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Crossing the Nullarbor desert
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- Perth and sailing to Ceylon
- "La féerie cinghalaise 121 " (Ceylon)
- Visit to Father Baussonies tomb: Bangalore
- Paradise at the foot of the Himalayas
- Hard times: Pakistan and Iran
- A taste of high life: Teheran (1-17 November 1956)
- Europe at last: Turkey and Greece
- Under the Volcano: Torre Archiraffi (Sicily)
Crossing the Nullarbor desertOn Easter Sunday, the put-put entered the Nullarbor desert, the first real trial of the trip119. It is rare to see, on a map of the world, a desert running alongside a sea coast. Nature seems to hate such a double vacuum. But that is the setting for the road from Port Augusta to Esperance. The dirt road, which is supposed to be suitable for lorries, runs along the 2,000 km, with petrol stations every 400 km and dead rabbits every 20 meters. There is supposed to be a water tank every 56 km . No dangerous bends, the road is straight as an arrow. There isn't much to photograph, and they are in no mood to loiter. The greatest entertainment is to spot the pot-holes, early enough for Guy to take evasive action, but he was at a disadvantage, having to find safe passages for each of the three wheels120. By the side of the road, there were only dwarf grey sparse shrubs, no trees of course. With droughts lasting up to 10 months, the water tanks were often empty, but covered in interesting graffiti. Interesting because they were the only sign of human presence, as in this Easter week, there is no-one on the road. That was lucky for them, because any vehicle except the put-put raised an enormous cloud of dust blinding the other drivers and taking ages to settle. As if to compound the strain, one morning Guy noticed that three of the five blades of the suspension are broken. It is 200 km to the nearest garage, and the heat is already 40° at 8 o'clock in the morning. The put-put limped along until they come across a makeshift settlement by the side of the road. On one of the waggons, a large billboard: Joe Butler, Rabbit and Pelts, Refrigeration Unit n°1. The rabbit trappers who supply the station can earn up to 10 pounds a day. It takes Guy, helped by the rabbit catchers and their equipment, three hours to change the blades, for which he had thought of bringing spares. Before leaving they can savour a deliciously cold beer. Two weeks later, the Coolgardie Miner (Western Australia), under the title "Mr & Mrs G. Montin Are Going To France" reported on their crossing of the Nullarbor desert in nine days, without any problem except for the dust. The newspaper described the vehicle as a small covered waggon, with a false bottom to store petrol and food. The family were intending to return to Australia, though Beryl was not sure whether in the East of the West, where the weather, now that she knew it, seemed nicer. Perth and sailing to CeylonThe five days' rest in Perth was the occasion of buying the slide-projector which was to prove so useful throughout the rest of the voyage, and then in France. I remember many evenings where friends or official hosts asked for a projection of the slides capturing the best sceneries we had seen en route. At Freemantle (the harbour not far from Perth), the put-put was folded and craned into the hold of the 'Oronsay' (Beryl and Guy watched the operation 'heart-in-mouth'). The Montins left Australia behind (16 April) with no pangs of regrets. Beryl got reacquainted with British currency at the ship's purser who naturally gave a bad exchange rate. The passage was comfortable with a nice cabin and plenty to eat. Crossing the equator brought very hot weather but there was a lot of celebration. "A scooter is their home" announced the Perth Daily News on 11 April, centring the article on the two French children, who had slept in it 'the scooter) the night before in a Claremont car park. They had lost two spring valve leafs during the crossing of the desert near Balladonia. Luckily, Guy was carrying spares and was able to replace the broken ones. "At low speed, with all eyes open, the trip is very interesting" said Guy. The paper briefly described Guy's previous travels, training in the RAAF in Canada during World War II where he heard Australians speaking about their country. He had visited a number of countries with the RAAF before settling in Australia seven years ago . They were to take a passage on the Oronsay for Colombo, continued the Perth Daily News. "Except for the very short ferry trip to the mainland of India, the remainder of their travelling would be on land. Bearing in mind that the engine of the covered waggon is just the standard motor of the popular D and LD Lambretta Scooter, readers will get some idea of the magnitude of the undertaking. However, Mr Montin has been a Lambretta owner for some time now, and has absolute faith in this vehicle. The Montins are returning later to settle permanently in Australia, but they won't say yet whether it will be a two, three or four wheel venture."
Initially, the plan was, on the basis of information received in the Indian consulate in Canberra, to cross the sub-continent before the monsoons set in, which was about six weeks hence. So they were disappointed when it started raining after they had been only a few days on the island. They were told that they could outrun the rains, which took several months to reach the North of the sub-continent, provided they pressed on. In spite of that relative time constraint, they toured round the whole island seeing places of historical and archaeological interest, or of natural beauty (like the Sigiriya Rock) and instead of two weeks they spent a whole month. And each invitation led to another, and they were hosted in the same way in Trincomalee (the last British stronghold) and Mannar (just before the ferry to India.) Throughout their stay in Ceylon and India, except when they got hospitality, which was very frequently, the family stayed in Dak Bungalows (DB), which were to be found everywhere. That was the name of these stage-inns (maisons d'étape) that the British had had built every 50 km on the roads of their empire. Here is a typical DB described in one of Guy's articles: "a Dak Bungalow usually sits in a gravel yard neatly fenced off from the road, quite smart from the outside. A veranda runs all around, cool looking under a low roof and thick pillars. The door opens on the derelict splendour of an empire that had vanished about ten years before. The beds are of the camp style, the armchairs wobbly and the tub is full of dust. But the walls are thick and the ceilings high. The price is right: 2 rupees a night for the whole family." 122 With all the strange people around, it is impossible to sleep outside, once you have read about the Dacoits and other murderous sects, in 'the Deceivers' for instance123. But the DBs are popular, and Beryl's diary often must record the anxiety of finding most DBs already full. The Colombo Morning Time124 gave only brief coverage to the Montins passage through the Ceylon, but with a photograph on the front page. South IndiaOn May 13, they crossed over from Talaimannar to Denushkodi, landing on Indian soil on 15th May. As they rolled off the ferry, the family took up with a German motorcyclist, Horst, with whom they only separated in Bombay. He was a good company, and occasionally useful to help to face the difficulties of the journey. This association is described at length in rather satirical way in Dreamalive (making fun at Germanic traits), and in the Sud-Ouest article. "Behold the face of South India: fawn earth cut into square fields by hedges of spiny plants, toddy palms shooting thirty feet up to hold a dozen green fans against the blue sky, purple hills in the distance with small white temples on the crests, straw villages here and there and buffaloes everywhere125." The climate is hot, very hot, until they start ascending towards the Deccan plateau and Bangalore. Leaving Belgaum, they take the wrong road, and having turned back after a mile, they are stopped by a toll gate. A patriarchal guard demands 8 annas. With the help of Hans, Guy shrugs him off and raises the barrier himself before moving on towards Poona.126 The road is beautiful, running under giant mango trees. The air is cool and the pale blue sky gives the travellers hope that they have escaped the monsoon. The land is brown and orange, forming softly curved hills called Ghats. But then disaster strikes, the skies open up and empty torrents of rain on the put-put which struggles through the deluge, and there are no DBs available. Throughout the visit to India, the major hazard to the scooter were the bullock carts, that did not know any of the rules of the road, and stray sacred cows, one of which impaled the put-put on one occasion, breaking a horn to the great anxiety of the family before they could make a discreet escape. After spending two days in Madura, the family wheeled to Trichi from where they made a detour to Pondicherry. Guy later told a journalist that he wanted to see what was left there of the French influence. 'I was pleasantly surprised' (said Guy) 'to see how well French and Indian cultures have blended here.127" None of the papers elaborated on the visit to Pondicherry (17-18 May), which was another high moment of the trip, and one of the rare ones that I vaguely remember. This French colony had only become part of India two years previously, and was famous for the presence of Sri Aurobindo's ashram, or religious community, at which the family were lodged. After various mishaps (like never finding the dining room) they were introduced to the 'Mother,' a 80-year old woman of French origin who was running the ashram like a business. The early hippies in search of Indian wisdom got a hard time there, being ripping while not being allowed sex, or drinking or smoking (wrote Beryl). What I do remember is the moment when the Mother placed her hand on my head as if in benediction, but I do not think I was sensitive to the honour. Because it was quite famous at that time, and was a precursor to the many ashrams that would spring up afterwards, I quote from the promotional material128: "The transformation of our superficial, narrow and fragmentary way of thinking, seeing, feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual consciousness and an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the divine way of life is the central purpose of this Yoga129. (…) The general aim to be attained is the advent of a progressive universal harmony." I think that quote says it all. Beryl, in her diary, found the South Indians glum and eager for baksheesh, just like the Tamils seen in Ceylon .
