1976 – 1996
1. The Dark Room
During the 1970s I attended a Lancashire secondary school. Perhaps, one of the more unusual ‘O’ Level options I chose was art. I say, unusual, because I lacked dexterity, and couldn’t tell the difference between a Picasso and a Beano. However, several months into my art studies, an off-shoot of the discipline presented itself, which certainly opened up an interesting divergence – photography.
So, whilst most of the other students diligently applied themselves in the art classroom, a two-minute walk away, around the back of the school stage, over a period of months, I set to work with two long standing friends in the dark room to see how we could best exploit those unsupervised alternative curriculum hours.
For the sake of anonymity, I shall refer to these two chums, who are still good buddies, as Matt and Kev.
As the weeks rolled by, our bi-weekly trips to the dark room started to get a bit monotonous, with the focus for our attention being limited to the developing and printing of our photographic shoots from alongside railway lines, canals and the park lake.
However, our motivation levels rose the day that Matt brought in a collection of antique photographic equipment purchased by his father at a jumble sale a few days previous. I say antique, in all probability the goods were about twenty years old, but to us teenagers, that would have seemed like a lifetime ago.
We layered out this extensive range of gadgets and paraphernalia on the work bench and perused it, eventually picking up the least interesting looking items. They were a set of cannisters for storing rolls of film. One of them rattled, so we took its top off and tipped out the contents – a couple of undeveloped films spilled out.
Well, this had certainly aroused our curiosity. We closed the door, making sure that the external ‘No Entry’ infra-red warning light was on display to any potentially unwelcome visitors, and got to work.
Our main concern was that the films would be decades past their ‘use by’ date, making any viewable results quite unlikely. But we needn’t have worried. The images that appeared on the negatives were pristine and rather captivating to say the least.
The subject matter that emerged from these reems of celluloid was, as you have probably assumed by now, of an erotic nature. More precisely, they were nude black and white snaps of an older woman wearing lacy stockings and suspenders – but nothing else.
It was at this point that different aspects of our personalities came to the fore, which, as we shall see, ten years later, whilst on our travels and confronted with a similar subject matter, really hadn’t altered at all.
Matt didn’t want to waste any further time debating whether we should risk producing prints from the negatives. It was a no brainer. “Let’s just press full speed ahead and print the lot,” he said. Steam was starting to come out of his ears.
I just shrugged and said, “Yes, go for it. Print whatever you want, but can we just get on with it. I will be quite happy to give you my assessment at the end of it. “
Kev on the other hand was horrified by our industrial efforts to produce prints for each negative.
He stood leaning against the door. “Are you both mad?” he asked. After all, producing one discreet print was one thing, but spending half of an afternoon, using school resources to produce this illicit material was quite another.
Matt and I reviewed the prints. The texture and trappings of the photos looked like they were set in the 1950s. We speculated that they might not have been out of place in some vintage erotica museum – although quite how we felt to be in a position to make such a judgement at this point in our lives, I don’t know.
“And what”, Matt asked, with his foot wedged against the door, “if Rick Myan, the school’s photographic aficionado, decides to call by on a whim?”
But before we could spend time giving this anymore thought, there was a knock at the door- Rick Myan had indeed arrived, to send us into a blind panic. He was our genial maths teacher – we loved him. He wore thick lensed glasses and often visited local hostelries during his lunch time. Both of these factors must have contributed to the occasions that he misjudged the distance between his face and a quadratic equation chalked up the blackboard, resulting in a collision between his features and said equation. It had become the stuff of folklore.
But genial or not, we had no doubt, that if he walked in and saw our eye-catching prints, he wouldn’t have accepted our assertion that actually they were ‘fine art’. No, we would be having an immediate audience with the puritanical Headmaster. A suspension would have followed. The Head would then maybe have taken the prints home with him, for some detailed further investigation.
If we had not deactivated the infra-red warning light a few minutes earlier, we could probably have kept Rick Myan at bay for five minutes. As it was, within ten seconds knocking, he entered. I don’t know how we managed to cover up all the evidence, or put him off the scent, but hide it we did, and braved it out with embarrassed faces.
