Italy, France & Home
Return Journey

As far as I know, this article was never published

Throughout Yugoslavia and Italy we lost our propeller shaft at monotonous and ever frequent intervals. The managers of the many garages to which we were towed were understanding; the poor British tourist has no money, they knew that – and we were invariably allowed to sleep in the garage, as hotel accommodation was out of the question. For anyone interested, we can compile a brochure of the merits and demerits of the various garages in which we have slept; the one least to be recommended being composed of a tumble-down outhouse, pitch-black at night, where we were left still suspended over the inspection pit, with an eight foot drop beneath us into a sea of thick black oil.

The sixth, and last time the shaft dropped off, most of the interior of the back axle came with it; a mass of chewed up metal, resembling something that had been through a concrete mixer, lay in a heap beneath us. The shaft, curved like a boomerang, added to the general debris. We were glad to see it, as we knew at last that someone would have to take our mishaps seriously. We ended up at a garage at Vicenza, a small town midway between Venice and Verona, where we involuntarily made our home for ten days while we waited for spares to be flown out from England. We were given a secluded corner of the garage precincts, and every kindness was shown to us. We picked up quite a bit of Italian, mainly through the necessity of our daily household shopping, and in the evenings we watched rollerskating competitions which were held round a circuit in the centre of the town. To say we were hungry would be putting it mildly, and we sat in the sun outside the van with our interiors rumbling away like a distant thunderstorm, but thanks to Peter, who quickly picked up the pricing, we shopped around down the back streets, and became prudent and economical housewives.

On our release from Vicenza we celebrated with a bottle of Chianti, and set off to visit friends who were camping at Saint Clair, on the South coast of France. The van was running very quietly now, and it was a relief at last to be able to carry on a conversation while driving. We had been warned that we were still far from roadworthy, but that if we did not exceed 45 m.p.h. we should reach home without further trouble. To be fair, though the transmission troubles were something that should never have occurred in the first place, the engine, after 20,000 miles of rough going, was still as good as new, and will obviously last forever. The engine started up with not a single grumble in the coldest conditions, and when we negotiated hairpin bends on exceptionally steep inclines, in bottom or second gear for miles on end, our temperature remained as it always had done – safely on normal. The oil pressure remained constant, and our spare fan belts returned home with us, unused. Though we nursed it carefully with regard to oil and water at frequent intervals, it was obviously built to stand up to anything, and seemed content to soldier on regardless of the extremes of temperature it was asked to endure, and the hard labour with which it frequently had to contend.

We drove straight to Saint Clair in one long day’s hop, and stayed in the campsite with our friends for two nights. The route took us up and over steep hills, along winding roads and round hairpin bends, and although our rear end was behaving beautifully now, the gears were almost useless. The only way to engage any gear was to ram the lever in with brute force and then experiment gently to see which direction we set off in – no sooner were we off in the right direction than the gear slipped into neutral. As the driver needed both hands on the wheel in order to negotiate the steep corners, the co-driver was kept busy holding the gear lever in position. It was at this point that the entire cooking unit fell away from the wall on a particularly sharp bend, and all hell was let loose as we struggled to open up the floor to stem the leaking gas from the cylinder suspended beneath the van, and tie up the kitchen unit which threatened to break loose again at every corner. The two cupboards had come adrift very early on during the journey, and had been tied back with string and wire, and we had long-since sworn vengeance on whoever had decided to employ the shortest possible screws for this job. With the stove now on the wander as well, we both agreed that we needed three people with two pairs of hands each, to keep everything working properly, as the co-driver now had to dodge between his job with the gears to propping up the cooker.

As a penance for lingering on the way home, we rose at day-break on the second morning at Saint Clair, and drove 500 miles that day, at our somewhat funereal speed, which brought us to within a short distance of Granville, which we reached the following morning. I have always been glad that I did not know that this was the last night we should sleep in the van. It had become home to us, we loved being, virtually, out in the open, and watching the stars through the sky-light before dropping off to sleep on our hard little bunks, to wake in the morning at whatever time the birds thought we should be roused.

At Granville there seemed. little chance of getting ourselves and the van over together to Jersey by any of the recognised means of transport, and we literally hitched a ride back, the van lashed to the top of a hold, on a windy night. We had arrived in Granville with exactly 18/6d left between us and the workhouse, and cheerfully spent it on a sea-food lunch at a beach café, before putting in a reverse call to the family to let them know we should arrive about midnight. I think they had hoped for little more warning, as I have since learnt that the entire house was spring-cleaned within the hour, and a tremendous welcome was laid on for us at short notice, the house a mass of flowers, presents for us both, and champagne unlimited.

Looking back on the trip, with the many interests, the amusing incidents, our ups and downs, and the additions which we brought back for our butterfly collection, and which far exceeded our expectations, we are both in agreement that the most rewarding moment was when, on entering France, where petrol is 8/6d a gallon, we emptied eight gallons into the van from the tanks on the roof bought for 2/4d a gallon in Afghanistan!