Saturday 21st January 1984
Checked out of the Youth Hostel at 09:30 hrs. following a colossal draught of water to combat the desiccating effect of last night’s ouzo. We wandered down to Omonia Square lugging our baggage which we dumped in the office of Consolas Travel before continuing down to Syntagma Square for a final coffee in the sun.
We needlessly hurried back due to the time being wrong on the Consolas Travel clock which was well fast. We sat on our packs to await the coach to Venice. At 12:00 hrs. we were told to “follow me” and we joined the party jostling through the busy streets of central Athens to an opposite corner.
It would seem that little had changed since Simon Calder took the Magic Bus in 1975. He relates his experience, which was similar to ours in 1988:
That frightful week, I caught the last bus home from Athens. Buying a ticket was reassuringly tricky. You had to find a certain doorway in a side street off Syntagma Square, climb four flights of rickety stairs to a scruffy office where 1,700 drachmas changed hands. Your name was laboriously and inaccurately added to a passenger list and you were handed a scrap of paper which purported to be a ticket.
'Finally it turned up: I'd thought it would be psychedelic, but it was a just an ordinary, boring old coach.' A ropey old Bedford 53-seater, hopelessly unsuited to foreign travel, which had somehow limped from London to Greece. It was now presuming to crawl back along the E5, the European superhighway linking Syntagma Square with Parliament Square in London.
Forty-eight passengers got on. The back row of five seats was reserved for the drivers, and always occupied by a prone figure. The hot-seat changeover was the norm, with one driver taking over from the other in a bewildering manoeuvre where the main aim was to keep the accelerator flat on the floor. Stopping the coach had to be avoided whenever possible, because the starter had given up its struggle outside Zagreb.
We bundled onto the bus with all the usual commotion that is synonymous with large groups boarding a vessel with too much hand luggage. We set off and drove on to make a second pickup at 13:00 hrs. which delayed us until 13:40 hrs. when we resumed our journey.
I put on my Walkman headphones to blot out our companions, humming along to The Doors Greatest Hits as we left the dense buildings of Athens and rolled smoothly through the rounded Greek countryside. I finished reading Irvine Wallace’s “The Plot” and my batteries gave up the ghost, so for the next 30 hours (a 36-hour, 1153 miles trip!) I had nothing to distract me from the mad scenario that unfolded around us on this mobile stage.
We knew of the Greek tendency to get over excited, but this trip was well over acted. We were initially caused to be appalled by the stores accrued by our fellow passengers. Two old biddies had bags of comestibles that filled two double seats, along with two suitcases each in the boot.
Two girls to our right chain smoked avidly, ate constantly, drank frequently and had a range of medications and cosmetics that would stock a modest branch of Boots the Chemist.
Our journey is best presented in the format of a play.
The Characters
1. Reggie Weeble: a colossal overfed Greek in a trendy grey jacket who spent most of his time eating or standing in the aisle. Weebles is a range of children's roly-poly toys originating in Hasbro's Playskool division on July 23, 1971. Tipping an egg-shaped Weeble causes a weight located at the bottom-centre to be lifted off the ground. Once released, gravity brings the Weeble back into an upright position. The catchphrase "Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down," was used in advertising during their rise in popularity in the 1970s.
2. Reggie’s Mum: the elephantine mother of the aforementioned barrel of lard, who was prone to exaggerated amateur dramatics. She kept giving us motherly smiles and initially tried to stitch us up with the next two characters.
3. Totem Pole: a masculine looking bird in a yellow rigout who had come prepared to withstand a siege and liked to shout and put on an exhibition.
4. Soapy Green: friend of the above. Dressed all in green - trousers, jumper and scarf. Prey to advances from Ratty. Sported huge sunglasses and adopted a trendy pose.
5. Ratty: horrendous little man, small and furry, balding, irregular teeth with a few gold ones chucked in, feral ratlike eyes which rolled back when he talked, lips that had a mind of their own when he spoke. Constant fidget and attention seeker with carrier bags full of travel brochures. Reminiscent of excitable, toned down version of the Elephant Man with a penchant for young ladies.
6. Keith Richards: Rolling Stones guitarist clone who was part-time driver and coach “housekeeper” with a fixation about maintaining the coach in pristine condition. Made himself popular by trying to ban eating on the coach! Came up to scrounge frequent fags (cigarettes) from Reggie and the girls. Thought he was “the kiddie” at international borders and tried to build up an atmosphere of sinister suspense at border crossings.
7. Auntie Bertha: Kindly looking old lady with red hair and glasses who deemed it her duty to supply the occupants of the coach with snacks and sundries. Kept us happy with chicken, crisps and sandwiches.
8. Glamour Puss: Flabby bird with exaggerated ideas of her own beauty. Her only claim to fame was a mass of brown hair which she constantly caressed and played about with. Flitted from one bloke to another and spat like a wildcat when “threatened” by other females.
9. English Kid: English mum, Greek dad. Our translator and supplier of free books and fruitcake. Fancied himself as a hard bitten marine in the future. At present a naïve schoolboy with romantic notions (bless him).
10. Joe Knowledge: Scruffy looking Greek know-all know-nothing bloke in a cheap anorak and stubble. Assured us that it never snowed in London and predicted that the coach would be delayed by fog in Italy. It wasn’t – far from it!
11. Nellie: A boisterous old Northern English woman who laughed loudly and grumbled and generally appeared to be intoxicated all the time.
Bit Parts
1. Mr Spock
2. Aloof denim-clad French bird
3. Aussie/Greek Prince Andrew lookalike and his diminutive but rounded girlfriend
4. Jim’s Mum: An avid and animated spectator to the mobile pantomime who looked like our friend Jim Bascran’s mum.
The Scene
Front end of a modern coach with blaring bouzouki music.
Between Athens and Thessaloniki there was much commotion and exuberance around us. Reggie Weeble moved from his seat where he had been wedged in with his mammoth mother in defiance of the laws of physics. They each took up a seat and a half so, together with their possessions and provisions it was a miracle how they had managed to squeeze in between the window and the outer seat arm.
Reggie settled into the vacant double seat across the aisle to our right and expanded back to his normal size, leaving just enough room for the nervously excitable Ratty to slip in on his left-hand side. Feverishly fingering his Walkman, Ratty soon got into a riotous exchange, brimming with sexual innuendo, with Totem Pole and Soapy Green.
Reggie and his mum joined in to contribute enthusiastically and before long Keith Richards was yelling his twopennyworth from the co-pilots seat (When somebody offers their opinion about something, usually to an ongoing debate, they might say " . . . that's my two pennyworth" [pronounced 'penneth']. It conveys a sort of modesty by valuing their opinion as only being worth two pence). Jim’s mum had her head craned round chortling at the riotous and lewd exchange.
They eventually calmed down but as the evening wore on the clamour was rekindled by Ratty who would utter an outrageous comment or don his Walkman and sing along loudly along with frenzied waving of his skinny forelegs (arms) as if he were conducting an invisible orchestra.
We stopped at a Roadhouse and left our new “companions” stuffing their faces to watch a burning tractor tyre outside and put away a bit of mum’s fruitcake supplied by our curly haired translator. These wholesome hunks of cake were individually wrapped in tin foil and doubtless came with a time and date on which to consume each slice on the 3-day trip to London.
Back on the coach the actors settled down for the night and we did our best to get some shut-eye on the reclining seats.
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