And what happened to all those prints? Perhaps Matt still has them. I will have to ask him. And Kev I am sure still thinks back to this escapade from time to time, and chunners, “Well that was nearly another fine mess you two got me into.”
But our take on the situation was rather tame. Indeed, I wasn’t short of pals at school who would have been keen to join our trio and turn the matter into a serious business venture. Multiple sets of prints would have been run off on school photographic paper and flogged at a hefty price to a range of sexually frustrated pupils. Innovation would have been the name of the game, drawing upon knowledge gained from our Business Studies classes.
2. Munich Travel Tales – Video Tapes and Male Bonding
But how might this introductory anecdote relate to travel writing? Oh, but it does – it is more than just a passing memoir-like revelation.
Roll forward ten years. It is 1985. The three young men, not long out of college, with assorted degrees, are still the cast. They are now embarking on what to them is a huge odyssey across European rail tracks – from West to East, and back.
Perhaps, it shouldn’t be too surprising that they still bring the same individual characteristics and traits to bear on situations in this expedition. And so here is just one of note.
We make our way on an August Bank Holiday Monday, from Liverpool to London, and then from London to Dover. From Dover, we sit on top of a sun kissed ferry as it makes its way over to the port of Ostend in Belgium. From there, we travel on the overnight sleeper, to the German city of Munich – capital of the Bavarian region. Although not much sleeping gets done. We have too much to catch up on and supplies of duty-free beer to get through, as we zip seven-hundred kilometres past Antwerp, Rotterdam, Cologne and Nuremberg.
As we step down from the train, we must feel like fishes out of water, not sure what this cosmopolitan medieval city, this birthplace of the Nazis, is going to throw at us, but it must be hugely different from the life experiences to date in our own parochial, provincial hometown.
We didn’t have to wait long to find out, observing the large numbers of commuters drinking lager with their espresso on the station concourse. Perhaps we joined them for a quick half – as if we hadn’t had enough.
But things were about to get more intriguing, as we headed out of the station, in the direction of a pre-booked hotel that was a ten-minute walk away. By fate, bad planning or (as some might argue) good fortune, this took us through the heart of the red-light District. And don’t for one moment assume, that at 8.30 am, all the shutters were firmly pulled down and the neon lighting switched off. Men in doorways tried to lure us into live shows or sex shops. We must have looked quite naïve, vulnerable and gullible, and I am sure we were all three of these.
In our defence, having nothing like this on offer in our hometown did make us prey to these wicked men. And we certainly had not travelled all this way just to experience more of the same.
However, we resolved to be steadfast and march straight past these dubious characters. Kev was probably stood behind us stiffening our resolve, giving encouragement and poking us in the back with a stick, saying, ‘No stopping boys, just march straight past.’
But then, after a few paces, we flagged a bit. Matt said, “Fuck the hotel, I am going in for a browse.”
Kev walked quickly past, assuming Matt would change his mind. But there was no chance, he had already disappeared into one of these ‘book’ shops, possibly forever. Well of course, one of us had to go and check if he was ok, so I immediately volunteered.
Thirty-five years on, one aspect of this particular moment in time stays lodged in my mind. It was the narrowness of the store I found myself in, alongside Matt. And here we both were with hefty rucksacks and tents on our backs. We started to turn 180 degrees, to view the shelves behind us. Videos, marital aids and other assorted paraphernalia (a lot of which, we quite frankly hadn’t a clue as to their purpose) started to be knocked to the ground. We weren’t proving to be the most popular of customers.
“Either buy something, or get out.”, the proprietor shouted.
“All right mate,” Matt replied in his worst German, “We will be back soon, with some cash.”
We stepped out and spotted Kev, a hundred metres in the distance. “Couldn’t you really wait, until after we had checked in, before looking at that stuff?”, he asked. But I think he had already had his answer.
As we opened the door to our triple room though, a far bigger disagreement emerged. There was a single bed, and two single mattresses that were housed within a double wooden bed frame. The hotelier got into all kinds of semantics about when is a double bed, not a double bed, but at the end of the day this is what it really was.
And so, I say, pointing at Matt, “I am definitely not sleeping with you.”
“That’s right, you are not!” he replies, nodding at Kev. “You are sleeping with him instead.”
“But that’s even bloody worse,” I protest.