As explained later in Bombay: " At Bangalore (Guy) took his children to the grave of his great uncle, Fr. Baussonie, a missionary who had died there in 1945. This missionary, Montin told me, had spent more than 60 years in Bangalore but of his last days, the family had no information. 'I was able to lay a wreath on the tomb and also to get some information about his last days,' Montin added with joy." They searched for a French missionaries who might remember Father François, but were unlucky, most of his colleagues had died or moved, so they got very little information, but they did find the tomb. The visit was of course reported back to Aunt Hélène, along with three photographs, with short text on the back of each photograph (translation): 1/ "the monument is built in grey stone, uniform with those of the other fathers. The sculptor forgot the Y and replaced the O with A130. The inscription on the monument reads: "R.F. Baussonie François, FMP, Mysore, 1861-1945, R.I.P." Guy added an explanatory footnote for the acronyms: R.F. Reverend Father, FMP: Foreign Mission of Paris. 2/ The cemetery of the Fathers, at Bangalore. The little mausoleums at the back are those of the fathers deceased before 1930. After that date, they are grey tombstones. All the names are French. Behind the surrounding wall, India is alive, indifferent, unchanging. It's a bit like the source at le Pont: nice clean water, but what does it matter to the Dordogne?" 3/ We deposited a crown of marigolds, the only flowers we could find: that day was the 2300th anniversary of Buddha. I did not manage to find a father who had known him. He was, during his last years, the chaplain of a quite isolated convent of nuns." Press coverage was getting better. In Bangalore (26 May), an article entitled "Australia to India on a "Lambretta" described the journey so far, which I quote for its content and style: "The family left Sydney in a Lambretta in the middle of March on a globe-girdling mission. They travelled across Australia which is 3,000 miles, of which 1,500 is a desert with no proper roads and very little water. (…) The children who have kept good health throughout, are in high spirits. They have taken to Indian food with relish. Mr Montin opines that the roads of South India are among the best in the world from the point of view of a motor scooter and driver. The country is so rich in interesting spots and is so well provided with accommodation that driving across, they say, is a real pleasure." From Bangalore the Montins drove to Bombay in 3 ½ days, where they were the guests of the Automobile Club of India. By that time, news had preceded the family to England, perhaps through press A.P.I. syndication. The Isle of Thanet Gazette (29 June) focused on the Kent dimension, and wrote up the most dramatic episodes to interest readers after interviewing the Lidwell parents. "A Margate woman, her husband and two children were waiting in a mission station on the Ganges for the monsoons to pass and continue their journey, hoping to reach Britain by Christmas. When she went out to Australia with her parents eight years ago, Miss Beryl Lidwell, only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Lidwell, now proprietors of a café in High Street, Margate, little thought she would be returning by motor scooter. Beryl married Guy Montin in Sydney after a chance meeting at an hotel, and they set up a small business in the city. (…) Mr Lidwell told the Gazette: 'I am not particularly anxious. He is capable fellow and the children seem to be really enjoying it. Beryl went to school in Broadstairs, and also attended a local dancing school as a girl." The article proceeds to describe the breakdown in the middle of the Nullarbor. With small variations, the Star and the Evening Standard carried the same story.
