by DopeyLoser » Thu Jul 19, 2018 7:13 pm
A friend told me a while back that hitch hiking has all but died out. Yes I know people still do it a bit but apparently it's not like in the old days.
I used to get the train from Glasgow out to Balloch, walk up to the roundabout at the A82 and ... thumb out and off we go. Many a winter evening spent with the thumb out at Bridge of Orchy trying to get back home, after the last train had already gone and the money had all been spent at the pub. You'd see headlights coming down the Black Mount, wait, wait, wait, shiver, wait, thumb out and .... nope!
I recall a friend telling me about a lift he got a lift from a couple in their Rolls Royce. No airs or graces. Just ordinary decent people, who happened to have a Rolls. And I recall hitching north at the M1 just outside of London: a hackney cab stopped. I told him I wasn't hailing a taxi but he told me it's okay, I'm giving you a lift. Took me one or two hundred miles as I recall.
You'd meet nice people by and large. I remember being on the road across Ben Lawers, single track road (the ideal for hitching). Family stopped, took me down Glen Lyon. Stopped for a picnic lunch, asked me to join in. Didn't need to be asked twice! Same idea from the old RN officer who figured we ought to stop in at Inverarnan and that no, I couldn't buy him a pint, because he was paying!
Yes, thank you to all who gave people a lift. Long may the tradition continue.