Travel Biography - Week 129.

The Birth of our Daughter - Reflecting on the Past.

By mid-October of 2000, we finally landed at London Gatwick after a 4-hour flight from Tel Aviv.  A train ride home marked the end of my travel career as Alex's pregnancy progressed.

Excluding foreign holidays with my parents during the sixties, my overseas travel experience as a singleton spanned 26 years, from 1972, when I flew to Spain with a college friend, to 1998, when I flew to New York to escape the World Cup football tournament. As a married man, our first trip overseas was our honeymoon to the Greek island of Rhodes in 1999, followed exactly a year later with a two-week celebratory trip to the Holy Land. The last overseas trip to date was the 2019, one-day trip to Brussels in Belgium, using Eurostar.

Christmas 2000 came and went, and expectations were building. This included installing a cot next to our bed while we were still living in the bachelor's bedsit apartment, my home since I flew the nest in 1976.

I cuddle my firstborn daughter.

February 2001 came around, and our firstborn daughter Rosina was born at Wexham Park Hospital in the Slough area of Berkshire. At the age of 48, I became a father for the first time in my life - an age when my school classmates would already be grandparents. Unfortunately, the baby was in a breach position on the day of delivery, therefore, we agreed with the maternity medical team for an elective caesarian birth. The operation was successful. When the purple-skinned baby was lifted out and started to cry, my own legs gave under emotion and two or three nurses held me up as I blubbered.

Alex was then wheeled into the recovery room before settling in the post-natal maternity ward, her general anaesthetics keeping her asleep for the next hour or so. That was when the newborn was handed to me and I sat alone in a separate room with the child, asleep in my arms as I watched her chest under some clothing rapidly rise and fall.

From that moment, life would never be the same again.

Yet, I felt so much affection for my daughter as I kept on looking at her. As I sat there with the baby cradled in my arms for the first time ever, I dwelt on all the happenings of the past - from the time I was bullied at school for my inability and uselessness in team sports, my first job in a family-owned furniture factory, pushing a broom across the workshop floor and told by the foreman that I was virtually worthless, the one-year courtship with my first girlfriend and how she terminated our relationship, my conversion to the Christian faith in December 1972, and the benefits arising from this, including the time I brought a Gideons New Testament to work, and the same foreman who thought that I was of little worth, turning red with fear at the sight of the small holy book. As a result of the conversion, I enjoyed a knowledge explosion, especially on geology and natural science - which led to my love for travel.

As I held my daughter, I concentrated on all my past trips as a single backpacker.

I thought about all the trips to Israel - Jerusalem! How privileged I was to have walked its streets as an independent traveller, and to gaze down at its historic beauty from the summit of the Mount of Olives. Not to mention the Sea of Galilee with its fishing boats and nets spread on the ground back then. That was where Jesus spent a large part of his ministry. To see the Bible come to life! My first trip to the Middle East on my own in 1976 stirred gossip in the engineering factory where I was working, and my colleagues saw this trip as something of a sensation, the talk of the town. 

I thought about the wonders of the North American continent. How the Niagara Falls in Canada, Salt Lake in Utah, the majestic Grand Canyon in Arizona, and even the tropical species of coconut palms of Florida contrasts with the buzzing life of New York, the semi-tropical setting of San Diego, the fun at Disneyland in the Los Angeles district of Anaheim contrasting with the sorrowful news of the death of the King of Rock, Elvis Presley, while I was walking the streets of Chicago in 1977.

Ah, the Grand Canyon! I recall the two hikes there. The first hike was in 1978, the second in 1995. Both were on the same trail - the Bright Angel Trail leading from the Village to join with the North Kaibab Trail at Phantom Ranch at the Canyon floor, close to the Colorado River. And it was towards the end of the 1995 hike that I went down with hyponatremia, a potentially fatal condition caused by the thinning of the bloodstream by excess drinking of water without the adequate intake of salts. As I lay in agonising muscle pain on the deserted trail under a darkening sky, two hikers arrived, and seeing the state I was in, one of them carried my heavy rucksack over a short distance to the Mile-and-a-Half rest station, where I spent the night alone in the hut before resuming the hike after daybreak to finish unassisted at the trailhead. Afterwards, a cup of electrolyte drink helped me on my way to recovery before heading south to Phoenix.

Who knows - had it not been for the timely arrival of those two hikers, my daughter Rosina, sleeping soundly on my lap, might never have existed!

My beloved daughter, Rosina.

Then, less than two years later in 1997, after five days spent in Singapore, I found myself snorkelling over the Great Barrier Reef. I visited three islands, Green Island, Low Isle coral cays, and Border Island one of the Whitsunday archipelago which are continental islands with a fringe reef attached to them. Together with the Blue Mountains National Park with its waterfalls at Katoomba near Sydney, in reflection of all these destinations around the world, it looked as if Providence had compensated for the wretched teenage years I went through - failed academically and bullied at school, or the Lost Years as I sometimes refer to that period of my life, lousy at team sports, hence rejected by the team captain, both my parents and my first employer giving me a low worth evaluation, and yes, at times I felt suicidal.