Bombay to DelhiIn Bombay (May 28 – June5) (now Mumbai) under thick rain during the 10 days of their stay, the Lambretta agent, a Parsee named Mr Doctor, outdid himself to make the Montins feel welcome and appreciated. Lambetta partly paid (10 out of 30 rupees just for B&B) two nights at the Waldorf, one of the rare times the family was indulged with an expensive hotel. The agent also organised a "meet the traveller" event in the firm's showrooms; see the amusing advert entitled "Astounding performance of Lambretta 3-wheeler! With the following text "Australian journalist and family arrive in Bombay from Sydney." This support is most welcome when the put-put developed, after having been fully serviced but just before the next departure, another bad breakdown, for which Guy had not brought a spare part. This was viewed as a lucky escape. The Bombay press reporting was much better, and Guy even received orders for extra features, which he could respond to thanks to the old Hermes which was also traveling in the put-put. The Evening News (4 June) carried a feature handling both Guy's personal history and the trip so far, with some interesting embellishments but also many lacunae. Beryl noted in her diary that Guy was displeased, some of the things he said had not been meant for publication. Two beautiful photographs of the put-put and its occupants posing in front of the Gateway to India, then published for the first time, will become iconic of the trip. I will quote this article at length as it can serve as a recap of my parents story so far, highly indicative of the manner in which Guy liked to tell it, and further adapted for an Indian readership. (The four) "have travelled nearly 5,000 miles overland in a specially contrived 3-wheeler Lambretta. Montin is on his way to France, his homeland, and he will continue his journey overland across West Asia and southern Europe.(…) Born in South France, Montin had to cut short his university study at Bordeaux and escape to Tunis when France collapsed under the Nazi onslaught in 1940. He studied Arabic and Philosophy in a Catholic school in Tunis for two years, then joined the French Air Force in Algiers at the time of the Allied landing in 1942. Shortly afterwards, he went to England with the Free French Air Force and then to Canada where he qualified himself as a pilot. By the time he returned to France, Germany had surrendered. So Montin volunteered against Japan and spent three years in Indochina. On his release from the army, he worked for a year at the American consulate before leaving for Australia in 1948. It was in Australia that he met Beryl. She had just landed there with her parents and chance Montin and the Lidwell family together at the same hotel. The Lidwells, however, soon left for New Zealand, while Montin found work on the pylon lookout in Sydney Harbour Bridge. A few months later, Miss Lidwell came back to Sydney, met Montin again and they were soon married. Together they started a small mixed business in suburb near Sydney and within two years they had their own house and two children. A small Lambretta delivery unit they had bought enabled them to scour the beautiful surroundings of Sydney. So pleased were they with the performance of the vehicle that they decided to buy a new one of the same make to undertake a journey to Montin's home in South France. By that time Montin had found work on the Sydney Sun as proof reader, and in the ample spare time he had he made preparations for the trip. He imported a chassis form Italy and built a body to it. This was made of marine plywood and cleverly designed to carry spare petrol, food for a week, water, spare parts and tools medicine chest, clothing suitable for tropical and cold climates, inflammable rubber beds and comfortable accommodation for the family of four.(…) 'What are your future plans,' I asked Montin. 'From here,' the replied, 'we go to Agra, Delhi and Lahore, then on to Pakistan, Baluchistan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, the Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, Yugoslavia, Italy and home to France. We will visit England in the summer. If I find that arrangements can be made to settle down in France, we will stay there. Otherwise we shall move on to other countries, possibly in the reverse direction. We would like to see some of the people again.' The Motorist magazine (another Bombay title, 25 July) took a more technical view of the exploit, voicing the opinion that "the machine had performed extremely well throughout131, the arduous trip, apart from the broken spring leaves. The stretch of 1300 miles on strictly desert road was covered in little over 9 days, and the arrival in Kalgoorlie created quite a stir amongst the local residents who had been keeping track of the expedition from radio bulletins. From Kalgoorlie to Perth, a distance of 270 miles was covered in the record timing of one day – due probably to a spirit of celebration", I presume for having crossed a continent." Agra and the Taj Mahal (14-16 June) Probably because it was already a tourist attraction, none of the article mentions the visit to the Taj Mahal, not exotic enough, but it is recorded in Beryl's diary with unusual emphatic praise: "splendid, breath-taking, wonderful building." Escorted by the Lambretta people, they visited twice, during the day then at night under a "very small moon and does not give the effect of the Taj by moonlight." Dehli (16-26 June) In the capital of India, it was now the familiar run of Lambretta appointments, invitations to dinners in good restaurants, slide shows and visits to monuments. The Four were given a Lambretta self-contained flat kept for company officials. The Lambretta people were not as interested as elsewhere. By chance, they made contact with a Statesman journalist who after a long interview wrote up a good story entitled "Getting away from it All". In this capital city with rather affluent readers living a near-Western lifestyle, a paper could afford to focus on the escapist side of the adventure, and Australia as a magnet for emigrants. Beryl commented in her diary: "nicely written article and photograph." Perhaps she was sensitive to the good psychological profile drawn up by the journalist who he found her husband "different" from the numerous other travellers he had met. He quoted Guy as saying "This might be a drop in the ocean but what I am doing now is something different from what has been done before and when I am in France I will have lived one life and can start living another." For the first and only time in the press articles there is a mention of the monastery in central Tunisia. What did Guy say about the future ? "Montin is not certain that he will settle down in France. 'When I was in France', he told me, 'I got fed up with the mess they made of things. In France every one of the 40 million is a political thinker. Then I used to admire the material prosperity attained by the Anglo-Saxons and the smooth running of their lives. But living eight years in English-speaking countries has changed my opinions considerably. Now I want to find out whether France will accept me.' It is Montin's ideal to form an organisation of 'humanists' of all countries of the world." In one of the many fortunate turns of this voyage, Tony Barker (a Sydney friend mentioned earlier) had suggested looking up a Mr Ram Das, secretary of the A.A., and this contact was the origin of the best weeks of the voyage, later in Kankhal. In the A.A. offices, Guy learnt that bridges were cut in Punjab, further up north, the monsoon having finally won the race with the put-put. "Not to worry", said Mr Das, "You will be able to discover the real India. My wife owns a house on the banks of the Ganges; we never go there during this season, because it is on the spot of a major pilgrimage site, where the sacred river comes out of the Himalayas. We can lend it to you for two months, but at one condition: as you are the first Europeans to stay there, we ask you to obey Hindu laws: no meat, no eggs, no fish. Do you think you can stick to that diet until the end of the rains?"132 Quite some of the Delhi time was spent getting their Indian visa extended, and in securing visas for Pakistan and Iran, not bothering with Afghanistan as they hoped to avoid this country by going via the southern route. They also gave some satisfactory (well-paid) radio interviews, both in English and in French (for "All-India" Radio External Service). Paradise at the foot of the HimalayasThe time spent in Kankhal and Dehra Dun (five weeks) may be the very happiest of the whole trip, especially Kankhal with its wonderful little house in the temple on the Ganges. Kankhal, near Hardwar (26 June – 7 August) This small town is just one day out of Delhi, leaving at 3 in the morning to try and avoid the densest crowds on the road. On arrival, the family were immediately installed in their new abode, lent by Mr Das, and described by Beryl as "three largish but extremely dusty rooms surrounded by temples but with a view of the Ganges from one of the rooms and of the first Himalaya mountains." The Kankhal stay is perhaps the single greatest stage of the 22,000 km odyssey. These six weeks were extensively described by Guy in many letters and articles133, both at the time and once back in France. I cannot possibly give full credit here to the material because every detail is interesting and moving. Instead I will edit the archive separately and here are just the basic facts and the names of the most friendly people: Dr Ghose, Gopendra Sharma and Pandi Ji, because they still sounded familiar when I started this research and I read them in the file. It was an incredible time of exploration of the Indian way of life. The whole point of the exercise was precisely to live just as the natives did, i.e. a very frugal but stimulating lifestyle, in a perfectly Hindu environment (in a temple). While sitting out the monsoon for six weeks they made friends with the locals, took a daily dip in the Ganges, and remained strictly vegetarian for the whole stay. Tony Barker who must be credited again for the introduction, told the story many years later in Sydney, starting with a quote from a letter he had received from Guy: "Writing to the Lambretta people in Italy, Guy apologized for taking so long, “We have suffered heatwaves, floods, frosts, dust storms, monsoon rains, punctures, overheating, wet petrol, prickly heat, indigestion, dysentery, sunburn, and cold in the head. None of these troubles have lost us a day.” It was the hospitality of the people that was holding them up. Politics, too, later held them up. President Nasser of Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal during their time in India, and the following international crisis forced Guy to revise their route through the Middle East. Instead, they would have to travel north through Iran into Turkey. They made many lasting friends with whom they exchanged letters after their departure. As the only Europeans there (as predicted by Mr. Das), they were welcome everywhere. They got to know every single Indian who could utter a few words of English. At their departure, their best friend Dr Ghose gave an emotional Indian-style farewell address to the travellers, signed by himself and other prominent citizens. Dehra Dun (8-31 August) was just like Kankhal a time of discovery of more attractions and beauties of the Indian lifestyle, only marred by Tooty's worrying eye sores. The same round of invitations from friends of Kankhal friends, and also school teachers eager for information about foreign countries, the circle of their acquaintances was multiplying daily, including quite a few foreigners (including a former French foreign legion character). Their stay also corresponded with the festival of swings, followed by the festival of snakes, then the festival of brothers and sisters, and more, and finally India's Independence Day, another series of colourful events.
