EPISODE 58: EUROPE ON FIVE DOLLARS A DAY…
EPISODE 58 EUROPE ON FIVE DOLLARS A DAY…WE TRIED IT N 1965
alan skeoch
June 2020
I think…no, I know…the author of EUROPE ON FIVE DOLLARS A DAY…expected us to live like the monks of Ireland once
lived in these stone houses on the West Coast of Ireland, called the Dingle. At times our trip to Europe came close to
this kind of existence.
alan skeoch
June 2020
We were new teachers. Eric and I taught atParkdale C.I., while Marjorie taught at Emery JuniorHigh. Salary around $6,000 per year.There was a book written around 1960 titled “Europeon $5 a day.”. In 1965, Marjorie, my brother Eric and Idecided to give it a try. Well, we did it…a whole seriesof adventures that might interest readers. I know it isego driven but some of the adventures were universallike the chilling visit to Dachau and the rescue of a rabbit afflictedwith the poison Mixamatosis and the discovery we couldlive on Bulmer’s apple cider and cheese and bread.Marjorie was a great sport about the whole thing.She could take the privations and enjoy the adventures.My brother, Eric, refused to go 50/50 on the expenses whichmeant I had to pay 2/3 which I now know was reasonable.Marjorie was a little disturbed on one day when we did noteat at all while crammed into a sleeping car in bunksthat were stacked so tight that there was little room to breath.
A few choice adventures selected below. Just keep in mind
that we were all in our 20’s. I was 27…Marjorie and Eric were 25.
I hope readers can remember those years. Otherwise you might be
offended. We were young and foolish and enjoyed life to the fullest.
Ireland first and last. We landed at Shannon, west coast of Ireland and headed
south to Bunmahon, the mining village in which I worked five years earlier.
This was our world tour. Some readers might think the memory would
record great events. My memory only records small events.
1) CRAWLING THROUGH AN ANCIENT MINE…KNOCKMAHON
“There are ancient adits on the cliff face…we can crawl through them.”
“What’s an adit?”
“A hole punched through to help ventilate the mine.”
“How big a hole?”
“Big enough for us to walk stooped over but in some places
we will have to crawl on our stomachs.”
“Dangerous?”
“Suppose so. Air is the big danger…running out of air I mean. When Barney and
I crawled through these adits we took a candle. If he candle would not light,
we got the hell out.”
‘What about collapse?”
“Unlikely. Weak spots would have collapsed by now…last used as a
mine 100 year ago.”
“Why are we doing this?”
“Just for fun…we will only crawl in a short way…to the big shaft which
has filled with water from the ocean. The miners tunnelled out a fair
distane under the ocean. They had pumps to remove the seepage.:
“Alan, this is stupid… I want out.”
“Eric and I will just crawl a little further…meet out the seashore in
half hour or less.”
“Stupid thing to do.”
“must admit you are right.”
“Here we are out, Marjorie. What is that god awful stink?”
“What stink?””
“Marjorie one of those huge rocks where you are waiting is not
a rock…it’s a dead pig that floated in or fell off the cliff. Bloated.”
“Let’s get out of here”
(And so we did. Since then the Knockmahon mine has become a tourist spot
on the Irish South coast called the Copper Trail. Tours of the inside of the mine
can be arranged using the old shaft entranceways rather than the adits. I imagine
what we did, is now forbidden.)
2) CLIMBING AN IRISH MOUNTAIN
“Park the car…we can climb this mountain.”
“Hardly a mountain…full of sheep.”
“But it’s high and rocky and wild.”
“See who can get to the top fastest.”
“Where is Marjorie?”
“About fifty feet below us.”
“See ig she can play ‘Dodge Ball’”
“Dodge Ball?”
“We can fire sheep dung down there from here.”
“Good idea.”
“Stop…Stop”
“She is good at the game.”
“No contact yet.”
3) DUBLIN
“Dublin? What is there to see?”
“;Loads…Book of Kells, pock marked walls from the Time of the Trouble, O’Connell Street, Pubs…”
“Let’s do the Guiness Brewery.”
“Samples are terrific at end of the tour”
“Look, they use horses to haul the beer about the City of Dublin.”
“I don’t like beer.”
“Terrific, Eric and I do.”
“Is this holiday for me as well as you.”
“Wait until you get on the ferry to cross the Irish Sea.”
“I get sea sick.” (She did)
(Marjorie enjoyed our tour of the Jameson Distillery much better than the Guinness
Brewery. Samples. We were the only tourists so we got three sample bottles of whiskey each….saved
them for years. I think Marjorie enjoyed the barrel making as well. the barrel maker took a shine to her.
