To continue my journey after my epic trip through Europe, I was back in London. I had no money, I needed an immediate job and I found one!

After a visit to an agency specialising in jobs for pharmacists, I was offered a job to start immediately in Bethnal Green. That was not the choicest of places but the pay was good. I was a professional in those days and well paid. Almost all medicines were compounded and demanded a level of competence. 

There was a lot of poverty and illness in Bethnal Green. My first job each day was to make half a gallon of Phenol Gargle for I knew it would be in every prescription. I wonder now if this COVID epidemic was any worse than bronchitis and pulmonary diseases of those days. 

Life’s comforts in those days were very basic. The dispensary had a glass roof as if it was a converted greenhouse. It was very cold and heated by a simple paraffin heater that periodically overflowed and caught fire. Often, in the evenings as I groped my way to the underground station, the fog would be so dense that I could see nothing. Not even my hand immediately in front of my face. I had to seek and feel for one landmark after another. If I lost my way, it could have been disastrous. 

There were no large convenience stores and the streets were often lined with barrows selling fruit and vegetables. The fruit was almost always the choicest South African produce. South African wines dominated shop shelves and had sophisticated labels that made them look cultured.

It was not to last, however, for the media and politicians were making the most of Apartheid. Front pages of newspapers bore photographs of SA police dispersing riots and before long it had all disappeared. It was replaced by produce from Australia and other countries. I can’t help thinking as I write, that even today, South Africa could be a world bread-basket. 

In spite of the discomforts at Bethnal Green, I remained there until Christmas in 1959. The shop was owned by a widow who lived above the shop together with her family, her late husband had been a pharmacist. I often thought that the reason I was given the job was that no one else would accept it. However, I was somewhat desperate and the money was good.

I spent Christmas at 47 King Edward’s Road in Swansea. My mother, who was born in 1894, lived there

for some period. It was my cousin, Barbara, whom I had never met that was living there at the time of my

visit. It was quite an emotional journey and the experience of travelling to Swansea. I caught a coach from

London to Swansea and arrived there in the early hours of the morning. While looking at all the homes we

passed, I felt sorrowful and dejected not being at home. The coach took a devious route and passed many

serene homes with subdued lighting, Christmas trees and decorations.

I fully expected to encounter Father Christmas on the way but alas I saw no sign of him. Perhaps I did, it

was his Spirit that made the difference.

Once in Swansea, I was ushered to a room way up in the attic. I was immediately plunged into the

19th Century. The room was old, the furniture old and the wind howled through the crevasses around the

window. It all added to the atmosphere, the only thing missing was a gas lamp and a candle.

My mother often spoke of Cockles and Muscles, the seafood they ate in her youth. For old times sake,

I was provided with a plateful, I found them unpalatable, they had to be fried before I could make another

attempt at eating them.

I knew nothing of the wealth of other members of our party. I doubt that anyone had any idea of how long we would be travelling. No one seemed to care anyway. There were never any arguments or discontents while we spent the 8 weeks together. We lived rough, rough and tough indeed, slept mostly alongside the car or in camping grounds and we had no fear. Often, we would awake in the morning with our sleeping bags covered in frost.

I can only remember one night in a youth hostel. In the morning, when we arose, we were each given a chore. Evan was to clean the toilets, needless to say, we never spent another night in a hostel. We did try one that was like a castle on the top of a high hill. The hill had steep sides, all passengers in the car had to disembark so that the car could manage the hill. We had no sooner settled in the dormitory when we discovered the place was infested with fleas. We promptly departed only to find that the adjoining camping ground was teeming with mosquitoes. The water in the tumbling river alongside had a green fluorescence, I thought quietly, that water is cold, cold indeed.

Some nights we slept on forest floors amidst the fairies and busy rodents. The fairies did us no harm, they were too busy casting spells while the police that visited were otherwise preoccupied. 

I have no idea of what we ate, MacDonalds only started in 1955 or Kentucky Chicken in 1952 so they were not available. We ate anything someone happened to find on our meanderings. It might have been a tin of soup, cheese but mostly healthy stuff. Some small villages we encountered had toilet or washing facilities.