Crossing the HimalayasUnfortunately, those beautiful mountains had to be crossed to get home, and the family had made of the most of the time spent in India. Short of learning the language, not much more could be learnt.134 It was time for the story to take on an epic dimension. The last days in India (1-15 September) Later Guy summed up this stage of the voyage: "then their courageous little one and a half horsepower pulled its thousand pound gross weight up seven thousand feet to Simla, racing down to Chandigarh then to Jullundur in an attempt to make the border by the very last day of their visa.135" He also wrote a card to aunt Hélène describing briefly that part of the journey, with some indications about his frame of mind (translation): "After that, we drove up to Dehra Dun where we were adopted by a Punjabi family and finally converted our kids to oriental food. We gave half a dozen conferences with the help of my magic lantern about our adventures (Dehra Dun is full of schools). Then we hoisted ourselves to Missorie, a half-dead mountain resort, were greeted by various heads of villages. We met lots of quite remarkable people. Then up to Chandigarh, an artificial capital of the Punjab, built on plans by Le Cordusier. Another Canberra. We then spent three days in a school at Sanawar, a mountain fortress. Finally, we got to Simla and saw, through the final fogs of the monsoon, the snows of the the real giants. Sorry no postcards. We are keeping warm in a little flat lent by a school headed by a nice Canadian lady. We will be in Lahore on 12 September. We got quite a fright at the Suez events." It seems that during that time, travelling had become "business as usual". One contact pointed out another in the next town, and schools competed to get the globe-trotter to speak, mainly but not only about Australia, and show his slides of distant places. In Jullundhur (11 August), during a press interview organised by Lambretta, Guy delivered a statement, one of his best texts, a farewell address in a mock-serious tone, conveying the "thanks to India" of the Montin family, from which I quite the best paragraphs. "There are four Montins, Papa, Mama, Charles (4) and Yvonne (2), they are very conscious of their smallness when raising their voice to thank this colossus among nations. They have spent four months in this country although, when they landed, they only intended to stay for some six weeks. Only the generosity of their friends has kept them here for three times that long. (…) They want to thank first all the agents of their firm [Lambretta] in Madurai, Madras, Bangalore, Poona, Nasik, Indore, Agra, Delhi, Jullundur and Amritsar. Special mention to the Bhahdup Boys who are working so hard at producing India's own scooter. They want to thank all their friends whom they hope to meet again in their own country. They want to express their unbounded admiration for this great country which has taught them a lasting lesson in the art of living pleasantly with the minimum of unnecessary fuss over inessential things." Amritsar is the capital of Indian Cachemere, can be reached in a day from Jullundur, but there were no petrol pumps for the 400 km. For the first time, Guy is sick, with flu, and has to take to his bed, while Beryl has entertains a group of New Zealand hitch hikers. The Lambretta people were very supportive, sending a doctor for Guy and meals for his family. The next day, they escorted the family to the Pakistan border to see that everything went well. Hard times: Pakistan and IranNow after the Indian crowds where you could not get a moment of peace without eyes peering at you, the Montins were to suffer from loneliness, in the vast arid deserts of Pakistan and Iran. They wanted to "get away from it all", but this was too much of a good thing. They actually longed for some human contact, if you knew Beryl and Guy, you would understand this was unusual. Because of the political situation, or perhaps simply because of the bad roads, the normal route West was making a significant detour, via Baluchistan. This longer route that skirts the Afghan border along the southern edge of the country, is nicely visible on the Times Atlas, as it passes through Lahore, Khanewal, Sukku, Quetta, Nushki, Dalbandin, Nok Kundi, crossing into Iran at Mirjaveh. As there is a railway track running in parallel for most of its course, Guy tried to spare his vehicle some of the hardship and dangers by putting it on a "water train", but this proved too difficult in spite of the help of many locals. This itinerary corresponds roughly to Alexander's disastrous return to Greece after reaching the Indus, which means that the put-put and its occupants had their own Anabasis, with even some extra mileage due to mechanical failures. Since then, the people had become much friendlier. From the rare humans they met in both countries they continued to receive hospitality, mechanical help, even free transport from strangers. Lorry drivers shared their lunches, store-owners fed them and put them up overnight in every village where they stopped or had to stay several days for engine trouble. Very grateful, Beryl noted down the names of each and every one of the people that help the family on its way, including the most difficult, near impossible ones. Nor were they really alone on the road. As this was the main axis between Europe and India, every now and then they would cross other Europeans, going either to India, in search of health or wisdom, or even further, like Australians at the end of their gap year. Every occurrence of such encounters is noted in the diary. For example, in Quetta, they came across a couple of French people travelling from Saigon to Paris. In Mirjaveh,136 it was a couple of penniless English hitch-hikers, whose Lambretta had given up in Turkey. At the tomb of Omar Khayam in Nishapur,137 a London taxi full of Brits on their way to Australia. This part of the journey contains also the most dramatic moments of all, as we will see. The difficulty of the terrain was overwhelming, and this is illustrated by photograph of Beryl pushing the put-put up some steep non-road, which has been used by all the journalists reporting the trip. It illustrates the difficulties faced by such a small vehicle, where you would normally need a Landrover. It is not only the steep slope of the road, it is that there is often no road, washed away by neighbouring torrents: these patches are called "washouts", and they can come in close succession, every 3 to 5 km, to discourage the ill-equipped traveller. Beryl noted the places where she had to push, the worst being the Bolan Pass (22 September), Beryl's "100-mile desert"138 is further described in Guy's account of crossing the Kachhi139, (found on the atlas between Sukkur and Sibi), criss-crossed by "rivers in dashes"140: "here we are, about midday, in the middle of the Kachhi. Compared to this place, Nullarbor teems with people. The narrow straight road extends on the bare flat earth to the distant horizon. Nevertheless, there has been water around here. The earth has developed concave scales, like soup plates. There is a long ribbon of gravel meandering across the plain with no other visible purpose than to cut or bury the road. And here it has done just that. We have to push. The children have fun stacking the plates of earth. A gravelly wind scars our shins and fires our throats. We push and get back on to the pavement, until the next wash-out. There are seven like that, spaced at three to five kilometre intervals, and from a hundred to 500 m long. There are sandy ones, gravelly ones or they can be just dusty. Wash-outs can be long or short, shallow or deep. Guy is starting