Imagine, we were the
only tourists that day. )
4) LOWER WOOTON FARM (Remember Eywood?)\
The small white pony thought it was a human being.
“Here we are…Lower Wooten Farm, Herefordshire”
“It’s absolutely beautiful…”
“16th century…black and white…protected national treasure.”
“There’s Cyril Griffiths beside the barn.”
“Looks troubled.”
“Alan, good to see you…and you will be Marjorie and Eric.”
“How are you Cyril.”
“Not good…need both of you in the barn
we have a breached birth.”
“Breached?”
“Calf stuck in the womb.”
“Tell us what to do.”
“We have to pull it out…got rope around the feet…Pull when I say pull.”
“When?”
“When she goes into another contraction…Now…Pull…Pull”
“Jesus, it’s coming but hard.”
“Coming now…Now..”
(And the calf flew through the air…missed me but landed on top of Eric)
“Is it alive?”
“Yes,.”
“”well it landed right on top of me…after brith and all.”
“And this is my only suit….”
(That happened just as we got out of the car
at Lower Wooten Farm.
Rather messy.}
Marjorie and Nancy Griffiths getting a chicken ready … he hard way…pulling feathers.
5) EYWOOD
“Granddad must have planted those nectarines trees still flourishing in
one of this intact greenhouse…look at the wooden marker…his name.”
“Percy, do you remember grandad?”
“Yes, I worked for him when I was a young gaffer…my job was to
step and fetch things…shears, hoes, water.”
“Now you own the place.”
“Yes, and I want to give you something to remember me by. Like
this large terrace cotta flower pot bound together with wire. the
kind we had back before the Great War.”
“Can we pick it up later…love to have it.”
(I don’t know how we did it but we got the huge clay flower pot on board
our flight home…as big as a bushel basket)
6) THE CHARMING LAKE DISTRICT…STINKS
“Crammed with Tourists…but beautiful.”
“No cheap place to stay.”
“Let’s just buy a couple of post cards and clear out…find a pasture”
“Here, Al, you pay for the post cards, Marjorie and I will wait outside.”
(God awful stink…like sewage…worse.)
“Oh, dear, SOMEONE HAS PASSED BY’” (comment by lady behind me in line to pay).
“Damn them” (whispered to myself)
“Oh, dear, dear, dear.” (smell was revolting)
(Outside the tourist store Marjorie and Eric were laughing so hard tears
ran down their faces. Eric had farted. I mean a really ripe fart brought
on by apple cider and cheese, maybe a beer as well. That fart was so bad
that I still remember it 60 years later. And what is worse, I was blamed
for the fart by the ladies behind me in the line whose comment was also
memorable.)
“Someone has passed by”
7) SEA SICK ON A SHIP THAT HAS NOT MOVED
“I get sea sick, you know.:
“But the ship has not even moved.”
“No matter, I am sea sick.
(and Marjorie was sea sick. Shows the power of the human mind..
“Dry land at last…”
8) IRISH HAY STACK…IDEAL
“Stop the car…back up.”
“Why?”
“Perfect spot for lunch…hay stack in field with no one around.”
“Unscrew the Bulmer’s, rip up the bread, cut the cheese.”
(Cut the cheese was a nasty expression in those days)
9) PARIS
PARIS…”LOOK AT THE BOTTOM OF MY BED”
“Hey, come and look at my bed.”
(We found two inexpensive rooms across the road from the magnificent
Pantheon where Rouseau and Voltair are buried. The rooms were
not as grand as the Pantheon.
“What?”
“At the bottom of the bed.”
“Nothing there.”
“That’s not possible.”
“What are we supposed to see?”
“Cockraches…I spent the night killing them…put a
whole pile of them on the floor at the bottom of
my bed.”
“Nothing there now.”
“You know what that means?”
“Yes…the live cockroaches took the dead cockroaches away.”
“Why?”
“Certainly not for a funeral.”
“Then why?”
“For a dinner.”
10) PARIS NASTY ADVENTURE FOR MARJORIE
(Eric and I had ordered a beer in a restaurant beside the Pantheon.
The beer came in a glass about he size of an egg cup at about the
price of a pint in Ireland. Nice glass though. Marjorie had gone
for a haircut on the Parisian Metro. Turned out not to be a good
idea. We kept the beer glass.)
“There you are.”
(Marjorie came running to our table…breathless…troubled.)
“What’s wrong.”
“I ran all the way here from a distant Metro station..”
“Why?”