“Too late,” he exclaims, and crashes out on the single bed.
We were to learn over the coming weeks that this kind of sleeping arrangement was quite normal for triple bookings across the continent, regardless of sex. As real men, it was just something we had to accept, and look upon it as an opportunity for some male bonding.
We resolved our differences through drawing lots. This was to occur at various hotels along the route, as we each sought to fight off this challenge to our manliness.
I have to report though that not once did I win the chance to sleep alone, although I must admit, by the time we were halfway through our odyssey, it had in my mind assumed the natural order of things. I couldn’t after all see what those guys were getting so upset about.
But back to that first morning in Munich, Kev and I crashed out and caught upon an hour’s sleep. Matt meanwhile nipped out for a spot of exploring. A couple of hours later, we were awoken as he entered the room rustling a carrier bag. He sat on the bed and removed two adult videos. Well of course I looked over his shoulder, at what judging from the cover pictures, could best be described as retro-porn – the era and scenes looked like something out of an adult slapstick ‘Carry-On’ film, from the 1960s or 1970s.
“Well, you can ‘carry on staring’ (did they ever make one with this title – it would have been apt) at those things for as long as you like”, mused Kev, “But you won’t be able to play them in this room – Not unless they sold you a video player with the films. I am surprised you didn’t ask!”
“Perhaps, if we ask them nicely at reception, they will hire out a viewing room to us,” I said. Matt raised his eyebrows.
We ventured out that evening for some steins of lager and suckling pig at the renowned Hofbrau Haus. We laughed some more at Matt’s outrageous purchases, which he had stored away in a concealed compartment of his rucksack, where no doubt they were more weatherproof than his passport. However, the implications of travelling with these goods had now begun to dawn on us. This ran far deeper than any of our slap and tickle, innuendo jokes.
3. Budapest Journey- Crossing the Iron-Curtain
Iron Curtain Travels: Passing any Austrian custom’s check, the next day, as we crossed over the border and into the spectacular Tyrol Mountain setting of Innsbruck, was not likely to pause any problems. After all this was still Western Europe, where tolerance in many things, not least those that might be classed as ‘adult entertainment’, ruled.
But what about after we had spent a few rain-soaked nights under canvas in Innsbruck and Vienna, gathered our soggy gear together (the tapes of course were still perfectly preserved) and got the hell out?
This was the start of our journey into the lonely heart of darkness. We are boarding a train that is to take us behind the Iron-Curtain, where satellite countries very much fell in line with the wishes of Mother Russia, and unelected governments ruled with an iron fist.
It was half a decade before any semblance of Perestroika was to emerge in Gorbachev’s Russia, where a kind of openness and debate was encouraged. We were sure, as that train departed Vienna, that the possession of hard-core pornographic tapes (for this is what they were) would be frowned upon by our Hungarian ‘greeters’. They would be seen as an indication of Western decadence, with some kind of detention to follow.
And just how might we have reacted as individuals, if we had been nabbed? Would we have assumed collective responsibility – ‘All for one and one for all’? If three films had been bought instead of two, might we each have been willing to carry one? Somehow, I don’t think this would have happened.
As our train started to slow to a halt, at the Austro-Hungarian border, we were in for a very tense few minutes. I leaned out the compartment window, and there they all were, a long row of soldiers and inspection officials lining the platform edge – waiting to scrutinise the credentials and rummage through the luggage of the train load, before allowing passengers to pass into the East.
Kev then also leant out and straight away spotted the scope for mischief. “Hey mister,” he shouted, as the train clunked its way slowly past the first officer, “He’s in here,” adding as he pointed up to the luggage rack, “Look it’s up there. That’s where you need to search.”
A few seconds later, as the train pulled to a halt, he tried it again with another officer. Both of his targets had just stared emotionless at us. I don’t think they were used to being spoken in such a manner and clearly didn’t approve of our attitude.
I was starting to wonder about the wisdom of this high jinks. And certainly Matt, who stayed sitting in the corner was getting a bit of a sweat on.
Sniffer dogs were let loose under the train, at the same time doors were flung open and the entire reception party boarded. One by one compartments were entered and searched, seats pulled back and tipped up, passports and visas demanded and scrutinised, and then our most feared outcome, random luggage inspections. Matt must have been saying his prayers, because it seemed that it was written in the stars that we should escape this trauma and were mightily relieved.
