lots Road - and the wide sidewalk with its continuous row of Plane Trees provided a lovely stroll along the embankment. From Chelsea Bridge, both Lots Road and Fulham Power stations could be easily seen, and a view from Wandsworth Bridge, facing east towards Central London, provided views of all three power stations, with Battersea a clear 2.21 miles, 3.56 km away as the crow flies.

Walks along the Embankment had always intrigued me when I was a boy. These walks took place mainly at weekends or during school holidays. I loved the area, especially Battersea Park with its miniature railway, boating lake, fun fair, decorative fountains, skywalk, along with ice cream, doughnut, and candyfloss stalls lining the North Carriage Drive. To the south of the park, further away from the riverbank, a swing park kept me occupied as I gleefully swung back and forth - exactly as I did at a swing park whilst backpacking Australia some 34 years later in 1997!

Walks across London progressed further during this stage of childhood. And that includes finding my way to Natural History Museum in South Kensington, more than two miles from home. Another venue I fell in love with, and getting there on foot from St Georges Square was a breeze. And as such, the foundation for independent travel was laid, both by personal experience, beginning from a short shopping errand, and by getting acquainted with the mysteries beyond our shores by looking at coloured political maps housed in an atlas.

Back at home in the basement of old servant's quarters, Dad owned a Collins Atlas of the World. I loved browsing through it myself, and I soon became familiar with world geography. So intrigued was I, that I wanted to memorise the exact shapes of the continents, and I did this by taking a blank sheet of paper and drawing the outline of all the world's continents - maybe a little distorted, after all, I was still only a boy, but what lies beyond the ocean's horizon had raised my curiosity and fascination. My effort paid off. At our primary, each one in our class was given three sheets, each featuring a portion of the world map. The exercise was to stick the three sheets to make a coherent map. I was the only one in the class who got it right, and my work was put on display in the school hall for all to see.

But if you think that my childhood was all peaches and cream, then think again. Who thought that I was retarded? Although my parents suspected, it was the health professionals who confirmed this and recommended a special school for such backwards children.

The situation was compounded by our neighbours who had children slightly older than me. On one side lived a girl a couple of years my senior - and whom I took a special secret liking - acting more like an adult than I did. Two doors away lived two brothers who were making good progress at school, a mainstream school, I might add! Therefore, the worse thing my parents could ever do was to compare me with them. It had put a strain on our relationship, gradually making me feel worthless and undeserving of any praise. Yet, I did think of Jesus Christ, whom I was told, "was a very good man". During this stage of childhood, I wanted to know this Jesus Christ. In fact, I always wanted him as a friend.

However, with reading, writing and arithmetic reaching the levels of a normal child of similar age, one could have looked again at my IQ level, and that is what happened after moving to Bracknell towards the end of 1963, then aged eleven years old, and placed in a normal school. And obliged to dress in a uniform.  In this small town of English whiteness, how I missed the innocent life in a cosmopolitan city!

Like the time we were in our playground at Wedgewood Primary. During my time there, a set of apparatus arrived at our school and it was installed in the playground. It consisted of a set of steps leading up to a boardwalk. The first length of the boardwalk ended at a small disused beer barrel, open at both ends, then, from the barrel, the boardwalk continued on where it ended with a slide. It was loved by all the children and at every playtime break, an orderly queue of children built up at the start of the steps.

One afternoon, while all the other children were heading to their respective classrooms, one group after another in an orderly fashion, our class were the last to return for lessons. Before this daily discipline began, I climbed into the barrel and hid inside, peering through the bunghole to where the supervisor stood. From within the barrel, I watched as the rest of my class had to line up against the wall. Nobody saw me hiding inside the barrel. I made sure that my arms and legs were fully inside. Thus, as the playground emptied, nobody knew that there was a boy hidden inside the beer barrel, watching everything from the bunghole and fearing whether the supervisor would suddenly march angrily straight to the apparatus! Fortunately, I was afterwards able to slip into class unnoticed.

By 1963, for the whole family sleeping in one bedroom was becoming beyond a joke for Mum and Dad. I had turned eleven, and my brother was four. As my father worked for the Post Office as a postman and Mum as a part-time cleaner, Dad was eventually promoted to a counter clerk. But he also informed his employer that he must live somewhere where we can have separate bedrooms. By December 1963, we moved from Pimlico to a two-bedroom semi-detached house in Bracknell in Berkshire, a provincial town some thirty miles west of Trafalgar Square in London.