“Calm down.”
“ I cannot calm down.”
“What happened?”
“The subway was jammed with people…could hardly move when
it happened.”
“What happened?”
“Bodies pressed tight together. Man behind me…pressng very close…way too
close. Bulge. Pushing against me. He was looking the other way but pressing
his thing into my backside. I was terrified. Got off the Metro as soon as I could
and ran all the way back here.”
(Sounded sort of funny at first. But we decided it was not that funny so we
left Paris by train the next day. Eric decided to venture off to Spain on his
own for a couple of days. We would meet in Munich.)
11) “BLONDIE…BLONDIE…COME OVER HERE”
“How was the train ride to Spain, Eric.”
“Not so good.”
“Why?”
“Spanish girls kept harassing me…called me
Blondie…Blondie.”
“What ere their intentions?”
“Sex, I assumed.”
“And what did you do?”
“Stopped in Barcelona and took train back
to meet you in Munich.”
“Running away?”
“Feared rape.”
12) DRIFTING DOWN THE RHINE…ROMANCE
“Coblenz was bombed to smithereens in the war. That’s why
it looks so modern today. None of the old town survived.”
“So let’s take a river cruise up the Rhine and find a place to stay
in the countryside. Use the local ferry boat that stops here
and there.”
“Right here. Mosel region. We should splurge and buy
a bottle of wine, Marjorie. Just the two of un now that Eric
has buggered off to Spain.”
“Rent a nice room with one of those big German Eider downs.”
“Romance thrives.”
13) MUNICH BEER HALL…HOFBRAU HOUSE
“These guys must have been soldiers in the War.”
“Sure are professional drinkers.”
“How can the barmaids carry so many beer steins”
“Strong women.”
“Oh…look…there was a man under the table…coming up for air now.”
“Alan, look at that other poor man…passed out with his cigarette
still burning between his fingers.”
“Sad.”
“I am going to put out the cigarette before he gets burned.”
“Maybe better to mind your own business.”
“No. …There, it’s out.”
“The men at the table want to buy us beer as a result.”
“Three new steins full…lots of beer.”
“Toasting you Marjorie.”
14) A PARK IN CENTRAL MUNICH
“We had too much beer, Alan.”
“I know.”
“I am sleepy.”
“Only early afternoon….no B and B.”
“Let’s just flop down in the park.”
(And we did. All Three of us. out cold. With souvenir
beer steins we bought from the Hofbrau house and
still have to this day.}
“Wake up…wake up…no sleeping allowed in this park.” (said in German)
(Park attendant was amused, spoke in German of course, but
he was gentle. Awakened us…gathered our steins and gently
suggested we move along.)
15) DACHAU… CHILLING REMINDER OF POWER OF HATRED
“Where is Dachau?”
(We planned to visit the Dachau extermination camp but had
difficult getting locals to tell us how to get there. Eventually
we found the horrific place which was part of an American military
base in 1965 and therefore preserved. There was nothing nice
about this visit.)
“Alan, I hate this place. I will not go any further inside the camp.
Just let me sit here. Makes me feel faint.” (Marjorie)
15) TOUGH MUNICH STREETCAR CONDUCTRESS…REALLY TOUGH.
“How do we get to downtown Muinich?”
“Get in…GET IN NOW. “ (in German)
(Big woman, Driving street car…no smile…gave orders in broken English)
“Sit at BACK…{And she pointed to back of street car….very insistent…no smile.}
“Where are we going?”
“No idea…just obeying orders.”
“COMEN SIE…COME HERE.”
“Does she mean us?”
“Apparently…everyone is looking our way.”
(We followed orders.)
“How much do we owe you?”
“Nothing…a gift…You are now in town centre. Welcome.”
(And she waved us off. Never smiling. But a nice woman.)
16) TRAIN …GERMANY TO ENGLAND…JAMMED LIKE CATTLE CAR
“OK, we are running out of money. Need a cheap way to get back to England.”
“Train will do it. Each compartment folds into beds for six people.”
“So we avoid another B and B cost. Sleep on the train.”
“Does not seem like much room here.”
“The other three have taken their beds.”
“Leaves you with the top bunk,Al.”
“Why me?”
“Because you are too damn slow.”
“Hard to breathe up here.”
“Marjorie and I do not give a sweet goddamn, Al.”
17) LATER…SAME TRAIN HEADING FOR THE COAST
“When are we going to eat, Alan?”
“When we get to London.”
“But that’s a full day away.”
“Save money.”
“Do you mean no food at all.”
