HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE
“Nicky’s gone again!” The cry would go up across the garden fences and down the back alleys. Soon after I began to walk, I learned to climb fences and to fall down the other side and to wander the world. It was a safer world for little boys in the 1950’s, and I always knew there would be a grown-up to take me home. Or if my dad was on a late shift (30 years at the Gas Works - he cycled the seven miles there and back in a sort of trance - I pointed him out to school friends, but never bothered to say ‘hello’ - he was on another planet) he would come and find me and take me home on the little seat on the cross-bar. I wonder if boys do follow the male hunter/gatherer pattern more than girls? When teaching my students about sex, I often say that the Boy is nearer the surface in Man than the Girl is in Woman. And wasn’t it Nietszsche who said, “In every true man there lurks a child which wants to play?” And Sheena told me that “The only difference between men and boys, is the amount of money they spend on their toys!” But I digress.
Hitching round Europe in jeans and a T-shirt, I was usually picked up by lorry drivers. And in those far off days, lorries weren’t the all singing, all dancing, luxury liners that they are today. You usually sat beside a noisy, hot diesel engine in a smoke-laden cab, and shouted inanities at each other about football and women.
Then one Sunday afternoon, my moped broke down on the way to a preaching engagement. So I was forced to hitch in a suit. I was immediately invited into a sleek, purring jaguar and after a short journey and a fascinating conversation, dropped at the door of the church.
So then on my travels, I packed all I needed into a large black leather briefcase, wore a suit, carried a brolly and only put my thumb out for fast cars. It worked! Pleasant journeys, interesting conversation, free meals with doctors, publishers, business people, dons and doyennes. What a variety!
There was the hospital Matron who picked me up outside Bideford and told me how many times she had failed the driving test and had been to court for driving as she was now - without a licence. Fortunately, space does not permit me to tell of the tipsy, Belgian nymphomaniac, the gay masseur, the jeep load of hippies…
I always prayed for them all (and still do, although I am the one who gives the lifts now), but I learned early on that God sometimes had more to say to me through them than I had to say to them about Him. It has profoundly affected my preaching.
Woman Alive monthly column