We still had the return border crossing to look forward to – during this leg, we shared a compartment with a rather well-spoken employee from the British Embassy in Budapest and his daughter. I am sure the subject of videos wasn’t raised once during the journey. Possibly, we were contemplating the scandal that was about to erupt, as we approached the Iron Curtain. “Top Embassy Aide arrested in Porn Smuggling Ring – Protests Innocence.” But we were doubly lucky making it back into Western Europe, and past Dover customs as well without incident.
4. Whitby – The Present
But looking back to the days of the school dark room, there were distinct similarities – the merchandise, the high level of risk, the looming catastrophe. Had we really changed that much? If we went on a similar trip today, would we display distinctly different personas? – probably not.
The news is that we indeed joined up for a recent jaunt to Whitby. An advanced planning meeting at our local Wetherspoons was held.
“Bloody fish?”, asked Matt, “It doesn’t sound very exotic.” (or was it ‘erotic’?).
“Can’t we push the boat out a bit further, so to speak?”, I asked, “What about Hamburg?”
“Haven’t you heard of Covid? ‘bloody fish’, sounds safe enough to me”, retorted Kev, and so ‘bloody fish’ it was, washed down with lots of vino and real ale.
(And now there will be a short intermission. You can either put the kettle on or play the short joke below about reunions across time and Wetherspoons. It is in keeping with the story so far. )
5. International Courier
The quest for knowledge
If things are likely to go pear shaped on an unusual trip, then there is a chance that this will happen soon after crossing the border, might be a lesson here. This certainly applied to my time as an international courier.
Sounds interesting?
In 1990, I found myself recuperating on an Egyptian desert road from Luxor to the Red Sea settlement of Hurghada. I had spent several days with a bad dose of Pharoah’s Revenge. But the breeze streaming through the bus’s windows was refreshing. I started to perk up and chatted to my neighbour on the other side of the aisle. She was an Australian woman, on an around the world trip– who I shall give the name of Linda. Sat in front of me were a New Zealand couple – whose acquaintance we were also to make.
I asked the Linda how she had got as far as Luxor and my ears pricked up when she said that she had been employed as an onboard Courier on a Sydney to Cairo Quantas airline’s flight.
“But what were you couriering?” I asked. “Was it legit or is it a secret? Should I really be making your acquaintance?”
And so, she spun me her trade secrets, and the deeper Linda got into her story, the more rapidly my excruciating stomach cramps started to be replaced by butterflies. I was reading my future.
Our exchanges over the matter went something like this.
“What exactly do you carry with you on board?”
“Just a lot of documents that relate to cargo in the hold of the plane.”
“But what kind of cargo is this?”
“I don’t know, I never get to see it.”
“Never get to see it? Never get to see it? – But what exactly is your role in all of this?”
“I check in at a designated desk at the airport for non-conventional passengers. A man then appears from the courier company and hands me a large, sealed envelope containing a range of cargo documents.
The cargo I take care of can be quite varied on any single flight, being the property of several different companies. But in order for it to be transported by the airline, it has to have an identified owner who travels on board with the manifests– this is where I come in.
Collectively, the companies can’t all afford to go sending their staff off to travel with that cargo – think of all the time off away from their desks, and the absolute tip top airline fares they would have to pay. So, it gets streamlined – a courier company steps into the mix and recruits people like me to help out.
So, one person sits on board with all those manifests for several companies, rather than a representative for each organisation. On arrival, I report to a specific counter, hand the manifests over and job done!”
“And is this a full-time job for you – aside from all the travelling?
“No, rather it’s a key means of funding my travel – the courier company tells me of the different routes they fly and the dates across several months for which couriers are needed. In return for signing up for one of these flights, they sell me a heavily discounted flight ticket – in the region of 70% off.”
I was still a bit reticent about this. If something sounds too good to be true, it generally is. It all sounded a bit dodgy, but Linda had, apparently travelled far and wide using this wheeze, and hadn’t from what I could gauge, been thrown in jail at any point along the way.
“But surely, there must be some kind of catch,” I stated.
