Monday, April 09, 2012

Venturing abroad

Matlock station was the starting point for my childhood trips to France.

For the first leg I would be put on to the train for London – on my own. I then had to negotiate the tube from St Pancras to Victoria (no direct Victoria line in those days) by following the blue lights in the underground passages.

One thing which I look back on with mixed feelings now: almost invariably as I approached an escalator with my (small, soft topped) suitcase, a man coming from behind me would grab it, say I’ll take that for you & disappear down the steps at a lick. He, of course, remained in view & always, as he had promised, left it sitting waiting for me on the floor, to the right, when I reached the bottom myself.

Just a different world.

At Victoria I would join a group of other children from all over the country to be escorted on to the boat train, ferry & train again to Paris by a nice lady who was employed by an organisation with a name something like Educational Tours Ltd.

I am sure that I did not have a passport, until the British Visitors passport was introduced in 1961, so I can only assume that there was some special arrangement for this

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