|
|
No Home, No Job, No Worries
Big Issue Aug 11th 1997
When
he lost his flat, writer CJ Stone decided to go on the road. How will he
cope with life in the slow lane?
I'm not a New Age Traveller. For a start, I don't have dreadlocks. I
don't have nose rings or a baggy jumper. I don't even have a dog on a
piece of string. But I do live in a van.
I can't say that I made the decision consciously or deliberately. It
wasn't a political statement. I lost my flat at the same time that my
car needed its MOT, at the same time that I discovered that I needed a
new engine. It would have cost me the best part of a thousand pounds to
get it back on the road. I needed a vehicle and somewhere to live. Then
I saw the advert: "Converted Ambulance for sale, £1600." It was just
around the corner from my Mom and Dad's house. I fell in love with it
immediately. I bargained him down to £1300, and two days later I was the
proud owner of a 2 Litre Ford Transit Disability Transport Vehicle
converted into a camper van.
It has a bed and a table and a cooker and a sink and storage space and
shelves and curtains and lights. My Mom made the curtains while my Dad
fixed the lights. It even has a toilet: a nasty little chemical loo in a
wooden cubby hole, which I only use on the rarest of occasions. I soon
learned not to travel when there was anything in it. Half a nauseous day
washing the stinking blue stains off the walls and floor and door of the
toilet space after a ride down a particularly bumpy track was enough to
score this lesson on my consciousness forever.
At first I was nervous. I wasn't at all sure I could handle it. Where
would I park? How would I bath? What would I do in the evenings? I'm the
sort of person who genuinely needs people around me. How would I cope
with life on the road? But, actually, it's no where near as difficult as
you would imagine.
Parking up can be the most difficult. So far I've slept in several
car-parks, several lay-bys, one or two festival sites, and - once or
twice - just by the roadside. I haven't yet found the perfect place. But
everywhere I go I'm always on the look-out. It's like everything else:
when you have a need your brain automatically goes into problem-solving
mode. I spend a lot of time pouring over maps for ideal sites, I'm
asking around amongst the travellers, I'm registering places in my
memory for future exploration. And I've no doubt I will find a site.
Despite the appearance that the whole world has been parcelled and
packaged into neat little plots for the profit and pleasure of the
moneyed classes, the fact is that there are still nooks and crannies out
there for the intrepid traveller to nestle into. I'm an optimist. I've
always believed I have a place in the world.
One solution which always comes in handy is the pub car-park. That way
you kill two birds with one stone: something to do in the evening, and
somewhere to sleep that night. All you have to do is to ask the manager.
I haven't been refused yet.
The beauty of it is, you never know where you're going to end up. I've
been having a certain feeling I've not had since I was a child. You
know: you wake up in the morning, and for the first few seconds you just
don't know where you are. It's exciting. And then you look out of the
window, and some new sight greets you: some tree you've never seen
before, rustling in the breeze, or the vast stretches of some dreamy
English scenery which makes your heart leap in appreciation. One day I
woke up in the carpark at Avebury in Wiltshire, and thought, "bloody
hell, I'm on a racetrack!" It was the morning after the Summer Solstice.
It must have had something to do with what I was up to the night before.
I mentioned bathing. Actually, that's the easiest part. My Mom came up
with the solution. She pointed out that in the old days people didn't
have baths, but that they still kept themselves clean. She told me to
get a bowl of water and a flannel. And then she quoted an old saying of
my grandfather's: "You wash up as far as possible. You wash down as far
as possible. And then you wash Possible."
One problem I had being a writer on the road, was where to plug in my
computer. I have a mains hook-up system. I used to have to stay on
camp-sites whenever I wanted to do some work. This had two
disadvantages. Firstly it cost money. Secondly I was constantly being
distracted by jovial holiday-makers laughing and playing bat and ball on
the manicured lawns. I wanted to kill them for their impudence. And then
I found the solution: solar panels. Now I can work wherever I want. So
I'm not only a travelling writer, I'm ecologically sound too.