to worry. Surely there is going to be one that the put-put just can't get through on its tiny wheels. And then what will happen?" At the top of the long slope (1,600m over 165 km), it was the Bolan pass, the grimmest place of all, and a view of hundreds of kilometres over a sea of red sand, gushing eddies of dust here and there, everything despairingly empty, there was just… nothing141. Quetta (22-25 September), which is 5,877 miles from London, said a signpost they passed, was described by Beryl as a "nice spot", where the women took the purdah seriously (contrary to Amritsar where it was often in disarray or pushed back over the head). The people, including the military, were as welcoming and generous as in India, and the family was invited every day, either for tea, or meals or even to stay overnight in private houses. Advice on roads ahead, help with customs or visas, were always given before being solicited. And there were plenty of picturesque moments along the way, like one night in Quetta, when Beryl was present when a neighbouring lady, a Baluchistani (i.e. a woman from deep in the countryside), gave birth in the primitive way "squatting in the sand and pulling at ropes. When the baby was born, cold water was thrown over it… to bring it to life. It was fed on ghee and sugar until the mother's milk arrived"142, and plenty of other such memorable moments. From Quetta, they could see in the distance some unattractive-looking mountains, just like a sort of vertical Kachhi. But they were not prepared for the sheer scale of the spectacle awaiting them: "building blocks big enough to pave Paris with one stone, balanced on mountains that are made of a single rock. Guy had thought that the world had been made for man, and that naive faith has resisted even the Australian scenery. But faced with the Bolan pass, Guy had to bow: Allah is great, and his garden was not made for us. Let's get out !" But from then on, the journey was getting slower and slower (two days to get from Quetta to Dalbandin), with wash-outs getting more frequent, the last one just on the Iran border. It is the country of the Chagai, hospitable people when you can find them, whose hills abut against the Afghan border. Shortly after the Iran border, on 3 October, the most frightening incident of the whole trip occurred, a kind of ambush, which was to be told many times in later years, but not to or reported by the journalists. I will use Beryl's first-hand witness account rather than the newspaper write-ups: "About 25 mile from Mirjaveh, we see a line of big stones across the road, a party of men standing around signalling we stop. Guy jumps off the put-put, pushes a couple of stones away and we quickly continue on our way leaving them staring and speechless ! This on a completely desert road, there was no reason at all for them to hold us up, unless it was to rob us. We were both worried after the holdup, we hear so many stories of people being robbed." As you may imagine, Guy was very proud of this narrow escape and told the tale many times during my childhood, adding that what finally discomfited the bandits was Beryl's giggle at the sight of the would-be robber hanging on to the canvas, in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the put-put's escape. After that incident, in Zahedan, the family stopped for several days (3-8 October) while Guy searched for a truck to transport them all the way to Tehran. I come back to his account in Sud-Ouest Dimanche143: "The direct road to Tehran has been cut off by an outpouring from an oil-rig, that has formed a lake of naphtha somewhere around Quom. We will have to go via Meshhed, some 1,000 km to the North. The road, if there is one, follows the Afghan border in a scenery of salt lakes, hashed rivers and sand deserts. Guy does not feel up to it. An Armenian tradesman offers us the passage at the top of a truck half-full of dates. The fully rigged put-put is lifted on top of the bales. How nice this is going to be, four days of rest at the end of which we will have escaped the dangerous proximity of Afghanistan. Four days later, we get off the truck, more dead than alive. Only the children have been able to get some sleep, because, lighter, they did not bounce on every pot-hole." In Meshhed, they take a two-day rest, and are interviewed and photographed (but no resulting cuttings in the press book, because in Farsi). Tooty distinguished herself by throwing up all over the photographer's equipment. But they must drive on. From Guy's report: "Alas! The north of Iran is quite as deserted as the south, and from Meshhed to Tehran, the road is even worse. We cross about one lorry an hour and come to feel hateful towards those mastodons that tear up the pavement. Our average speed sinks to 10km an hour. At night, we sleep next to a military post or a caravanserai. 500km from Tehran, the put-put collapses like a worn-out horse. The fork has broken apart and the wheel lies in the dust. We are done for. We wait in the sun for three hours, but none of the passing trucks has understood our plight. A big cotton freighter finally stops and the driver gets out. He explains many things to us, none of which we can understand. At last, we take some action. The rump of the fork is used to hook the put-put on to the back of the lorry and we scramble into the cab. In the rear-view mirror, Guy keeps an eye on his poor vehicle which leaps like a kangaroo over the ruts that cross the road. Soon the put-put is no more than a ghost, covered in white dust trailing in the w ake of the truck. And then another problem appears: we have been driving for two hours, but where are we going? Suddenly we start on a terrifying descent, the road zigzags down the slopes of the mountain, into the clouds. "Deniz" says the driver. The sea. The Caspian. Dumfounded, Guy realises they are headed for the banks of the Caspian. If that continues, we will end up in Russia. It is the Iranian Turkmenistan, where we have no right to be. We have travelled 200km to find a welder." This is one of the episodes that I remember quite well, the long descent, in the evening or night, with the lights of Russia ahead, from the comfort of the cab high above the road. I even remember the truckie's assistant riding outside on a step The family arrived in that way in Gumbad-i-Qabus, pronounced, in my family, in one breath "gumbadikabs." This poetic name has haunted my childhood, it could be my own personal Combray. The place was much less pretty in reality. Beryl noted that "their first sight was of people being marched in the road being guarded by armed police. The atmosphere is very Russian. (…) it is a dismal place. The roads and pavements are made of blocks of uneven stones and rocks one cannot walk without looking at one's feet. The shops are dimly lit and that miserable music (which is so beautiful when one is at a distance) echoes fort. We hurry as fast as the road will allow back to our shack. (…) I am full of aches and pains and extremely depressed." But they found a hotel and started to wait for some repair to be made. The police brought an (Armenian) interpreter to regularise their situation, as this region required a special permit before you could enter it, which of course they did not have. Writing from Tehran Guy told his aunt144 that he held Omar Khayam's tomb responsible for their mechanical mishaps, and that the governor has sequestered them for two weeks but relented and indemnified them with 2,000 rials. The whole family developed another bout of colic. After 12 days of wait, an "auto car" loads the put-put and its occupants, and on 2 November 1956, after a 4-hour night stop at Shahud, they finally arrived in Tehran.