“Well, only hand luggage is aloud. So, I just use a large bag, and buy clothes along the way.”
“Is that all?” I asked.
She stared at me hard. There was a pregnant pause. I waited for some tale from her of having had to swallow a condom of heroin at check in, or another high-risk activity. But instead, she said, “Well it is a requirement on each flight for the courier to dress smartly, ideally in formal business attire.” And she looked me up and down.
“Look I do own some suits you know,” I said, “I can improve on this.”
But at the back of my mind, I was recalling those retro-suits that still hung in my wardrobe, with the extra wide collars. Perhaps if I ever got to the bottom of this courier lark, a new suit would be an investment after all.
The following morning, Linda, the New Zealand couple and I hired a boat and captain to take us out to the various coral reefs and beaches that were situated off the coast.
We spent a blissful couple of days, jumping over the side and snorkelling among shoals of exotic tropical fish and chilling out on which ever beach the captain dropped us off at next.
I joined them later that night for dinner. There were probably a lot more queries I had for Linda, but I didn’t push it. I didn’t even ask her for the name of the courier company she used, in case it was one question too many.
I am sure though, that if it had been a quarter of a century further on, I would have been straight onto my smart phone, tracking down those industrial secrets – planning for the future. Possibly even booking my next flight, as we ate grilled tropical fish on the boat, off the Red Sea coast.
No doubt about it, after several days of excruciating stomach cramps, Hurghada, with its natural unspoilt beauty and Linda’s tales of the unexpected, had recharged my batteries.
At the end of the evening, we all went our separate ways, but without this sojourn and Linda’s intell., many of my future travels would not have been affordable.
All this was a far cry from five years later, when I passed through Hurghada again. In the meantime, the dinky airport had been transformed by a large new runway and a Boeing Jumbo Jet that arrived weekly from Frankfurt. The number of hotels and neon lighting had risen in proportion. A flotilla of boats made their way out each day to surrounding islands, coral reefs and lagoons with turquoise waters. The amount of alcohol consumed and flesh on display and dope smoked was at complete variance with local sensibilities adhered to on the mainland.
Sometimes going back can be a bad idea –it just shatters cherished illusions.
And finally, life on the inside
But back to that 1990 trip to the Red Sea and Linda’s revelations, I made many phone calls on arriving back in the UK, asking companies if had they heard of such a venture as cargo couriering. I think in response there were a few snorts and people saying things like, “You cannot be serious man,” or “Well if you find anything out, make sure I am the first to hear.”
But I knew I was getting close to the truth the day the transportation company Amtrak told me that that they certainly did use couriers. However, these were their own full-time employees. Then the man on the line added a revelation, “There is, though, a small company based at Heathrow Airport, called Polo Express. I believe they use freelance couriers. I’ve got their number here, if you want it.”
I thanked him, put the phone down, and if he had been there in person, would probably have kissed him. It felt like I was finally getting to the heart of the matter in my quest for knowledge.
It was a Saturday and Monday morning could not come quickly enough.
“Good morning,” said an elderly sounding lady, in a clipped tone, “Polo Express, Janice speaking, where are you looking to fly to?
“Where am I looking to fly to?” I wanted to shout. “Wherever you want! Damian Rainford at your service. I am your man.”
It was the start of a professional relationship of sorts – Janice and I – that lasted several years. I am sure that by the end of it, we were on first name terms.
Kuala Lumpur –
Roll forward a few months later, as I am checked in as onboard courier, on the British Airways evening flight from Heathrow to Kuala Lumpur. How the hell was I going to keep my suit all pristine looking during the fifteen-hour flight to Malaysia?
This though, as we neared journey’s end, was to be the least of my worries. The aircraft had started its descent and we were strapping on our seat belts. The cabin crew made a very important announcement. “The Malaysian Government has asked us to point out to all passengers that the smuggling of drugs into Malaysia carries the mandatory death sentence for anyone convicted of this offence.”
What, not even an appeal allowed? Well, why couldn’t they have bloody pointed that out before we left London, I wanted to shout. But instead, I just grimaced, and my cheeks flushed. I wondered how different life might have been, if I had caught that service bus from Luxor to Hurghada a day later, and never met Linda. Were things about to seriously unravel? Surely, it had to be some kind of setup. Well, I am here writing about it now, and so clearly not. But my days as courier were not without their quirky, as opposed to dangerous, moments. Here are a couple.
