To set foot in God's own country

In the summer of 1979, I finally made it to Italy. Not to Amalfi unfortunately but to Italy.

Basically, I managed to get some money together doing agency and part time work. I worked stuffing envelopes for Barclay's Bank, as a receptionist for BICC's offices in Bloomsbury and a couple of other largely unexciting jobs. When I thought I'd got enough, I packed my back, went to Victoria station and bought a return ticket to Turin - getting the ferry from Dover to Calais and changing at Paris Gare du Nord.

Over the next week or so, I zig-zagged across Italy spending the days in whatever the city was that I'd ended up in that morning and then getting a night train to the next place. In order to be able to sleep on the train and get a decent kip, I always made sure that the journey was long enough. I went from Turin to Naples, from Naples to Venice, from Venice to Rome, from Rome to Milan, and so on and so forth. I went to Pisa, Parma, Florence and Bologna as well.

What a trip that was. I was awestruck by the things and places I saw. I was speaking Italian to real Italians and they didn't turn their noses up at me the way those girls had done four or five years ago in C'Martin. This was jumping in at the deep end. I don't think I ever spent more than a day in any of the places I went to.

In Napoli Centrale, I had a fella (who I've always assumed was gay) sit next to me and grab my balls. Poor bugger got a shock when this young, baby-faced, foreign tourist told him 'va fancul' e' mammete'. I never saw anyone run so bloody fast in my life.

I fell for a rip-off story and gave some fella about £20. Gullible? You bet I was.

I tried to get to a little village called Alife in Campania (province of Benevento I think) to find some friends of nan and grampa's - Salvatore and Carmela Iameo. I can't remember what happened but I didn't find them.

On the train going back up country, I got talking to a couple of American matelots (US Navy for the uninitiated). I'd a couple of sticks of JPS fags that I'd bought as presents for Salvatore and as I didn't smoke at that time, I was trying to offload them. I asked these lads if they liked English fags. Their turn to be worried! They weren't big on English fags but they took the ciggies.

I ended up having to get back to Turin with the last bit of money I had left and headed for home. The money hadn't lasted long but it was my first taste of Italy and one that very quickly grew on me.

Amalfi or bust!

Dad inherited the car. A white, or off-white, Morris traveller. You know. The one with the wooden trim. I don't remember how old it was but it was in immaculate condition. Grampa looked after it impeccably. I used to have to start it with the starting handle because he didn't want to use the battery. It used to annoy the hell out of him when nan scratched the windscreen with her diamond ring when she was wiping it.

Anyway. It was summer 1977 and me, dad and Neal (one of my brothers) were going to drive down to Amalfi. We were going to take our time and do the whole thing on spec. I don't remember much about the drive from north Devon to the port and I don't remember which port we went to. I figure that it must have been up on the south-east coast because we drove through Picardie when we got off at the other end.

It was in Picardie - in Reims to be precise - that the whole grand plan came crashing to a grinding halt. We were driving through Reims and were crossing a crossroads when a car hurtled into the side of us ... or was it the other way round. It must have been us who drove into his side. Why? The Morris was a write-off.

It was towed to a garage and with what French I'd learned in my five years at comprehensive school, I established that the fella reckoned that it would cost more to repair than it was worth.

What did we do? We got the train to Paris and decided to spend a few days there instead before heading home. We wandered around until we found a little boarding house in Rue Faubourg St Denis. It looked like a perfect city centre spot.

After we'd had a bit of a kip and freshened up, we stepped out for the evening. Get something to eat. My incredibly naive, 17 year old eyes were on stalks. The street was lined with extremely good-looking, provocatively dressed young ladies all asking me if I was interested in a little quality time. Made I smile, it did.

We did only stay a couple of days. Saw the Eiffel Tower, the Notre Dame and all that good stuff and lived on baguettes with whatever took our fancy to fill them. Then, dreams in tatters, we got the train back to Calais (I think it was) for the boat back to good ol' Blighty.

Now I'm starting to wonder if the odds - or the Gods - aren't stacked against me. We got home about three weeks before anyone was expecting us home and without grampa's precious car. He'd had it for years with ne'er a scratch on it. Dad had had it a couple of months and written it off.

Amalfi remained an unreachable mirage.