Nineteen Hours To Newquay

This is a true account of a journey I once took as a young man of twenty-three years and though at first glance it may seem insignificant by today's jet-setting backpacking gap-year students it was nothing less than an immersion into events I could hardly predict. As it is often said: fact is stranger than fiction as are some of the characters I met equally stranger than any I could make up.In 1973 I decided on a whim to hitchhike from my hometown of Huddersfield to Newquay in Cornwall following the northwest Cornish coast road. In those days this was the usual route before the completion of the M5 to Exeter and a distance of about 375 miles. Hitchhiking was not unusual then and I'd done it a few times before but Newquay so far away was a leap of faith for me a distance I had never taken but felt I must. This is my memory while it's still there...