In her diary, Beryl reported that they were delighted to get back to a "normal" life with hot water to clean themselves and the equipment up. Maud seemed even too overjoyed by meeting her former boyfriend. The couple followed their hosts on their round of social engagements, wearing Taillard-lent elegant clothes. Beryl visited a beauty salon and a dance school, attended French lessons, all the time trailing Maud. Guy delivered a presentation of his travels at the Franco-Iranian Institute, about 30 people in attendance, which according to Maud writing to her mother146, was a great success, eliciting sympathy from a grateful audience. "He spoke for 90 minutes and it seemed short." Maud also wrote in that letter that "Guy is really a very lovely (attachant) man and Beryl and I have become great friends." In her letter dated 23 December, Maud informed Hélène directly that the travellers were now in Istanbul and out of danger, and that getting to France would be like a stroll. She particularly liked the children, Charles is "mignon," "afflolant de charme et de seduction." Maud, my first admirer after my mother. In case Tooty is jealous, she said that the little girl was "very nice too, a happy and sensitive child, with an expressive face, already an accomplished comedian, in the comic style. Both children are very nice and well brought up, which is rare for English kids."147 But she reserved her greatest compliments for Beryl, "deliciously fresh and pure. Guy is lucky to have marred such a nice woman. She is exactly the wife he needed." During that stay, they learnt that the "warm and tarmacked road" was finally closed to them by politics and that they would have to take the cold and corrugated road that circles Mount Ararat. The "politics" were the ceasefire between Israel and Egypt on 6 November and, the next day, the Soviet aggression in Hungary. This finally dashed their hope of spending Christmas in Bethlehem. Finally, the new fork having been airmailed to them by Lambretta from Italy, Guy could fix the put-put and they could take to the road again, to attack, in the middle of the winter, the high Anatolian plateaux and a few more mountains, but now better equipped with outfits, warm tracksuits and balaclavas. Europe at last: Turkey and GreeceEurope was getting closer, Asia was being left behind. You could smell it everywhere, people were much less poor, the roads were tarmacked, the cooking was less spicy. Whether all that was a good thing was another matter. Some of the magic of the adventure was already dissipating, at least that is what my father said later. When they arrived in Greece, they had had a surfeit of monuments, an indigestion of sceneries, and Guy no longer took as many photographs. The urgency now was on finding some quiet and cheap place for Guy to settle down and write the book he had in mind. It took the put-put three weeks to reach Istanbul, via Tabriz (good photograph 'Tabriz welcomes you' on file) and Ankara, by easy 120-150km stages, sometimes through high mountains that tested the little 150cc engine, and required some more pushing, this time in the snow, not the dust.148 In Ankara (7 December), the consulate people are "very sweet and phone reasonable hotel for us" wrote Beryl. Much of the time, the put-put has a police escort, for whatever reason, and fixing numerous mechanical breakdowns, but nothing dramatic. New attempts to go by train, still unsuccessful149.The food has changed again and Beryl kept track, noting the names of the food, the prices and the recipes. But there was no trouble finding accommodation now, but in hotels. I remember quite well arriving in one of the small towns under heavy snow, and the warmth of the hotel room where I played with my parents galoshes, changed into vehicles by my imagination. Beryl noted (11 December) that although the shops were laden with goods everywhere, they could not find any toys to renew the children's 'broken plastic' (whatever that was), perhaps in view of Christmas. Still, a few journalists take an interest and modest news coverage followed the family through Turkey until Istanbul. The arrival in Istanbul (11-20 December) and the crossing of the Golden Horn still have an "exiting charm in spite of the gloomy day." The "antiquated trams draw squeals of delight from Tooty. People wave and smile, no laughs in Istanbul" says the diary. "The shops are full of gluey cakes, pastry and sponges soaked in syrup. Halva in blocks like huge cheeses, with or without pistachios. Few women and fewer smart ones, clothes dowdy, a little like Sydney except more people and more extensive city.150" A Greek gentleman who had heard of the travellers, and who wants to emigrate to Australia, introduced himself at the hotel and a few days later invited the family to stay at his house for a few nights. There is a good letter from Guy in Istanbul151 that makes more sense than usual, and I can therefore quote in extenso [needs translation]: Chère Tante Beryl t’a acheté une Christmas card et quoique n’ayant rien trouvé de toi à Ankara, je me fais un plaisir de t’apprendre que nous avons couvert les 2700 kilomètres de montagnes entre Téhéran et Istambul dans le temps remarquable de 21 jours. Bravo le put-put. Il nous a traîné sur la tôle ondulée et la neige turque. Nous n’avons eu à pousser que deux kilomètres au sommet de la plaine d’Erzincou. Une neige molle, épaisse de 30 cm, s’obstinait à pénétrer dans la magnéto. Les Turcs sont de gens charmants et leurs routes sont dignes de leur qualités militaires. Avons été à deux reprises bloqués par la neige. Aussi nous trouvons nous maintenant bien au chaud aux bords du Bosphore où nous avons déjà passé six jours. Partons pour la Grèce après demain, tâcherons d’y trouver une vallée tranquillet et ensoleillée où passer janvier et février, renouvelant si possible notre expérience de Kankhal. Nous pensons souvent à Kankhal, petit paradis perdu dans la nuit du temps. Nous voudrions bien en trouver un autre, mais nous commençons à douter de l’existence d’un autre pays qui puisse se comparer à l’Inde. Merveilleuse Dehra Dun ! Splendide Julhundur ! Que vous êtes loins dans le temps et l’espace ! Stambul sent l’Europe, la très vieille Europe. Immense sous-préfecture ? Rues pavées par le dernier empereur de Byzance. Atroce pour le pauvre S-Cargo. Silhouettes de mosquées dans la brume industrielle. Il est pénible de penser que cet amas de vielles pierres fut plus de mille ans le nombril du monde. Mais le contraste le plus savoureux est celui que je sens à tous pas entre les relents de Loti, Farrère et autres évoqués par les noms d’Eyale, Galata, Usbudar et les odeurs qu’exhalent, here and now, ces infâmes tas de taudis. J’avais presque oublié mes auteurs oriexotiques. Qui a donc écrit « Rêve d’Asie » ? C’est une sensation terrassante que de se les voir rapper des tréfonds de la mémoire pour être démentis par l’injure des temps. Beaucoup de gens parlent encore le français, mais il sle parlent avec la faible rancœur des joueurs qui ont misé sur le mauvais cheval. C’est l’anglais qui fait briller l’œil de la caissière et ployer l’échine du patron de bistrot. Jusqu’à notre sacré Charles qui, appréhendé dans les couloirs de l’ambassade d’Ankara par S.E. en personne s’écria « I’m French but I only speak English !» Nous avons profité des avantages de nos livres sterlings pour nous renipper à Istamboul. Les mioches ont l’air de petits Tartares dans leurs combinaisons molletonnées. Le bon vieux put-put est un courant d’air à roulettes mais nous sommes maintenant de vrais Esquimaux. A nous l’Olympe et l’ Hymatte [?] The journey onwards turned uncomfortable with the rain and Tooty, unhappy, started asking "to go home" . Hotel rooms, in Corfu for example, were expensive but dilapidated or unheated. Greece On 22 December, the family cross their 6th border into Greece, where Guy, thanks to his classical studies, was now quite at home, but not really in a mood to enjoy the sites. "The only difference between Turkey and Greece", wrote Beryl, "is that we saw many women returning home with the men, some driving their own carts." It is also the first time that she sees a toilet roll in a toilet, and strangely comments "disgusting habit of using throughout Greece of using paper instead of water and putting the used paper in a basket provided." Perhaps she had taken too well to Indian customs." But "the sheets are not (underlined) sawn to the quilts. It is the end of the tiny tchai glasses, tea served now in decent cups with lemon. There is an amazing