Barcelona –
As I am checking in at the Heathrow Airport courier desk, onto a BA flight to Barcelona, a small assembly gathers behind me. Above all the chatter stands out a higher voice that I recognise, with an octave and quirkiness all its own. I turn around and there is the celebrity magician and television presenter Paul Daniels.
“Oh hello, “where are you heading to?”, I ask.
He responded, “Well, myself and camera crew are all Moscow bound, where we are filming some shows.”
I had to turn back round to the counter, where the manifests were being handed over to me. A moment later, when I looked behind me, about to wish Mr Daniels good luck, they had all vanished in a puff of smoke, or something like that.
Budapest –
A decade after my rail trip across the iron-curtain into Budapest, I was back this time as a courier. I stepped off the plane, with no mucky videos to worry about this time, just all those manifests.
Working for Polo Express had now become second nature to me. I climbed down the aircraft staircase onto the tarmac on a muggy August afternoon. I proceeded to the courier desk, where a smartly dressed lady with her auburn hair up in bun, and not a strand of it out of place, waited for me.
Now I didn’t exactly wave the manifest’s envelope up and down in the air, in a frantic manner, to attract her attention. Instead, as I stepped to the counter, they remained in my shoulder bag. Perhaps this was my first mistake.
“Hi,” I said, ”I am the London courier.”
She threw her arms up in disbelief.
“But why are you so late?”, she rasped, in a raised voice.
“Late?” I queried, “I got here as quick as I could.”
What did she expect me to do? Vault over the custom’s barrier?
“You should have been here forty-five minutes ago,” she said in disgust.
Well yes, I suppose the plane was a bit late arriving in Budapest. But what could I have done about it? Have a word with the captain and ask him to wriggle his joystick and put his foot down, or whatever it is they do, to speed things up?
“It is a condition of your employment that you report to us on time. Otherwise, you could seriously compromise our operations.”
Well what bollocks she was talking, and I was coming close to telling her so. Instead, I just stood there bemused by her rant.
Suddenly she jumped up from behind her desk and said, “Quick follow me.”
We rushed down several moving walkways, probably nearly knocking people over in the process, and through a door, which took us outside onto the edge of a runway. There in front of us was a British Airways plane. The surrounds started to have a very familiar feel to it.
By now her auburn bun had started to unravel itself. Lots of strands were hanging down the side of her face. Beads of sweat were running down her forehead.
She marched over to a set of steps that led from the tarmac to the front of the plane’s interior.
Now it was my turn to shout.
“There is no way I am getting on board that plane,” I said.
“Ugh?” she responded.
As the rear set of steps were being detached from the aircraft and wheeled away, she probably added, “Look this is no time to argue, just got your arse up these steps now!”
“No!” I said, “There is no way I am getting on board that plane and the reason is, I have only just got off it.”
It was then that I noticed the large envelope that she had been clutching with ‘On Board Courier’ splashed across it. She was about to shove this into my grasp but thought it prudent to check my identity first.
“OK, just show me your passport please. Your name is Morgan, yes? And you are the courier for London?”
“No,” I said, “Definitely not. My name is Rainford and I am the courier from London.”
At the same time, I retrieved the manifests envelope from my shoulder bag that I had transported from Heathrow and said, “I have been trying to hand this over to you for some time now.”
Her head dropped and any semblance of professionalism went out the window.
“What the fuck,” she said.
In conclusion
But what of couriering today? Does it still exist? Well, you will just have to do your own research on that one.
Possibly, in this increasingly digital age, all that cargo now gets transported virtually via some black hole.
Alternatively, down at Polo Express, maybe Janice has handed over the reins to her daughter, who is perhaps there right now at her desk. A consignment of cocaine is next to her. She glances up at a framed picture of a fair-haired fifty- something woman on the wall and shakes her head in wonder. “Well, well, well, Agent Linda,” she marvels, “You fooled them all for decades. RIP my dear.”
Damian Rainford
Back Home to http://theancienthighway.com