Of course it's easier for me than for a lot of travellers. Being a known
writer I carry an NUJ card. I also have an income. If the police ever
stop me - though they haven't so far - then I'm fairly certain they'll
leave me alone. I plan to offer my services to other travellers. Having
a witness on site should come in handy. At the same time I can maybe
learn a little more about the travelling lifestyle from the more
seasoned veterans.
There's definitely a hierarchy amongst travellers. Bottom of the pile
would be someone like me: naive, untutored, unlearned, unable to fix my
own van even, living in a camper van rather than a truck. Even the
toilet lets me down. Real travellers don't have toilets. They dig a hole
and do the business under the stars. Next up would be the one's who took
the lifestyle up during the rave era: people like Spiral Tribe, who are
even now travelling in Europe. Above them are the convoy people, of
course: the one's who went through the battle of the beanfield in 1985,
and who can say, "I was at Stonehenge in '75, man," and then regale you
with some implausible tale of how many drugs they took in one
out-of-this-world session.
Finally there's Del. He lives on Dragon Hill near Glastonbury, which is
now a permanent travellers site. Del is not only a New Age Traveller:
he's also a full-blooded Gypsy, and he can cite travellers lore going
back at least six hundred years. From the thirteenth century to the
eighteenth, he told me, it was illegal to be a Gypsy. You could be hung
for it. His father told him that the only way they survived was by
fighting and cursing. Del keeps up the tradition, only now he directs
the curses at Security Guards on road-protest sites. The Gypsy curse is
still illegal, he tells me.
And now I begin to appreciate what the travellers, New Age and
traditional alike, have been telling us all these years. Living in a van
is cheap. No mortgage, no rent. No obligations. If you use a vehicle
anyway, then your expenses are no more than you would expect in normal
circumstances. And on top of that there is the sense of freedom and the
exhilaration that brings. Freedom can be addictive. To go where you
want, when you want. To feel the whole world as your personal domain.
It's no wonder successive governments over the centuries have tried to
clamp down on the travelling lifestyle. It's far too good, and being
good it is also dangerous.
Top 10 Travelling Tips.
1. WATCH OUT FOR THE LAW. The Criminal Justice Act effects every aspect
of the travelling lifestyle. Section 60 means the police can search a
vehicle at any time. Sections 61, 62, 77, 78 and 80 removed local
authorities duties to accommodate travellers, meaning an increasing
number of evictions. However…
2. TRY TO STAY ON LAND OWNED BY A LOCAL AUTHORITY. They still have
duties to provided land in some circumstances and they’re not likely to
shoot at you with a double-barrelled shotgun. Yet. If you can’t find
any, then choose derelict or undeveloped land to minimise the risk of
upsetting the people who live there all the time.
3. USE A CANVAS TARPAULIN. Use plastic and you’ll regret it. Canvas
breathes but plastic just gets covered in nasty condensation. First rule
of being a traveller: look after your tarp. If you lose everything, then
you’ll still have a home.
4. TAKE A BOW SAW. This is a standard wood-cutting saw, usually. 30
inches in length and carried by all travellers in the know. It’s ideal
for cutting wood, although to be environmentally friendly only use dry
wood. A bow saw means (a) travellers can have the equivalent of Sunday
morning B&Q-type conversations about home maintenance and (b) fuel for
their…
5. WOOD STOVE. Environmentally friendly and homely too.
6. CLEAN UP YOUR RUBBISH.
7. DO NOT BLOCK RIGHTS OF WAY AND BE NICE. It’s no good protesting
against roads if you deny others the chance to enjoy the countryside.
The genral rule of travelling is: be civil to people and they’ll be
civil to you. Well they might not be, but that’s their problem.
8. WALK YOUR DOG. If you must have a dog (and for lone travellers and
women it’s often a necessity) walk it often and keep it under control.
9. TAKE A SPADE. If you want to be a real traveller, you just have to
get used to recycling your own, personal, biodegradable waste the only
way nature know how.
10. HAPPY TRAVELLING. Enjoy yourself.
|