Last updated on 21/10/2024
Chapter 10. Back to England.
Part of my novel The Road to Ancona.
When they arrived back in Basel, it was raining again and drops kept coming in through the skylights on the coach roof. During the journey, everyone who had watches turned them back an hour as they passed into another time zone. Dark grey clouds hung over them. On the road to the airport, the coach had become quiet, almost funereal. The passengers sat in silence. Even Richard had stopped talking and Michael had put his notepad back into his knapsack. Basel airport was in uproar. The commotion was due to the returning Swiss football team and crowds of people thronged the terminal building. Large numbers of people had gathered to welcome them. A brass band was trumpeting out military-style music. The weather had worsened and the flight was delayed for three hours. They were lucky; some of the other tours had been there all day waiting for the flights to leave. As the flights were eventually called, people cheered. The group from Galaxy Tours was ushered into a lounge to wait for their departure. The boys had just enough money left to purchase some ‘duty frees’. Michael bought two hundred cigarettes for five shillings (in the English money of that time.) Richard brought a bottle of brandy for fifteen shillings and a bottle of whiskey for eleven shillings – presents for his granddad and mother.
At last, there was a break in the weather and the group boarded the aircraft for its return journey to Manston. They said goodbye to Chico; even though he had caused them so many problems, the boys were almost sad to see the last of him. He had been with them throughout most of the holiday and it seemed strange that they were leaving him behind.
The aircraft touched down in Kent just after midnight. It had been a turbulent crossing, particularly over the channel. Hitting a very rough patch, the plane started to descend rapidly and Michael grabbed hold of Richard’s arm; he was unused to flying and this caused him some alarm. When they disembarked from the aircraft, it was pouring with rain and they got soaked on the short walk from the aircraft to the Terminus building. The tour representative escorted the group to the customs shed but then sped away on a motor scooter. The tour operator’s bus took them back to London through the wind and rain. The boys arrived back at the coach station at 3 am – three hours before their train home. The storm had disrupted air travel and had also stopped a lot of the coaches from running. People were lying around all over the lounge; some were sleeping on the floor and others were sitting on benches looking miserable and fed up. The boys settled down on the floor and made themselves as comfortable as they could. They ate the last few scraps of food they had with them; nothing was open in the coach terminus so they could not get a drink.
‘Do you think it’s been a good holiday, Richard?’
‘Yep. It sure has, Michael. It’s had its ups and downs but I’m glad we went. I liked Cattolica. I think, after all, it was a better choice than Rimini. I think we might have been overwhelmed there. But the best thing about it was meeting the girls. We struck lucky with that trip. I have never met so many really nice girls in such a short space of time.’
‘My favourite was Carol. I got on well with her. I think she was the saving grace of my time in Cattolica. I don’t know how I would have managed without her. So, Richard, who was your favourite?’
‘Jane, of course. She’s given me her address and I promised I would write to her. We might even meet up. She gave me her telephone number at the place where she works. Will you be writing to Carol?’
‘Yes, definitely. We exchanged addresses and telephone numbers and I promised her faithfully that I would keep in touch.’
The two friends talked about their experiences, shared their thoughts and exchanged opinions about the people they had met. They did not sleep. The sun came up and, at half past five, they left the coach terminus and walked the short distance to the train station.
As Michael and Richard walked through the streets of London, in the cold and wet weather of an early August morning, their thoughts were of the streets of Cattolica, its warmth, its friendliness and its noisy bustle. Michael was relieved to be treading on proper pavements again and the air smelt fresh. The buildings around him seemed so large, so high, so old and so blackened with grime. They noticed tourists looking at the buildings and taking photos of them, a familiar sight after Rome and Milan. They caught the first train at six o’clock. On the journey home they said little to each other. Even Richard was subdued.
Michael stood in the living room of his parent’s house feeling dejected. Everything looked different. It seemed smaller and shabbier than when he had left it two weeks before. It looked grubby, the furniture looked old and dilapidated. The floor was covered in carpet that looked worn and sad. He had arrived home with five shillings in his pocket and thought he had managed well on the twenty-five pounds he had taken with him.
Michael changed into his smart clothes and set off for work. Unwashed, bleary-eyed and unshaven, he entered the office where he worked. The manager was impressed that he had bothered to turn up at all, given that he had only just arrived back.
‘You had a good time in Italy then, Michael?’, the manager asked, looking at the exhausted teenager.
‘Yes. It was the trip of a lifetime. I have so much to tell everyone. I’ll be talking about it for weeks to come.’
‘Oh bless you,’ one of the women said; they had gathered around him to welcome him back. ‘We will all be looking forward to hearing about it and what you got up to.’
The manager took pity on the poor teenager and sent him home. He doubted he would get much work done until he had rested for a day. Back in his bed, Michael quickly fell asleep and did not wake up until the next morning. His dreams were filled with ancient buildings, crumbling ruins, white-walled houses with slatted shutters and scenes of high mountains and lakes surrounded by pine-covered hills.
During the months that followed, the boys wrote to the girls they had met at the resort and Michael had several conversations with Carol on the telephone and they wrote many letters to each other. He kept those letters for the rest of his life and would sometimes read them to remember the times he had and the people he met. Their contents added a great deal of additional details to his own records from his notebooks. Michael enrolled on a course at his local college to learn Italian and took out several books, from the local library, on Roman history. As soon as the new brochures from Galaxy Holidays came out, they all went to the travel agents to get copies. Although there was some talk, in the letters, of doing it all again – Michael and Richard never did. Not Michael, he never went back to Italy, although several of of the others went on their annual packaged holiday to various parts of the world.