18) THE TWO DERBY HATS
‘”Let’s look at the antique…junk…Portabelo Road market” (in London).
“Not much money left.”
(just as we started to walk the roadway of dealers there was a board
fence…One board moved.)
“You lads need Derby Hats.”
What?”
“I have two Derby Hats for sale…cheap…just the thing for you boys…give
you a little class.”
“How much?”
“Five pounds each…take them both for eight pounds.”
“Why are you selling from behind the board fence?”
“Take them or leave them, boys…”
(So we bought our Derby Hats
19) TREASURES…WOULD YOU RENT US A ROOM…THREE OF US, ONE ROOM, PLUS BAGGAGE
“Marjorie, take a picture…all our worldly possessions.”
“I see the Hofbrau house beer stein, the quart of apple cider, the cheese, copies of Beatrix Potter…and
you with the Derby and that brass bound barrel we bought.
“Anything else?”
“Oh, yes, the BOOT.”
(needs a separae entry below…but first…look at Eric’s boot on the fireplace mantel. Why is there
only one boot there?”
20) THE BOOT
“Eric, is sleeping.”
“Took a while for us to come agreement…”
“Cheaper for FOUR of us to sleep in one room. Eric Agreed.”
“But he did not agree to a 50 / fo split.”
“No, he figured on a 1/3 and 2/3 deal…
(You are wondering about the FOUR in bold letters. Well, we were driving along an English backroad
and Marjoire spotted a baby rabbit in distress. “Stop, Save the Bunny!” So that became the fourth
member of our tour in England. The poison Mixamatosis was being spread around to control rabbits.
Marjorie’s bunny had a small dose. It survived with her care.)
“What does that have to do with the Boot above the fireplace in the previous picture, you ask.”
“Well for some reason the rabbit liked to sleep in Eric’s boot.””
“And that meant rabbit marbles in his boots in he morning.”
“Why is there one one boot above he fireplace>”
“You know the answer better than me. Eric put both boots
up there. You took one down when he fell asleep so the rabbit
had a bed.”
“What will we do with the rabbit?”
(We let it go in a nice green field in Scotland…hoping we were to far north for the poisoners.)
“Then we we’re back to three to a room. Eric got the children’s cot.”
21) FLYING HOME FROM DUBLIN…NOT OUR BEST FOOT FORWARD
“Will you join us while we wait for the flight?”
“Will you have a pint of Guinness?”
“I will but my father here is Pioneer.”
“Pioneer?”
“he does not drink…thinks drink has damaged image of the Irish and others.”
“Will he join us though?”
“Sure…we have two hours before the flight.”
(This turned out to be a bad idea. We were excited to be flying home to Toronto
…exhausted. Glad to join a Roman Catholic priest and his father …most of
us sharing a pint or two of Guinness. Even Marjorie had a glass. When we boarded
the plane we were not too bad. But when we got up to 20,000 or 20,000 feet things
went awry. We were laughing a lot. Really enjoying each others company. Silly.
Of course we were wearing our derby hats as well. Caused quite a ruckus on
the plane, especially when Eric felt a little sickly and called the stewardess.)
“Would you take this away. I’ve been a little sick…altitude sickness.”
(and he handed her his pillow having put the sick bag behind his head.
The stewardess laughed but a few moments later the pilot came
back to visit us. I now realize this visit was not social. He scouted us
out and decided we were not a big problem. He even tried on one
our Derby Hats. By that time I was cold sober trying to subdue Marjorie
who insisted on painting my face with the whipped cream flight dessert.)
“We will be landing in Iceland for refuelling. Short time but we will
deplane all the same. Back in the air in about two hours.”
22) MR. SKEOCH…YOU WERE MY STUDENT TEACHER LAST YEAR.
(This was routine. But the events were not routine. Eric was
still woozy. Throwing up a bit. The dry heaves as they say
Everyone sat in a large waiting room. I was on one side
of Eric and a young girl was on the other side. The funniest thing
happened then. The young girl tapped Eric on the arm…
“You are Mr. Skeoch, my student teacher at Humberside a couple
of years ago. I remember you. So much fun.”
(Eric continued holding the bag tightly to his chest. Marjorie was better
bu then. We looked at each other … then at Eric…then at the young
student. This probably seems awful to some readers but it was really
quite funny…quite harmless. it was a time in our lives that could never
be repeated.)
alan skeoch
June 2020
p.s. Picture below of the Royal George pub in Lyons Hall, Herefordshire.
Before it became a pub it was the birthplace of our Grandfather Edward
Freeman…the gardener at Windsor Castle and the Eywood.