We started off badly. First we were late catching our ferry at Dover, then we took a wrong turning in Belgium and eventually we arrived at Aachen at about 8 in the evening very tired. Charlie started to put up his mini tent, and Jill made some supper on the cooker. I met in the washroom a German who inquired as to where we were heading, and I replied : “ Turkey”
“You will never get there” he replied. “Tomorrow there is a National Holiday and the roads around Munich will be absolutely jammed. Your only hope is to drive overnight and get past there before the morning”. So we took his sound advice, we had our meal and tired as we were we drove on. Whilst I drove. Jill slept in the comfortable bed alongside Charlie, and then two or three hours later we reversed the arrangement, and we passed Munich early in the morning before the rush.During the next day we went through Austria and stopped for the only full night’s sleep at Linz. Early next morning after an early breakfast we were off  again and over the border into Communist Yugoslavia where we stopped and bought provisions in Zagreb. We left that city and about 20 miles later we hit the Turkish exodus. The German holiday had that year coincided with the Turkish Baihram festival and all the Turks from Germany were heading south in a mad rush which covered both sides of the highway and which the authorities were powerless to organise or control.  For the next ten hours we covered only 30 miles, a lot of the time Charlie and I just played chess on the bow of the boat as we were stationary. Eventually as night fell I saw a minor road to the left, and instantly went down it and then found that there was a turning which took it over winding hills  on a parallel route  through to Belgrade which we reached deserted at midnight. We had escaped the nightmare traffic jam. Next morning we were into Bulgaria. Through an error I had got my visa stamped in the wrong passport, so I had to bribe our way into that depressive land where there was not a shop or even a fruit stall on the side of the road. It seemed as if  all day one was driving through a gigantic regulated open air prison. At midnight we were at the Turkish frontier to be directed into a vast compound of vans an trucks stationary waiting to meet the authorities. Jill felt almost hysterical by this time, but again luck came to our rescue as I drove in slowly I spotted a road leading through a building site. We drove steadily through past the mechanical diggers and cranes all stationary and we we came out the other end almost by the ‘exit’  gate. A Turkish policeman stopped us wanting to see our papers and asked about the boat and its engines. I explained in my smattering of Turkish that the boats had no engines only sails and Europe now was only one country without passport controls. I was summoned to his office, we both smiled and laughed and exchanged cigarettes, the passport was stamped and we were on our way barely a quarter of an hour after entering the border post! It often pays to be cheeky in finding a way through, a trick that I had learnt early in my life in the POW camp in Japan.  We heard later that some people had been there for three days trying to get through.
By dawn we were crossing the Dardenelles  going past Gallipoli to Ecabat and then taking the ferry to Chanakale  near the ancient city of Troy, and then the last 300 miles to Izmir where we arrived at Father's’ new pigeon hole of a flat  in the early afternoon. His  maid met us in great consternation mentioning something bad about Roget which I could not fully understand with my limited Turkish. But when I  saw Father he told us the sad news that poor Roget had died only three days before whilst we were travelling, from a sudden heart attack. He had been at Lidja and had passed an evening with my Italian sailing friend Calix. Next day he had called  back at about ten in the morning to say that he had forgotten his cigarette lighter. He picked it up and then turned to Calix. “You know I am thrilled I have just done the most wonderful deal on cotto....” He never completed the sentence but  just collapsed and it was all over.He was aged only 54 five years older than myself and to think we used to play together under the old pepperina tree in Lilian’s and Lucy’s garden as children was a  very sobering shock!  He had been a brilliant businessman, had made pots of money but somehow he was a sad individual plagued by a mad wife whom  he could never take out prone as she was to jealousy and a shrewlike  tongue. Although married and loyal to her he never was blessed with a companion in whom he could confide and be proud  of. Instead his wife was a burden and a sorrow that he just had to bear.

Next Page 2/5

Audrey La Fontaine & Paul.

Stoneways 2006

Lucy, Annabel, & James 2006.

Anna and family at Catherine's & Roger's 2007.