Chapter 107: Back to Glasto

Chiswick - Glastonbury, Part I

Two years ago Coady took me right to the gates of Glastonbury and wished me luck. I had no ticket and it turned out, no luck either. But I concluded that the journey, with its characters and their morsels of wisdom, anecdotes and threads that I still hold today, had been more important than the outcome. I still have friends from that day’s hitchhiking, so apart from several hours spent struggling through overgrown forests and a pair of ripped jeans, I’d not wasted a thing.

This time though I had a ticket. The destination was definitely more important than the journey.

“Where are you going, mate?” Asked a man, leaning through the window of his van. We were on the edge of the Chiswick petrol station, London.

“Glasto,” I replied.

“That’s bloody miles away!”

“It’s not that far.”

“What Glasgow? It’s miles away!”

“No Glastonbury, the festival.”

He shrugged and shook his head. Never heard of it.

Another man stepped off an electric scooter between us. “Glasto?” He said. His accent was cockney and his voice upbeat. “What drugs you got on ya? You must have some drugs!”

“What famous people gunna be playing there?” The van driver asked simultaneously.

“Listen I went twice, and I had a great time,” continued the scooter driver ignoring the van driver, “But that’s going back…I’m in my 50s now… You’ll have a great time.”

“If I get there,” I replied. I had been waiting half an hour and had a bad feeling about Chiswick Roundabout.

“You’ll get there, man!” he said with a bat of his hand. “No, listen, I admire you. What you’re doing is old fashioned… what do they call it?”

“Hitchhiking.”

“Yeah that’s it. It’s a thing of the past. And probably why they put it as a thing of the past is that movie Hitchhiker. You ever seen it? He starts giving it yeah.” The man flicked his eyes suggestively. I’ve never seen the movie so I wasn’t sure what ‘yeah’ meant nor the suggestive eye flick.

“Anyway good luck to ya man!” He rode away on his scooter.

The van driver offered to take me to Woking but I said it wouldn’t be much help. It was the hottest day of the year. There was no shade on the pavement, just tarmac and exhaust. I was faced with a huge brick wall above which the Great West Road became the M4. I thought I was better off here, on the Chiswick Roundabout.

I once heard that when they were building the Chiswick flyover, a West London gang disposed of bodies in the concrete pillars. Their secrets were sealed with the setting concrete. I also heard there used to be a man who lived under the bridge. It was said his wife and daughter were killed in a crash on the roundabout and that’s why he never left. He stayed there 40 years. Kids used to wind him up and everyone but the very kindhearted called him the A4 Tramp. His real name was John Dwyer. When he died they raised £3000 for a plaque but it was never put up. A safety risk apparently. They planted a tree instead. I wondered which it was.

An old lady in a yellow T-shirt passed me by. She stopped, set her trolley upright and began telling me a story. “I had a friend from Scotland,” she said, “who stopped to pick up an old lady,” she said old like orrrrd, “It wasn’t an old lady. It was a man..!”

She felt her way through the story, trying to remember its details. “That’s right she saw her hands and they were hairy and…and unless she was a transvestite… So she stopped at a petrol station and the man got out and she drove to the police station. No, she drove off, she was in Scotland remember and then stopped - safe place obviously - and looked in the bag and there was a rope and everything.” She lightly touched her neck. “You should be careful.”

I promised I would.

After two hours I began to feel faint. I regretted not taking the lift to Woking. A car pulled into the lay-by up ahead. Hauling everything onto my back was a strain but I needn’t have bothered. The passenger got out and knelt by the tyres. I set it all back on the ground.

At nearly one o’clock another car pulled into the lay-by. I didn’t bother running after it this time. But after a few moments, I heard a horn toot and saw a beckoning arm silhouetted through the windscreen.

The lady said she could only take me as far as Fleet. I got in. Anywhere was better than here.

“I was on the phone to my husband,” she said as we drove, “he was like ‘Don’t do it Donna! Don’t pick him up!’ But I did it anyway.”

Donna worked for a second-hand car company. She’d pick up cars and drive them to be sold at auction in Fleet. The BMW we were in had come to the end of its lease. It was bashed up and there were dents everywhere. It had even failed its MOT. “Don’t worry it’s safe,” Donna said. They were going to charge the previous owner £3.8k for the damage.

I was still feeling faint and was struggling to string a sentence together. I was strangely exhausted. Over the hedges I could see a tall plume of black smoke, chimneying into the milky blue sky. “Looks like a fire,” Donna said and I craned to see where it came from. I couldn’t tell. The bushes came up too high.

Half an hour later Donna dropped me on the Fleet junction. I got out and lugged my bags to the slip road. Mercifully, there was shade this time. Still, it felt a long way from Glastonbury.