At Fox Hill Juniors, somehow, I felt different from the rest of the class. Unlike at Wedgewood, all the kids there were white and English. As such, with an Italian background (even if I was legally British) I was relentlessly bullied. Yet, it took a long time before I started to cry, a move which seemed to have tempered the bullying somewhat. How I missed London! How I missed sitting in a classroom shared with a black boy and with another Italian. How I missed the cosmopolitan feel of the city!

At around 2-3 years old.

The next five years of normal schooling proved to be testing, and there was a feeling of rejection by my parents, having been compared unfavourably with the neighbour's children. The fact that I was placed in the slow learner's class, despite my good progress at the London primary, only added to the aggravation.

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NEXT WEEK: A car breaks down in France, a brush with death, and how a Spanish holiday proved my downfall. 

A Trip to a Museum Has Shaken Me.

One of the benefits of retirement is that I can use public transport midweek, where on the trains, I can be assured of a full service without worrying about weekend engineering works on the line and the dreadful replacement buses slowing the journey down to a crawl. And so, a trip to London on the eve of the Queen's 70-year Jubilee extended Bank Holiday proved to be a worthwhile experience.

And indeed, I should be thankful. Very thankful! As I buy a Travelcard ticket from a machine and pass through the barriers onto the station platform, at the same time, there were hundreds, probably thousands, of passengers waiting to board an aeroplane, being told by a police officer that their holiday to the sunshine Mediterranean coast is cancelled. All due to staff shortages after shedding thousands of jobs due to the recent Coronavirus pandemic.

And so, I eventually arrive at the gates of the British Museum, located in the well-to-do Bloomsbury District of Central London. As I hesitated, a marshall called me over and asked for my small backpack to be checked. Thinking that I was unlucky enough to be randomly selected as if I looked to be a potential terrorist, I submitted the bag to his inspection. Satisfied that I won't blow the museum up to Kingdom come, he directed me straight to the main entrance without any further ado. It was at that moment that I realised that I was bypassing a queue leading up to the main airport-style security station, an apparently recently-erected separate edifice up to a hundred metres away from the outer gate.

British Museum, London. The main entrance.

Oh, what a shame to have such tight security checks just to visit a museum. As I recall previous visits to this venue over the last forty years or so, where anyone can just walk up to the main entrance without any bag checks, I see parents carrying their newborns and young children. Indeed, the coming generation will grow up to believe that security checks at public buildings were always the norm and think little or nothing of it. It's people of my age who sigh over the decrease in social trust.

In one of the ground floor galleries, a crowd had gathered around a large glass cubicle, their cameras, mobile phones and tablets snapping away as each took pictures of the Rosetta Stone housed inside the casing. And I sigh over this as well. I recall around 40 years ago when this particular exhibit was housed in one of the upstairs galleries. Erected on a metal stand, it was approachable to the point of touch. Back then, I recall a small group of uniformed schoolboys running up with the loud, excited exclamation, Wow! The Rosetta Stone! Indeed, those boys must have attended a good school, as I never heard of this ancient artefact until well into adulthood.

But why the need to house this massive slab of stone inside a glass casing remains a bit of a mystery. Maybe, with the constant touching, there was a threat of the writing carved into the surface suffering slow erosion, as if from a lead pencil on paper. Rather, the rock on which the writing is carved is a granodiorite stone, a hard intrusive material of igneous origin and related to granite. Not the type of exhibit in danger of crumbling into powder such as chalk, sandstone, or clay would. Yet, with Egyptian, Demotic and Ancient Greek scripts all telling the same tale of the Egyptian King Ptolomy, the Rosetta Stone became the key source for graphologists to learn how to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Or maybe housing the stone in a glass cubicle protects it from possible theft. But I still find it difficult to imagine an opportunist burglar snatching the stone from its place in the middle of the night and then making off with it, a slab around a metre in size and weighing a ton, stuffed into his duffle bag slung across his shoulder before making his escape! 

With ancient Egypt already on my mind, I made my way upstairs to the Egyptian Gallery. Here is a display of coffins which housed Egyptian mummies, along with some mummies themselves. They too were all in glass cases, but this time for a proper reason. Unless kept under special atmospheric conditions, the linen wrapped around the bodies of the deceased would quickly gather mould whilst on their highway to disintegration and ending up as a mere pile of dust.

Indeed, I always had a fascination with morbidity. For example, I once stood alone in the Catecombe dei Cappuccini in the underground crypt of a church in Palermo. Although open to the public, I visited during the off-season, when there weren't any other tourists about. The whole place was silent except for a constant flapping of a metal trapdoor attached to an air vent, giving the catacomb an extra feeling of creepiness as the rows of long-dead faces stared down at any passing visitor. Then not to mention the subterranean Catacombes of Paris, where I walked alone through a corridor lined with countless femur bones and skulls. Oh, the joys of an independent vacationer!