Now looking back, how well I was compensated. And now, about to enter a new phase of my life albeit rather late - fatherhood.

About an hour after the procedure, a nurse summoned us as Alex was wheeled from the recovery room to the post-natal ward, where she needed to spend the next few days before being transferred to Heatherwood Hospital Maternity Unit in Ascot. Daily transport to Wexham was very difficult by either bus or train as there were no direct services, so I had to depend mainly on my inlaws, Alex's parents, as well as church friends, to take me there and to bring me back home for the night, the distance on the road being over 17 miles or 27 km.

After three days at Heatherwood, Alex was deemed good to return home with the baby, the start of a new life with a fledgling family.

Living in the Present Day.

As I write this blog, at present, I'm 72 years old, and a State pensioner. I find walking difficult, gaining leg muscle aches if the distance is long, say, more than half a mile. Hence, I now keep walking well under restriction - quite a contrast to hiking the Grand Canyon in 1995, the strenuous Dorset Coastal Path in 1996, or even the Broadway Walk through Manhatten in 1998. 

I have never driven a car in my life, therefore if I'm not using public transport, I ride a bicycle to get where I need to go. But even this is becoming more difficult, especially on Sundays in inclement weather, when I need to cover 4.5 miles predominantly uphill to get to our church in Ascot. Again, this contrasts with 1990 for example, when I rode the length of Britain from end to end, as well as competing in triathlons across the country.

Having suffered from a regurgitating aortic valve by 2015, I had to go under the knife at Harefield Hospital, Uxbridge, for a major cardiac procedure to have the valve replaced which involved open heart surgery. Sometime after recovery, I attended a special exercise class twice a week for six weeks at Windsor Leisure Centre specified for cardiac patients. When the twelve classes were over, I was advised by my GP to carry on exercising, which I did at the Bracknell Leisure Centre. On my 63rd birthday, I retired from paid work two years earlier than the legal age of 65, yet still later than many professionals who tend to retire at 60. 

I tended to injure myself in the gym at my hometown of Bracknell, with one instance being taken by ambulance to Frimley Park Hospital directly from the Leisure Centre, I have swapped the rowing machine and treadmill for the swimming pool, and to this day I lane swim for an hour once a week.

As for Travel, at my age and declining health, it's no longer a priority. Right now, it's just Alex and I living together, secure in a safe, robust marriage. This year, we celebrated our Silver Wedding Anniversary with a meal at a self-serving buffet restaurant in the town centre. But gone are the days of overseas travel, yet remaining rich in memories, backed by many photo albums.

Alex with Rosina and her younger sister, Louise

I was very fortunate to have taken advantage of overseas travel when I had the opportunity! In my day, we were a member nation of the European Union. Take 1991 for example. That year, I rode on a bicycle from the Weymouth area to Dover, then the morning after arriving in Dover, I cycled from the hostel to the harbour, bought a return ticket to the French port of Calais, and boarded the ferry as easily as boarding a train. Absolutely no hassle. All I had to do was show my passport at the appropriate site.

Now that we had left the EU, if I wanted to board a ferry to France, I would first have to apply for ETIAS, that is to receive authorisation to enter the Schengen countries of Europe. And there's a price to pay for the authorisation. Furthermore, at the port or airport, there's talk of facial recognition scans and fingerprints taken before boarding. This, to me, who has travelled, is the sad consequence of Brexit - a national mistake that should never have occurred.

Likewise, for Britons to visit the USA, the ESTA, an electronic visa-waiver authorisation document was introduced after the 9/11 attack at the World Trade Center in New York in 2001. At the time of that disaster, Rosina was seven months old, thus long-haul travel was already past. But before 9/11, buying an air ticket to the USA was as easy as buying a train ticket.

At age 55, my 3rd daughter, Victoria, was born.

Hence my Travel Biography is complete. For all those who have read all or most of it, I hope that it was an enjoyable read. Just a final reminder: that it wasn't my original idea to write it. It was started after giving time for consideration when several of my readers requested it. Some even suggested writing a book, but since the Internet has taken over our lifestyles, the humble book seems to be going out of fashion. I look around the church. Some read their Bibles on an electronic tablet. Furthermore, using the Internet eliminates the risk of rejection of the manuscript by the publisher.

What I will try to do next week is create an index blog of this Biography with links to each section. For example, there should be a direct link from the index to my childhood and teenage years, my first backpacking experience, in Israel in 1976, the USA in 1977 and 1978, a direct link to the USA in 1995, and Round the World in 1997, along with links to other parts of the Biography. Thus, if you wish to read any part without excessive scrolling, I hope this index will enable you to do so.

I thank you all for reading, and I hope you've enjoyed it.

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.