number of toy shops now, and sweet shops with tables laid out with beautiful looking goo." The Retsina wine is really good. After putting the children to bed, Beryl and Guy "pop out and buy a couple of toys for tomorrow."152 Christmas lunch was a picnic of barbecued sausages and toast just opposite Mount Athos, another memorable occasion. In Thessaloniki (26-29 December), they slept in a hotel which Guy suspected on running a brothel, because of the number of silent males sitting in the lobby, waiting for a bell to tingle. Beryl remarked in her diary: "we did spot a couple of girls who didn't look servants or guests." At last Beryl received a letter from her mother at the GPO. On and off, both Guy and Beryl had received post all along the way, giving their future itinerary to receive replies poste restante at the different cities, or in the embassies or consulates. Sign of the times, the Lambretta agent had abandoned the make, so no help from that quarter. Leaving tow, they faced another steep mountain, but with less snow than in Pakistan. Not far from Mount Olympos, Beryl has to push again. At night in Pharsala, Beryl was astonished at the number of German-speaking Greeks wanting to speak to her. The next day (31 December) they climbed up Parnasus mountain. The put-put reached Athens on 2 January 1957, after leaving the main road to stop at Marathon. They stayed four days in the capital visiting the sites, and enjoying the new found facilities of the Western way of life, such as the cinema (the Silver Slipper, with Leslie Caron), which interested Tooty, because there was a monkey, but who became a nuisance, refusing to sleep). It was also a pleasure to visit attractive pastry shops, or savour the Retsina wine after so long in moslem countries. But in Greece, Lambretta has definitely lost out to Vespa, no help from there. The approach to Athens was disappointing with its ugly suburbs and derelict roads ("Ruins of Athens" Guy called them). They were still generating some interest in the local people because of the exotic look of their vehicle, and many try to help, especially the French-speaking ones. Looking for a suitable hotel, a car passed, stopped and signalled to the put-put to stop. An Australian couple, working for an international organisation, invited them to their home for tea, and then to dinner the next day. The next day there is a letter from Nana at the GPO, and one from friend Jack, Tooty's godfather at the French consulate. They did at last find time to visit the Acropolis in windy cold weather. They bought their passages Patras to Brindisi in Athens before leaving for the ferry, passing via Corinth and Nafplion. In Patras, civilisation is not far now, there is a notice in the toilet "Please put paper down toilet".153 The passage to Italy, via Kaffallinia, Ithaki and Corfu, was very pleasant on a quiet sea, and a cabin for the children (the boat left at 2.30 am). In Corfu, they were allowed on shore for half an hour, and could change their last Greek and Indian banknotes. In Brindisi (12 January), they were happy to find Lambrettas everywhere and the agent willing to assist. The food bought in the shops is excellent, very tasty, especially the cakes, but the cinemas were very disorganised, with no attendants helping the customers find their seats. In a café that day, the owner was so pleased to hear from Australia that he regaled the family with sweets, martinis and coffee, while Guy used his recently refreshed Italian. All that time, the whole family has been suffering from nits, caused by the lack of proper bathroom facilities. Crossing over to Sicily, 17 January, I remember vaguely being allowed to steer the ferry, a great moment for a boy just turned five (noted in the diary). Disembarking in Messina, they found a Lambretta agent indifferent to publicity, but were introduced by the bank to the regional paper Gazzetta de Sud, who promptly sent a photographer round. Then the hunt for a seasonal let had to be seriously launched. They saw a first nice place in S. Teresa di Riva, but decided to explore further. Taormina was too touristic for them and they pushed on. In Riposto, a man from the Taormina tourist office directs them to Torre Archirafi.
They were to stay in the little flat from 17 January to 27 March. At last the family had found a second Kankhal in Torre, a fishermen's village on the East coast of Sicily, in the shadow of the Etna (which worried Hélène back in Carennac), where they would get to know the locals and their mores, learn the language and get some writing done. The setting looks like Inspector Montalbano's house just further along the coast in the imaginary [………..]. The day after their arrival, a Sunday, they attended mass in a crowded church at 6 am, as they will do every week for their stay, before the children woke up. It is amazing for me to read that in Beryl's diary, as I had never known my father to go to church since the baptisms in Australia, and never afterwards either except for funerals or weddings. It may have been to be accepted more rapidly by the humble fishermen, or perhaps not attending would have been just too shocking. Meanwhile, Lambretta were now showing an interest and organising an event in Catania, with more photo ops and celebratory invitations to dinner. Their life soon settled to a pleasant routine, the children were immediately accepted by their Sicilian peers, (I still remember the name of a little girl called Nunciatina.) Guy soon found a teacher, Umberto, a student in electrical engineering, with whom he improved his Sydney marketplace Italian rapidly. Umberto quickly became a friend, often entertaining the children showing films on an ancient projector. The other locals were also most welcoming, constantly giving them food, and Guy explained that generosity by supposing that they had taken pity on them, and that was the way to stay safe and find help when travelling, a constant theme of his. He was now engaged full time in writing his book, the first of his formal literary achievements. Here is what he wrote to Hélène, on the day after moving in: "We are here for two months, during which I intend to write an unpretentious travelogue for an Anglo-American public. Wish me luck, there are lots of [continue letter] It is probable that Guy had always been proud of his literary abilities, judging by his production up to then, and the goo pieces already produced for newspapers in India. Already in Sydney in 1955, there was talk of a book about Australia, which Guy told his aunt would not be a travelogue for tourists, admitting that he perhaps would never write anything for that reason156. He was most adamant that he would not be a tourist. Apparently a book had just come out in France by a Guilleminot who had made fun of the Australian habit of eating pasta and cauliflower sandwiches, and that there were public benches reserved to "ladies only". He also mentioned that he was trying to write up his memories of his time in the Pères Blancs, during his spare moments at the newspaper, but with no success because English came more easily to mind. He also asked his aunt to send him a Writers Year Book, to get an idea of how you could get a book published in France.157 Now all the material had been assembled, the ideal quiet place found away from interfering or critical relatives and it was time to sit down and write steadily. Guy saw a snag in the project: "our adventure does not enough intrinsic sensational content to be handled in a cool detached manner, the only way I can look back on it. A first chapter on the construction of the put-put in Sydney suburbia went well. I am now stuck on the flat road between Melbourne and Adelaide. The only interest of these endless stages would be the thought process that kept me awake, but that is a genre reserved to recognised authors." 