Therefore, I was drawn to the Egyptian gallery of the afterlife. Among the coffins and mummies, both humans and animals, there was one of a well-preserved body of a "strong young man" - according to the commentary panel attached to the glass case enclosing the corpse. According to the archaeologists, the body, complete with internal organs and leathered skin, was estimated as 5,000 years old. Sounds amazing. But as a Bible scholar, I knew that this young man couldn't be as old as five millennia. Or else, he lived around 600 years before the Noachian Deluge! If, on the other hand, he lived about the time of Abraham, around 2,000 BC, then this dating would be entirely plausible. 

The exhibit of the deceased ancient Egyptian.

Like the Rosetta Stone downstairs, this exhibit attracted a larger crowd than all the surrounding magnificent artwork of ancestry. But, as I approached it, a feeling of sadness came over me. Although I question the dating of this young man, yet, the panel still dispensed a lot of useful information about this unnamed individual.

When the body was first discovered buried and preserved in dry sand, they also discovered a stab wound just below his left shoulder, and since there was no sign of healing, it was assumed that the stab wound led to his death. This sort of situation can certainly be verified medically. If true, then all sorts of questions are asked in my mind. Who was he? Did he provoke an argument leading to violence and received what he deserved? Or was he an innocent victim of a vicious perpetrator? Or did he die in battle? Was he a slave who, with or without deliberate intention, displeased his master? Or a victim of a fierce rivalry or jealousy? Although we now know that he suffered a violent death, if only he would speak, to tell me about his life and how he came to this. And to hear him confess his involvement in a fight or plead his innocence as a victim of hate.

Eventually, the crowd dispersed for a moment or two, and I was alone with him. It was then I crouched down to his level and spoke gentle, soft words to him, the wanting to comfort, to give him hope and assurance. If you think that I'm a little bit insane or addle-headed to be talking to a dead person, so be it. What I expressed was in my heart.

The feeling I had was sadness, a longing to know him, who he was, although there were indications of being fit, strong and healthy and good looking, I also pondered on how he would have felt in my presence. Would he have jelled to me as a potential new friend? Or take an instant dislike, perhaps thinking of me as a threat to his ego or wellbeing, a possible sexual pervert, or just wanting something? Or would he see me as one of those religious hypocrites who make sanctimonious acts to hide a greedy, insincere or even a lecherous heart?

He lived during Old Testament times when reconciliation to God through the Atonement made by Jesus Christ hadn't yet taken place, thus leaving him to prop up his hope on Ra and other ancient gods in a vain hope to receive their favours. Or like in modern times, he might have been so deluded by the hypocrisy of all Egyptian priests and clerics that he eventually led a life of atheism. 

Such questions will remain unanswered for the rest of my life. In an overall question, I ask:

Had this individual been alive now, or had I lived in his day, would we be good friends?

I would also ponder whether had he been alive during New Testament times or even today, how would he feel about Jesus Christ? Had he been positive about God, then wouldn't it be fair that he's now lost for all eternity just because he was born at the "wrong" time in history? Or, by having faith in the true God, would he have been another Abraham, Moses, or Job?

And so, as I crouch in front of the glass panel encasing this unnamed individual, I think back to the time when he was born, a newborn held in his mother's arms and suckling on her breast. I imagine him growing up and playing the Egyptian equivalent of street football or cricket with his young friends. Then going to school, maybe preparing for university or even called up to serve in the forces. Or he might have been born as a slave, a property of little worth and later disposed of by his unkind master, or even by another slave. And so, the list of possibilities goes on.

I value friendship greatly. Living in a fallen, sinful world brings many sorrows, but having friends that would lead to brotherly love through faith in Christ brings endless benefits. As surveys and polls suggest that a married man is more settled in himself than a singleton, and his own self-esteem rises with the knowledge of his wife's love for him and her devotion. Also, I have seen that a single man also benefits from a devoted friend or group of friends. Maybe that was why Jesus had not only set up his church, but he had to lay down his life for it to redeem his people, and then refer to them as his bride. God's love for the Church is strong and with intense devotion.

Therefore, having recently lost a very good friend of several years due to my own sinful emotions and doings, not only do I look upon this poor deceased individual on display in the museum, but I also reflect on my own shortcomings, admitting my sinful nature and acknowledging my desperate need for salvation through faith in the atonement made by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, this condemned Jew two millennia ago, but his love and forgiveness are equally effective now. No, I don't need to be reminded of my own shortcomings. I am already aware of them. What I do need is love and forgiveness from God, his imputed righteousness, and reparation of our broken friendship that only God can bring about - if we let him.