158 However, a few weeks later, he reported159 that "the book is proceeding slowly, I have reached the approach to Bangalore and Beryl is typing Ceylon, about the 50th page of the in-16. I am continuing to write hoping to find the right tone. I have the impression of getting better, but that may be because the countries are more interesting. In spite of that dilemma, Guy did not appear unduly worried, at least in letters to his aunt, explaining that he had kept the door open if he needed to return to Australia. He however did not relish the thought of going to Orthez, even if duty called him there. "It looks as though we are going to face a rude awakening after our beautiful flight." What he was refusing was the prospect of endless loss of freedom, for a miserable salary. The work proceeded quite smoothly, according to the diary. Meanwhile, Beryl was kept busy typing the manuscript and keeping the house on a shoestring. I remember taking long walks in the country, though Beryl remarked that "the walks are not that good, everything is too tidy and behind a high wall or a gate. There are no woods or meadows" It is precisely from one of these walls that I took a fall and I broke my left ar. It had to be set by a local "rebouteux", not a doctor, who got it wrong (incident not recorded in the diary). Beryl used to walk to Riposta to buy tasty cheese and sausages, and she noted that "Tooty is a good walker all the way." Regular correspondence is resumed with the families in France and Britain, who send clothes for Beryl and Guy. Finally, the family left Torre on 27 March 1957 Tony Barker remembersCity of Sydney Historical Association, vol. 15 n°2, December 2014 I want to talk to you about a friend and former colleague of mine, a Frenchman named Guy Montin. Guy hailed from Carennac, a picturesque village in the Dordogne Valley region of southern France. He’d intended to become a priest, but World War Two intervened before he was ordained, and he ended up in the air force instead of the priesthood. After the war in Europe ended, he served in what was then French Indo-China. Then he decided to try his luck in Australia, and fetched up in Sydney around 1950. He found himself a job at the Pylon Lookout on the Harbour Bridge. In those days the Pylon Lookout was managed by Yvonne Rentoul, wife of the manager of the Hotel Australia. Mrs Rentoul had a couple of eccentricities, one being breeding and keeping a succession of white cats, which roamed fearlessly around the parapets of the pylon; the other was hiring some unusual young men as assistants. As well as attending to the souvenir shop, Guy made himself useful by making or maintaining some of the Pylon’s exhibits. He produced several placards, which are still on display at the Pylon as a memento of Mrs Rentoul’s time there from 1948 to 1971. He also constructed a camera obscura, which became a popular tourist attraction, even though it only showed an inverted image of the traffic flowing over the Harbour Bridge below. On working days, Guy used to buy his lunch at a sandwich shop in George Street North. The shop was run by an English migrant family, Mr and Mrs Lidwell and their daughter, Beryl. Guy took a fancy to Beryl, and they soon married, taking up residence in a shed in the courtyard at the back of the shop. Their first child, a boy, was born while they were living there. Eventually they moved to St Peters, where they had a corner shop. Beryl looked after the shop while Guy worked at the Pylon. I met Guy when I returned to Sydney in late 1953 after a couple of years in England and Europe. In London I’d befriended another chap from Sydney, Jack Abernethy, who had also worked at the Pylon Lookout. He told me a lot about Guy, and not long after I had returned to Sydney he took me to meet him and look over their workplace. At the time I was working as a proof reader at the Sun newspaper in Elizabeth Street. My job must have sounded a better one to Guy than his, because before long he’d talked his way into a job in the Sun reading room. For the next eighteen months or so we saw each other daily, and I got to know him well. Eight years my senior, worldly wise, well read, he became my Continental guide and mentor. I learnt many things from him, from philosophical paradoxes to the marvels of French dressing and how it transformed a lunch box of left-overs into a delicious salad. We often ate our lunch together, sometimes on the open rooftop of the Sun office building. The First Lambretta Experience Meanwhile I got married, and my new bride and I were living in a terrace in Glebe. One day Guy invited us to dinner at his house. He and Beryl had given up the shop in St Peters and now lived in a house at Bondi Junction. They also had another child, a daughter at the toddler stage. As we didn’t have a car, Guy offered to pick us up and take us to his place. We didn’t realise what we were in for. When he had the shop, Guy had bought a Lambretta motor scooter, an unconventional one with three wheels instead of two and a flat tray at the front; he used it to convey produce from Paddy’s Markets to St Peters. This was now used to convey us. There we were, sitting precariously on the tray, only inches above the road and fearful that we’d fall off if Guy braked hard or took a corner sharply. No wonder we raised a few smiles and waves from passengers in the trams along Oxford Street when we had to stop alongside. A few months later he invited us again to dinner—fortunately we had a car by then. “I want you to meet some friends,” he told me. “They’ve just driven out from France in a Renault. I thought you’d like to compare notes.” In 1953 I’d travelled overland from London to Sydney in an old London taxi. It seems Guy had another reason for the dinner party: he wanted to listen in to the conversation of the overland travellers. Because not long afterwards he left his job at the Sun to prepare for his own epic journey. He and Beryl and the two children, four and five years old, were going to travel back to France overland by motor scooter. Not the same motor scooter that had taken us from Glebe to Bondi Junction. No, Guy traded in the old Lambretta for a later model, with the tray on the back. On this he built a mini caravan out of plywood and canvas, cunningly designed to serve as a passenger compartment by day and convert into a two-level sleeping compartment by night, kids on the upper level, parents below. They left Sydney on the thirteenth of March 1956. On the evening before their departure we all had a farewell dinner at Jack Abernethy’s home in Johnston Street Annandale, and that night Guy and his family had their first sleepover in the Scootervan - parked in the driveway of the house. The put-put, as they referred to the van, was to be their home for the next fourteen months. That’s how long it took them to get to France. It wasn’t just because the Lambretta had a top speed of only forty kilometres an hour and they had fifteen thousand kilometres to travel. They lingered in some places for one reason or another. They took a month to get from Sydney to Fremantle, stopping to visit friends on the way. After shipping themselves and the put-put to Colombo, they spent a whole month entertaining and being entertained by the Sri Lankans. They were another four months in India, where they sat out the monsoon for six weeks in an unused house in the Hindu holy village of Kankhal. There they made friends with the locals, took a daily dip in the Ganges, and remained strictly vegetarian for the whole stay. Writing to the Lambretta people in Italy, Guy apologized for taking so long, “We have suffered heatwaves, floods, frosts, dust storms, monsoon rains, punctures, overheating, wet petrol, prickly heat, indigestion, dysentery, sunburn, and cold in the head. None of these troubles have lost us a day.” It was the hospitality of the people that was holding them up. Politics, too, later held them up. President Nasser of Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal during their time in India, and the following international crisis forced Guy to revise their route through the Middle East. Instead, they would have to travel north through Iran into Turkey. But the troubles had intruded into Iran. In November, eight months after leaving Sydney, Guy wrote to us from Tehran: “As things stand at present, the team is about to dissolve. Beryl and the kids are to be whisked away to Gibraltar in a US helicopter. I’m to fight a glorious way out of Iran in a southerly direction. The put-put is to be scuttled.” He did also mention that Beryl was mending mufflers in case the Turkey road remained open. Her optimism proved right. At the end of the letter she had scribbled: “We go to Turkey after all. Ask Jack for forwarding address.” And so they pressed on to the Turkish border, in the snow. From now on they were at least on mainly sealed roads, though there were still inevitable hazards, through to Istanbul and on to Greece, Yugoslavia, Italy, and eventually France. In Paris they camped for two weeks in the Bois de Boulogne and were featured in Marie Claire magazine; then they headed back down to Carennac. Their epic journey was over.
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